Where to begin?

If you look to your left on this site, you will see Explore Europe. Hit the + sign. Pick France from the countries. Scroll down to Plan and choose recommended itinerary. He gives you ideas for anywhere from 3 days to 3+ weeks.

Otherwise, I just watch Rick's videos for inspiration. Or any travel videos. Once I have some spots I think I'd like to see, I might borrow a few e-travel guides from my library app to peruse, then if I have some areas narrowed down, I'll do some googling to see what else in that area might catch my interest.

You def have to look into travel times as well - I like Rome2Rio for an idea of how long it takes to get from here to there and how often trains/bus run. (The website is not the be all and end all, but good to get an idea). Maybe public transport is no good where you're going and you'll have to rent a car, which changes things a little more. So you have to ask if you only want public transport or to rent a car for part/all of the journey - that'll change what people recommend as well.

Also - ask your significant other of they have things they'd like to see as well. But above all, BE REALISTIC.

Sure, you could go all over France, but with only a week, quality is better than quantity - travelling around eats up so much of your time. Not sure you could do coast and countryside and vineyards in a week, unless you leave out Paris, which deserves at least 3 nights, but really should have 4-5 nights.

Not unlike Italy, it is tempting to try to do too much in a short time. Paris is worth a week, IMO, and a great base for day trips. If you can devote 7 nights, you’ll have 6 full days and can take a couple of day trips such as to one of the grand chateaux, Chartres, or Giverny. You can even do a daytrip to Normandy, but for my money, I’d want at least 3 nights there. Save it for “next time.”

Staying in one base makes for a more relaxed experience.

What time of year are you going?

Keep in mind France is about as large as Texas. So, traveling from point to point will eat up time and you only have a week. I would suggest only 2 locations.

I assume you are flying into Paris. I would suggest 3 nights in Paris and then you could travel by train to Normandy (Bayeux) and tour the D-Day sights with a tour operator and or St Michel. You can stay 2-3 nights as well. You will see the coast and the countryside of the area and train back to Paris.

Another option besides Normandy would be to train to the Loire Valley. Here there are tour operators that can show you some of the major chateaus of the area and it will be another opportunity to see vineyards and the countryside of France. The train rides to Loire or Normandy are both about 2.5 hours.

If you choose to skip Paris altogether, I would head to Strasbourg, rent a car and explore the Alsace region for the week. There are magnificent vineyards and villages in the area. The train ride to Strasbourg from Paris is about 2.0 hours on a TGV train.

Good luck in your planning.

For something other than the predictable Loire or St Emilion suggestions, I would recommend that you stay in the charming town of Saintes in the Charente-Maritime region for a week.

Take a walking tour round the charming town centre and explore the Roman amphitheatre, the mini Arc de Triomphe and its Basilica.

Take a day trip 40 minutes east to Cognac for vineyards galore.

Another good day trip would be to drive to the charming village of Mornac-sur-Seudre, explore the galleries and craft shops here and have lunch in one of the cafes overlooking the oyster beds. In the afternoon, either drive to the seaside resort of Royan (visit the amazing modernist cathedral) or head to the island of Oleron and mooch around its pretty villages or beaches.

Another good day trip is to Hiers-Brouage and explore the old citadel then head to Rochefort and explore this garrison town, including a visit to Hermione if she is in port.

For glorious countryside, follow the Charente river through villages such as Port d’Envaux.

With only one week:
Paris-Provence
Paris-Normandy
Paris-Brittany
Vineyards:
Paris-Burgundy or
Paris-Alsace
However, you really only have time to do Paris justice with one week.

Paris has a lot going for it, but it doesn't have coast, countryside and vineyards. We usually spend one night in Paris to recover from the overnight flight, and make our way by train to somewhere else in France.

Strasbourg/Alsace is beautiful - but no coast, and the wine is really too sweet for my taste.

Provence is also beautiful, with great wine, Roman ruins, food, etc, but no coast.

Normandy has coast, countryside, and history - not so much for vineyards.

There are lots of RS tv shows and clips on this website or available on PBS or from the library that cover France. If you haven't seen them, that's where I start. Also, I like the Eyewitness guides to start trip planning. After I've browsed through them, I move to RS and other guides for more details.

For me, time of year really impacts the choice of specific regions.

