House Sitting in France – Our Experience House Sitting Through France

The middle of this post is our experience house sitting in France (spoiler, we loved it!) If you are looking for house-sitting opportunities in France, please see below or click the button.

At the start of 2019, we devised a plan to house-sit our way through Europe for the summer. I was house-sitting in Thailand then, and Brittnay was house-sitting back home in Melbourne.

We planned to head to the UK in April 2019, buy a campervan, and drive from the UK to Greece—pet-sitting along the way. If you’re wondering how to become a housesitter, we have an extensive post that can help here.

However, In this post, I will break down our experience house sitting in France and explain how you can get free accommodation in France too.

Are You Looking For House Sitting Assignments in France?

Do you want free rent in exchange for house sitting? I would highly recommend looking into becoming a house-sitting in France!

House-sitting is very popular in France—it is so popular amongst homeowners that we unfortunately have had to turn down many house-sitting opportunities.

Trusted House Sitters, Nomador, and House Carers are the most popular sites for homeowners in France. If you want to join Trusted House Sitter, use the code TRAVELHS to get 30% off! Use the code here.

Part 1: Locking in The House Sits

We locked in our first house in France while traveling in India in March 2019.

House sitting is very popular in France due to the large population of ex-pats retiring there. We found this house sitting on Trusted House Sitters and interviewed the homeowners via Skype. We were excited: This house sit was only a 40-minute drive from the famous wine region of Bordeaux in a not-so-famous wine region called Bergerac.

Okay, so we had a house sit locked in. We had to get to the UK from India, buy a campervan, and drive to Bergerac. Easy, right?

Well, not quite.

Part 2: Getting a Campervan

We had flights booked to Turkey from India around ten days before the start of the house sit—at best, we would be fine, but we love a challenge.

We landed in Turkey and frantically started looking for a camper van to buy. This was a little more difficult than we first thought—we had flights from Turkey to Manchester booked for five days before the house sit started.

There were not many vans on offer in the greater Manchester area that suited our needs, so we narrowed it down to 2 vans and arranged to meet the owners as soon as possible!

We flew into Manchester, hired a car, and dove to meet the first van owner at a local mechanic to have it looked over. Since we were on a fairly tight schedule (5 days till we had to be in Bergerac), we had decided that if we liked the van and it passed the mechanic test, we would buy it immediately.

The mechanic looked it over and said there were no issues, so we took it for a test drive, withdrew the cash, and returned to offer the owner cash immediately.

He accepted, and we got our camper van! And, more importantly, a way to get to France!

Part 3: The Drive to From Manchester to Bergerac

We started to feel a little bit better—we now had five days to travel from Manchester, UK, to Bergerac, France. The journey was around 1400km, and we took a 1.5-hour ferry across the channel.

We booked for the ferry the following day, so our first destination was Dover, 500km away.

We made a few quick stops at Primark and a couple of charity shops to pick up some essentials, and then we were off driving into the night to make it to the ferry check-in at 3 a.m.

We didn’t get much sleep that night, but our first-night camping was cozy, and we were pretty chuffed with ourselves for pulling this off.

We made the ferry and landed in Calais. Driving on the right-hand side of the road in a right-hand-drive car was weird, but we didn’t have too much trouble adjusting (thanks to Britts co-pilot skills).

On the journey through France, we stayed in a cool little French Village and enjoyed our crash course in van life.

(As most of you should know by now, we are massive foodies, and I can’t even start to describe how good it was to be back in the country of the world’s best bread, cheese, and red wine.)

We had previously visited Paris when we lived in London. During those trips, we tried many of the things to eat in Paris, like steak frites, macaroons, and baguettes (we even hunted down the winner of the Grand Prix de la Baguette de Traditional Francaise de la Ville De Paris) and explored all the cheese shops.

However, being out in the countryside, we were excited to explore the local wineries and farmers’ markets we had heard so much about.!

Part 4: Our First House Sit in France – Bergerac

We were looking after a home in the vines in Bergerac from a couple from the UK.

Unfortunately, we were looking after the home because of health issues from the homeowner.

We had explained that we were driving down from the UK, and if anything changed, let us know because we could make a beeline straight for their house if they needed to leave.

However, our UK phone decided it didn’t want to work across the pond for the first couple of days, and we missed calls from them advising them that they had to leave and get back to the UK ASAP.

When we finally sorted out our phone, we contacted the homeowner, who advised that they had already left.

We were given detailed pet care instructions on finding the key, and their dog was with a friend until we arrived.

The drive through the French wine country was like something out of a fairytale—there were vines and impressive chateaus everywhere.

Our drive was full of ‘look at that, ‘wow’ and ‘omg’ moments.

We arrived at the house just outside the small village of Le Fliex. Nestled between the vines of the neighboring vineyard, it was the most French thing we had ever seen.

