To my fellow Americans, I see you—and I empathize with you. Most of us don’t get nearly enough annual leave; and many of us refuse to use it all, even if we have plenty of it to spare.
However, I’m here with some good news. If you get at least two weeks off per year, you can take an amazing trip to France. Not a comprehensive one—you can’t see “everywhere” in France during that time, or even really get close to it—but you can make a literal lifetime of memories.
Of course, no matter what country you’re from—I see the rest of you too, my global family!—2 weeks in France is one of the best possible trips you can take. Continue reading to learn why!
Why Two Weeks in France is Such a Sweet Spot
Planned well, a 2 week France itinerary can truly be a “Goldilocks” travel experience. It’s long to cover a lot of ground—after a few days in Paris, you can visit between 2-3 other destinations, depending on the pace you keep. By the time you finish, you’ll be fully in travel mode, and going about your dates with ease and flair. On the other hand, you are unlikely to be “over it” by the time your plane blasts off from CDG—you might even wish you could’ve stayed longer.
And this is the thing. If you can abandon the idea that your trip to France needs to be exhaustive (let alone exhausting), you can view it less as an end-all, be-all, and more as the first of many seeds in a beautiful garden. Spend two weeks in France this year to gain foundational knowledge of the country; come back in a year or two to explore more broadly and dig deeper. Stay two more weeks a year or two after that, and take that niche trip you’ve always dreamed of: Lavender in Provence; the harvest in Bordeaux.
How to Divide Up Your Two Weeks in France
Start and/or end in Paris
It should go without saying that you will spend part of your two-week France adventure in Paris—it is the capital, after all. For me, however, it isn’t necessarily true that you need to begin in Paris. In fact, I’ve come to think that perhaps it’s better to get “warmed up” elsewhere, and return to the capital at the end, when you won’t feel so much pressure (or, frankly, be fighting jet lag).
Continue in Brittany
As you ponder your France itinerary, 2 weeks might not seem like enough to explore extensively. But you can see more than you’d expect—you just need to pick and choose a little. For instance, you could travel from Paris northwestward to Rennes—not my favorite city in France, but a great base for exploring Brittany. Specifically, I suggest renting a car here. It’s the easiest way to get to know this region, from Concarneau and Locronan in the west, to Dinan and Saint-Malo further east.
TIP: Whether you can fit both these regions in a two-week trip is up to your own travel style, but nearby Normandy is also worth visiting if you’re in this part of France, if only in order to see Mont Saint-Michel with your own eyes!
(Or Bordeaux)
An alternative (though likely not an addition) to Brittany and/or Normandy is heading southwestward from Paris to Bordeaux. And not just the city of Bordeaux (which—fair warning—isn’t my favorite in France) or even to wineries in Margaux and Saint-Emilion, even though I’m a fan of both. Rather, Bordeaux is situated perfectly for making excursions elsewhere in southwestern France, from La Rochelle, down to the Dune du Pilat and even deep into the French (and, maybe, Spanish) Basque Country.
Use Lyon as a base for exploration
What I said about Bordeaux echoes in Lyon, the next place I’m recommending you go if you have two weeks in France. I don’t necessarily love Lyon, even if I do enjoy eating a good quenelle in one of its traditional bouchon. What I do adore is being able to choose: Do I go northward into Burgundy, whether to the city of Dijon or the wine lands just outside of Beaune; or do I head eastward via Annecy to Chamonix, the hub of the French Alps?
End in the South—and not just the Côte d’Azur
I’ll be honest: Two weeks might not be sufficient to do the entire, sprawling “South of France” justice, particularly not if you’ve spend time in the other places I mentioned. Still, you should have time to visit more than one part of it: You can stop in Provence (whether or not for lavender) en route to Marseille or Nice—and you might even be able to visit both of these cities. If you focus only on Nice, meanwhile, try to see the entire Côte d’Azur, from Saint-Tropez and Antibes in the west, to Menton and the principality of Monaco in the east.
Is 2 Weeks Enough for France?
As I explained a few paragraphs up, two weeks isn’t enough to see “everywhere” in France, or even really to take a comprehensive trip. You’ll need to pick and choose—Brittany or Bordeaux (but probably not both); two of three from the French Alps, Provence and the Côte d’Azur. You can cover a lot ground, sure, but you will leave with many, many places still on your French bucket list.
With this being said, I wouldn’t say that the only way to see France in 2 weeks is if you commit to returning again in the future—that simply isn’t in the cards for some people. But I do think intentionality is key—why are you taking this trip, and how do you hope to feel when it’s over? This is another reason why looking into my custom France itinerary service might not be a bad idea.
Other FAQ About Spending 2 Weeks in France
Is $5,000 enough for 2 weeks in France?
I usually suggest a minimum of €200 per person, per day (not including flights to and from France) for a “comfortable” trip to France. Keeping this in mind, 5,000 USD is more than enough for one person to comfortably enjoy France, and about the target you want to have if you’re a couple or two friends.
How much would a 2 week trip to France cost?
A good target to keep in mind is around €200 per person, per day in France, assuming you want to stay in comfortable hotels, eat out two meals per day and generally say “oui” to things instead of “non.” And so, not including the cost of flights to and from France, you can expect the cost of a two-week trip to France to be around €3,000 per person, keeping in mind that frugal travelers can squeeze this lower, and that the sky is the limit on the higher end.
Is one week too long to spend in France?
One week is not too long to spend in France—quite the contrary! On the other hand, I would resist the urge to spend your entire week in and around Paris, and instead encourage you to explore a bit, even if that’s just to (relatively) nearby cities like Bordeaux and/or Lyon.
The Bottom Line
There’s no such thing as a perfect trip to France, but 2 weeks in France sure comes close. If you like to travel at a fast pace, you can follow a few days in Paris up with a jaunt westward or southward to Brittany or Bordeaux and then head south, first stopping in Lyon (mostly to use it as a base for exploring Burgundy and/or the French Alps), and then ending your trip in Provence and on the Côte d’Azur. Prefer a slower pace of travel? Remove some of these destinations, and focus on the experience instead! Speaking of being able to focus on experiences rather than tedious details, have you heard about my custom France itinerary service? If you’re looking to take some stress of your plate, I’d encourage you to check it out.