With one week I would stay in Paris and plan a day trip to the coast maybe Douville or Trouville and a day trip to a smaller town perhaps with a walk from one small town to another. Simms book 'An Hour from Paris' is full of suggestions that show you how to do that. Two day trips and 5 days for Paris is a nice first tiny bite of France.

We have visited most areas of France; what we do is identify a region e.g. Provence, the Dordogne, Burgundy, Brittany and then spend 5-7 days usually in a rental in that area and explore a bit. France is huge; a week is very short. At most you could sample two areas but for me that would be unsatisfying. I like to maximize being there and minimize travel logistics i.e. getting there.

Some possible combos: Arrive in Paris and go 4 hours later to Strasbourg, or St. Malo, or Bayeux or Tours or Beune and spend 3 nights there which gives 2 full days to see the area. All of these can be done without a car. e.g. in St. Malo you could take the bus to Dinan one day and spend the other walking on the coast near St. Malo and over to St. Servan with its gorgeous medieval Tower. in Bayeux you could do an all day tour of the landing beaches with Overlord and on the second full day maybe do a van trip to Mont St. Michele -- the Hotel Churchill does these trips but you don't have to stay there to go -- just book well in advance as they fill up (same with Overlord beach tours). From Tours you could do van tours of Loire Chateaux. After 3 nights in whatever region you choose return to Paris for 4 nights 3 days and the trip home.

When I looked at visiting France, I started by sorting out things I'd like to see. Like you, it became obvious there is too much to see to try to cram into a week or a vacation with multiple countries.

Flights from DC are cheap to Paris so I ended up breaking France into four vacations, 17-20 nights each. I turned them into loops: Loop 1, Paris, Normandy, Brittany, Loire, Paris (NW loop); Loop 2, Paris, Burgundy, Alsace (plus Freiburg and Heidelberg), Reims (not all of Champagne), Paris; Loop 3, Paris, Lyon, Chamonix, Ardeche, Provence, Riviera, Paris (flight from Nice); Loop 4, Paris, (fly to) Toulouse, Languedoc-Rousillon, Lot Valley, Dordogne Valley, Coast (south of Arcachon), Bordeaux, Paris.

Most with rental car, trains for long legs, flights for even longer legs and a bicycle rental in Loire Valley.

It really starts with you deciding what appeals to you most and work from there.

I have a step-sister who studied in France. She is always amazed that I've seen more of France than most of the people she lived or studied with. I feel like I haven't seen close to everything and need to return (after I see other countries on my list).

Wow, thank you so much everyone for your amazing comments. Definitely reconsidering the one week option and going for longer. These are so helpful!

BE REALISTIC. Sure, you could go all over France, but with only a
week, quality is better than quantity

Excellent advise, if you can do more than a week, you won't be disappointed. Do you have any bucket list items in France? Perhaps figure those out and find an itinerary from there. My wife always wanted to go to the Loire Valley and I always wanted to see Lascaux Caves and Carcassone. Once we had a starting point, the rest came together.

It is always the case that more time is good. The arrival day is often totally lost due to sleep-deprivation on the overnight flight and jetlag; some people are also somewhat affected on Day 2. The departure day is usually a total loss except for eating breakfast and getting yourself to the airport. That means a one-week trip (depending on how you define that) gives you very few actual sightseeing days. If you can add another week, your total sightseeing time will increase by 7 days, which will make a very big difference. But keep in mind that France is a very large country, and you can burn a lot of time traveling from point to point.

Brad's approach is a very smart one. Every section of France has many great destinations; you can have a wonderful trip even if you stick to a fairly small part of the country. Once I find a place that sounds especially interesting to me, I read about the area around it in a comprehensive guide book (don't just use Rick's). I always find other points of interest I can see while I'm in the area. That means I spend less time traveling around and more time seeing things.

You can check train time from point to point on the easy-to-use Deutsche Bahn website. It won't give you fares, but it will help you figure out what might be possible.

Personally, I like to go for as long as we can - luckily my hubs has a more flexible workplace and can take up to 3 weeks - although after our last exhausting trip, I think we will keep it to about 15-18 nights from now on. The reason I like(d) to go as long as I can is the airfares from my neck of the woods are pretty pricey, so I feel like the longer we went, the more that cost was spread out.

So even if you could go for 10-11 nights instead of 7, you might be able to incorporate what you want to see, just on a faster basis.