We unpacked our things and made ourselves at home. We contacted the homeowner’s friend who had Flynn(our new dog), and she came over in the afternoon to deliver him.

She was also an ex-pat from the UK and took great pride in telling us all about the local markets, Boulangeries, and Fromageries.

We were delighted to learn that one of France’s top 10 farmers’ markets was about a 15-minute drive away (we were in heaven)!

Looking after Flynn was excellent. He had a big yard and loved chasing balls and playing. He also required two walks a day, which, to our pleasure, were through the neighboring vineyards! We took several walks that he enjoyed. We were welcome to walk anywhere through the neighboring vineyards as long as we stayed two rows from any of the houses.

Every day for six weeks was an adventure for us. We loved checking out the local vineyards while walking Flynn. We thoroughly enjoyed the Bergerac area. It has some of the best wine we have had on our entire European house-sitting road trip.

Most of which came from local co-ops. The co-ops sell local DOC wine straight out of the barrel at 1 – 3 Euros per liter. We had an absolute ball finding and sampling the wine of the area.

I also purchased a French road bike and spent most mornings exploring the Bergerac area by bike—it was just magic.

Part 5: Our Second House Sitting Job in France – Montaigu-de-Quercy

We had locked in this house sit via Trusted House Sitters – we were approached by the homeowner for this house sitting assignment.

We had one week to get to Montaigu-de-Quercy from Bergerac, so we took the opportunity to explore the French countryside and visit some more local markets, cheese, baguettes, and wine.

This house sit was in the middle of the countryside and was what we like to call the ‘cat chateau’. It was a rather large stone house with 6 cats and 1 dog. The homeowner wanted us to arrive the day before she left so she could meet us and take us through several key points of the house—such as the dog’s walking route, cleaning the pool, and generally keeping on top of her 6 cats!

We arrived at the home late afternoon – we were greeted by an Irish ex-pat who had called France home for over 40 years.

Her home was beautiful (at this point, we were starting to wonder if France was just a fairytale country).

She had prepared a roast for lunch, so we got to know each other over a meal accompanied by local wine. We enjoyed getting to know the homeowner and learned much about the local area and her journey living in Montaigu-de-Quercy.

The homeowner’s late husband was a wine collector, and together, they had an amazing wine collection from all around France – it was like a dream cellar!

She took us through the home, the cats, and everything we needed to know about the dog walk.

We were only in Montaigu-de-Quercy for a short three weeks. It was just starting to become warm enough to swim in the pool in the afternoon, so our days would start with a walk with the dog (and cats), followed by five or six hours of work.

We would then go out and explore the local area, collect local bread, cheese, and wine, and return to our home.

We seriously couldn’t believe how stunning this was where we would have a locally sourced platter out by the pool!

Like all good things, this house sit had to end.

It was a fast three weeks, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and it was time to move on to the next one!

The homeowner came later this afternoon, and to return the favor, we cooked her dinner using local French ingredients and shared a couple of bottles of wine.

We thoroughly enjoy getting to know the homeowners whom we house-sit.

This woman was fascinating and still someone we stay in contact with to this day!

Part 6: Our Final House Sitting Opportunity in France – Salon-de-Provence

We arranged this house-sitting job through Nomador. We had a week before it started – which was cool with us! We had purchased the camper van so we could take a few weeks of house sitting to explore between house sits.

This house-sit was in Salon-de-Provence, a place on our visit list while we were house-sitting in France. Again, we arrived in Salon-de-Provence the night before the homeowner left.

This homeowner was an Australian ex-pat who had lived in France for around 20 years. She absolutely loved Salon, and we quickly made a bond when we found out she was obsessed with French food.

She quickly wrote down all the essential food must-dos in Salon-de-Provence.

This home was very close to the center of Salon-de Provence and had a gorgeous (very French) style backyard.

We were looking after a brother and sister pair of beautiful white cats. We call these cats the show cats because they were perfectly white and groomed.

By this point, it was mid-summer, and it was HOT.

We spent most mornings working, followed by afternoons lazing around the backyard, eating and drinking local products. We were starting to get the hang of this French way of life!

Salon-de-Provence is the biggest town we had house sit in while in France.

Every day, a new local market was within driving distance, and we even timed it right to check out the local yearly farmer’s expo! This was a cool day sampling local French products and talking to local farmers.

This housesit was for just over six weeks; we enjoyed our time in Salon and would love to go back sometime. There is lots to see, do and eat

After that six weeks, we were on our way to our next house sit—in Italy!

We had been to Italy several times and were excited to return to the land of pizza, pasta, and Chianti wine!

Need Help Getting Started With House Sitting

Have we got you excited about house-sitting in France? We love sharing our experiences and teaching others how to become housesitters and start their journeys. 

So, if you need help starting your house-sitting journey, see my resources here, and don’t hesitate to contact me and ask me any questions.