France trip planning guide

When to go, region by region

Paris works in any season, but spring and early autumn give you long walking days without the summer queues. The south is where timing matters most: Provence and the Côte d'Azur are at their hottest and busiest in July and August, when much of France takes its own holidays, so June and September are the calmer choice there.

The Alps have two seasons rather than one: skiing in winter, then hiking and lake swimming in summer once the high trails clear. Brittany and Normandy have a cooler Atlantic climate where rain is possible in any month, and Alsace is busiest in December, when Strasbourg and the wine villages hold their Christmas markets.

The main regions

Paris and around. Museums, neighbourhoods and a day trip to Versailles; our Paris travel guide covers how to split the city.

Lyon and the Rhône. A food-first city of traditional bouchons and covered markets, and the rail junction between Paris, the Alps and the south.

Provence and the Côte d'Azur. Market towns, hill villages and early-summer lavender inland; Nice and the Riviera on the coast.

The French Alps. Annecy's lake and old town, and Chamonix below Mont Blanc.

The Loire Valley. Renaissance châteaux along a UNESCO-listed stretch of the river, close enough together to cycle between.

Bordeaux and the south-west. Wine country, Atlantic beaches and the villages of the Dordogne.

Normandy, Brittany and Alsace. The D-Day beaches and Mont-Saint-Michel in the north-west; Strasbourg and half-timbered wine villages in the east.

Our top places to visit in France picks out individual sights.

Getting around

France suits a rail-first trip. SNCF Voyageurs runs both the TGV high-speed trains between Paris and the big regional cities and the slower TER regional trains that reach smaller towns; book through SNCF Connect, the operator's own app and website. Paris has several mainline stations and trains to different regions leave from different ones, so check the departure station on your ticket.

A car earns its cost in Provence's hill villages, the Dordogne and rural Normandy, where trains thin out. The 12-day Provence and French Alps trip shows the rail version: two bases, Aix-en-Provence and Annecy, joined by one train day through Lyon.

Adding a neighbour? Trains continue from the south of France into Catalonia, covered in our Spain trip planning guide, and our Italy trip planning guide picks up on the other side of the Alps. If you are choosing between those two for a first trip, read Italy or France for first-timers.

Entry and money

France is in the Schengen area, so visitors who do not need a visa can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period, counted across every Schengen country on the trip rather than per country. The EU's Entry/Exit System (EES) has been fully operational since 10 April 2026: non-EU travellers have their fingerprints and a facial image recorded at the border, which replaces the passport stamp. ETIAS, the separate pre-travel authorisation for visa-exempt visitors, is not running yet. The EU says it will announce the start date several months before launch, so check the official page before paying any site that claims to sell one.

France uses the euro, and card payment, contactless included, is standard in the cities. Keep a little cash for markets and village cafés.