Gites

What exactly are you hoping to find?

Gites de France is a reputable organization and has been in business a long time.

Renting from individuals can be tricky - you have to investigate each owner or manager thoroughly, to be certain that the person is legitimate. This takes a lot of time, and the results might not match up to photos or descriptions. There are a lot of scam artists, so I'd use a professional organization, rather than rely on often made-up reviews on individual websites.

Assuming you hold EU citizenship or have already obtained your long-term visa allowing you to stay over ninety days in France and the rest of the Schengen countries combined, try the websites of the individual towns where you want to stay. Under lodgings, you'll find tourist apartment rentals. What chexbres says about vetting real from fake listings is true. You have to be careful.

You don't indicate if you are aware of the restrictions on time allowed in the country. If not, you need to check on that before planning six months.

The tourist websites for particular towns is a great idea. Thank you. Yes, we are aware of the special visa and paper work involved. We are going January of 2018.

For the many years I make trips to France I always make use of Gîtes de France and never had a bad experience. Good value for the money and even the cheapest place has to meet certain standards, meaning a clean spacious enough place to sleep, at least a decent breakfast and always a warm welcome.

The website has also a criterea filter to select those places you prefer more easily and there are (not always) reviews too.

I would use GitesdeFrance and vrbo.com in tandem until you find something you like. VRBO has a larger selection. For example, if you go to GitesdeFrance and search in Collioure, you get only 2 entries. The one below looks very nice:

https://en.gites-de-france.com/holiday-rentals-Collioure-Cottage-Casa-Finote-66G105309.html

If you go to vrbo and search on Collioure, you get many more, including this nice (seemingly equivalent) one with excellent reviews:

https://www.vrbo.com/6326067ha

I have found that if you use common sense, seek out rentals that have >20 reviews, and ask a lot of questions, there is nothing wrong with using vrbo over the GdF websites. Of the 4 that we've rented in France, 3 met or exceeded our expectations and one missed expectations, but not tremendously. One thing that I have learned to ask is that if a place is advertised as having air conditioning, and if that feature is important to you, you should ask them 'which rooms have AC'? The one that missed expectations did so because the bed rooms did not have AC and it was 100 degrees that week. Another thing to keep in mind if you are spending a month in Provence near the Rhone, be aware of mosquitoes. Most homes don't have window screens and if you are there when it is hot and you don't have AC, you might get bitten up.

-Matt

We have used Gites de France for around 30 years, and never had a problem, or at least never one that GDF didn't resolve immediately. GDF is generally more reasonably priced than other sites, their standards seem to be very high, and for many houses you can rent on-line directly through GDF with a credit card. The only times we haven' used GDF is when their selection was poor where we wanted to stay, usually in cities. They mostly have rural properties. We've also used VRBO recently a couple of times, and that worked fine.

While I have no idea what your plans are, finding awesome looking gites all around France is one of my hobbies. I've linked to 'Matt's Best of France' below. Note that most of these I've not stayed in (the *'s I have stayed in and highly recommend), so it is purely a search and screen exercise. Not sure if this will help.

Collioure
https://www.vrbo.com/6326067ha
Colmar
https://www.vrbo.com/6319702ha
https://www.vrbo.com/658958a
Dinan
https://www.vrbo.com/1651033ha
https://www.vrbo.com/6696515ha
Beynac*
https://www.vrbo.com/343941
Honfleur
https://www.vrbo.com/6648061ha
https://www.vrbo.com/6395103ha
Amboise
https://www.vrbo.com/942964a
Beaune
https://www.vrbo.com/117299
Burgundy
https://www.vrbo.com/599491a
Annecy*
https://www.vrbo.com/1078255a
Auray
https://www.vrbo.com/666124a

One more note - I've done this exercise throughout each of the most tourist-ed regions of France (not Paris) and found Provence to be more challenging than most other places due to the higher prices and broader range of offerings. I had a really nice Basque one too, but the link no longer works. Oh well.

-Matt

We (senior couple) had good experiences with gite rentals via VRBO/Homeaway in Normandy (Bayeux) and Provence (L'Isle sur la Sorgue) in May 2016; 1 week each. In each case, when we narrowed our search, we opened a direct email dialogue with the owner to confirm dates, payment terms, etc. Payments were processed through VRBO/PayPal. All went well. While we paid attention to whether the owner listed English on the website, we were greeted in Sorgue by the owner's non-English speaking parents for the entry, security and appliance "orientation." A cheerful and hilarious episode of charades, mock-laundry room demos, and oven-lighting operation pantomimes ensued (we stayed away from the oven all week.) We hadn't heard about GitesDeFrance, so can't compare.

Just don't be too disappointed if the owner prefers not to rent for a full month. In many large cities, owners prefer to rent by the week - or at the most, two weeks - rather than give a discount for a month's rental.

Also, Gites de France is extremely reliable but it's mostly in small towns, villages, and rural areas, and set up for vacation-goers during vacation periods. We've used them, as well as town websites, and Séjour à Bordeaux and Séjour à Toulouse.

Just don't be too disappointed if the owner prefers not to rent for a full month. In many large cities, owners prefer to rent by the week - or at the most, two weeks - rather than give a discount for a month's rental.

I think I've occasionally seen gites from GDF for a small discount for multiple weeks, but usually it would just be 4 times the weekly rental if you want to stay for a month.

Merci beaucoup to all of you. Such great ideas! I have my work cut out for me.