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How to find and reserve rooms for August 2022 in the French Alps

I know about booking.com and just started looking at Gîtes de France® (https://www.gites-de-france.com). What are some good ways to find rooms to rent in August? A friend and I will rent motorcycles in Geneva and ride south through the French Alps, Gorge du Verdun, Route des Grandes Alpes, Chamonix, and return to Geneva. Our trip will be from August 15 through August 26. Since this is the height of the tourist season, I want to make reservations.

Our current plan is to stay in most places one night, but I will try to modify the itinerary to make some places a two-night stay. We are not picky about the accommodations and are looking for hotels, B&Bs, or hostels. We do not need Holiday Inn luxury. Other than the two websites I mentioned, what are good ways to find and reserve rooms?

Posted by
87 posts

"Gites de France " is one of the oldest organizations for holiday accommodation in France (since the 1950s). It's still a safe bet
All accommodations are visited and checked regularly.
On the road, you will often see small signs with the green and yellow logo indicating a Gite de France

You can also visit the websites of the "tourism offices" of the cities where you would like to stay, for example https://www.chamonix.com/

They also offer a list of accommodations in the area

Anyway, if you are traveliing with motorcycles and like mountain roads with gorgious landscapes, you will be amazed

Posted by
6794 posts

In peak travel season, many "gîtes" have minimum stays of at least a few nights, so Gîtes de France might not be the best choice fore one night stays. Still worth a look.

Otherwise I find that Google Maps works very well to find hotels on a road trip. Just explore the map, highlights hotels around the places where you think you'll want to stop, check ratings and find the links to hotels and B&B's websites - sometimes the link isn't there but you can separately google the name of the accommodation.

Posted by
2537 posts

Gîtes typically do require longer stays than one night, but you might check these chambres d´hôtes links. These are what I would typically use for one night stays:

http://www.fleursdesoleil.fr/

https://www.charme-traditions.com/

The Gîte de France website does have a section for chambres d´hôtes:

https://www.gites-de-france.com/fr/chambres-dhotes

This link not only lists chambres d´hôtes but those where meals are served. These can be real gems.

https://www.chambres-hotes.fr/table-hotes.html