Arles, Housing w/Kitchen

Hello,

I’ve tried VRBO and without much success. The owners sometimes take days to confirm reservations and I’ve even had one cancel on me leaving me high and dry.
I’ve used booking.com successfully many times and have had mostly successful reservations. Please read the descriptions carefully. I booked an apartment in Florence with a great location but also 4 flights with 52 very steep steps. We were winded every night getting into the apartment.
Also read the fine print very carefully. I was planning to stay in an apartment in Cannes just for one night and the owner insisted he needed 1500 euros in CASH as deposit. That’s correct 1500 Euros. Even booking.com felt it excessive but he wouldn’t relent.
I have mostly found very nice people with great places and good value for the money. Just again be careful, read everything carefully and enjoy your visit to Arles.

Agreeing with Ray: Booking.com shows all types of lodging including apartments with kitchens. I found many in Arles for our upcoming trip. (Definitely read the whole listing to see if there are additional fees.)

Excellent, thank you both!

Would Arles make a good base location for a week from which to then take day trips? There are other home base towns we've considered. Rick's book suggests Arles for the, "Italophiles"- more of a blue collar town, and Avignon for, "the poodles" (more sophisticated, lots of nightlife), or St-Remy-de-Provence for a more low-key, rural flavor. Have you found that to be accurate? If it is Arles is probably a good choice for us, though we are drawn to the quiet of a place like St Remy. Someone told us Avignon will give us a more centralized location for those trips, including greater access to public transportation.

Regarding choice of location, you mention public transportation. If you rely on it for sightseeing, then it rules out Saint Rémy and gives Avignon the edge, Avignon being the transportation hub of the region.
If you have a car, then Saint Rémy is better than either Avignon or Arles. I love the charms of Arles but it is a difficult place to be with a car. And Saint Rémy is also very charming, but more a small town than a village so not rural in feel - quite sophisticated even!

Interesting. We will have a rental car, but when we can plan to day trip with public transportation options so as to connect more with people. It's location relative to other towns, and the bus and trail lines crossing through it give me the impression it would give us lots of public transport options- just not as many as Avignon? Why is Arles a difficult place to be with a car?

To elaborate further, Arles is on a rail line that goes towards Nîmes, Avignon (sometimes onwards to Orange) and Marseille, so not too bad. But fewer buses than in Avignon - going to Pont du Gard, Saint Rémy, Isle sur Sorgue... is not convenient by public transportation.
As for car difficulties it is relative : if you are in the center of Arles (South of the river, North of Boulevard des Lices, West of Boulevard Émile Combes), you are in a traffic-restricted area. Your host can advise whether you can go there to drop luggage, but otherwise you'll have to park outside of that area.. Which is straightforward, there is plenty of street parking on Émile Combes, near Place Lamartine, and a parking garage off Boulevard des Lices. You'll just have to factor in this time to and from the car every day.
Of course, all of the above is not an issue if you are staying outside of the aforementioned area.

If you have a car, unless you should only use the rail for trips to the major cities. You are better off basing in a smaller village/town, and driving into the countryside, and doing a day trip into the cities/major towns to view sites. You can stay in a large town/small city like Arles as outlined, or even in Avignon if you don't mind the parking fees.

We are going there in late August, and rented an apartment in Arles through Airbnb. We will have a car and will be traveling around the area.

Unless we are only staying one night in a location, we usually get an apartment through VRBO or Airbnb. It is much nicer to spread out and not have to go out for every meal.

I was able to get an Airbnb studio apartment with a kitchen for about 50 euro per night in Arles. It was next door to the "Yellow Cafe at Night" (Van Gogh painting) in a nice square in the center. Parking was on the river a couple of blocks away.

No, the Yellow House or La Maison Jaune is not right next to the Yellow Cafe if what is being referred to as that is Le Cafe le Soir. The Yellow House where Van Gogh lived is no longer there having been destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII.
When you go to Arles, you can see metal easels of Van Gogh paintings located near where the subject was or is located. You can see the easel for the Yellow House but nothing else and you can also see the easel for Le Cafe Soir. Le Cafe Soir is near Place du Forum and the Yellow House was near Avenue de Stalingrad.
RS has a list in his latest Best of Europe of the Van Gogh metal easels which are part of his walking tour of Arles.

I just noticed that the lovely apartment in Arles that I found doesn't have WiFi, so I may need to cancel. (I think my teens will rebel if they don't have internet access )

And then I noticed that the apartment doesn't have a license number. I was very careful to pick a licensed apartment in Paris -- should I be as careful elsewhere in France?