Where to buy a cooler in Provence

I'm not sure I understand why you want to buy a cooler. The Air B&Bs will have (generally) a small refrigerator for your use. Are you planning on making food in your kitchen and transporting it to the next Air B&B for consumption there? I would think you may be able to find something you like in an Auchan hypermarche which truly stocks everything.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, we are thinking that there may be some ingredients that we haven't finished in one location and would like bring along to the next. Also would like the option to be able to stop for a picnic and eat our own food between stops. Thanks

Finding a cooler isn't the problem. Finding ice is especially in smaller towns. In case your AirBnbs have freezers, taking a couple of cold packs from the US might be a good idea.

What towns will you be in and when will you be there? You need a large supermarket, a E. Leclerc type store, or a camping goods store but you have not said where you will be or when you will be there. Just like here in the US, these items pop up in stores in the summer months. In the summers that I have spent in Burgundy and Provence, I have seen coolers all over the place. There is a brand called Campingaz. One idea is to go to their website and look up their points of sale and see if one pops up near where you plan to be.

Any E LeClerc, Carrefour Hypermarché or Auchan. In the season. Probably a large Casino.

If you were driving from Paris to Provence (where? It is a big place) you could pop into the Costco.

Not a cooler, but I saw insulated bags at the Monoprix checkout stands earlier this month. Might work for short trips between locations.

While we seek out food experiences in France, while on the move during the day, we’ve usually got our “standard” collection of olives, cheese, nuts, and sometimes some cured meat, all in individual plastic bags. Refrigeration isn’t required for the short time we’re carrying the ingredients, and they serve as snacks or a simple, but excellent picnic lunch, too. Get a baguette, maybe some tapenade, honey, or fruit spread, olives of various colors, sometimes flavored with spices, some interesting cheese, and we’re often set, if a big lunch isn’t part of that day’s plans.

We have a non-insulated, cloth “food bag,” to hold all the containers of plastic bags the came in. And that bag goes in a backpack, or coolish place in the back seat of the air-conditioned car.

We’ve picked up a thinly insulated bag, maybe 18 inches by 18 inches and not very thick, a couple of times. They had snap closures built into the handles, but weren’t super durable, and didn’t really hold all that much.

Yes, I can think of seeing the insulated bags much more often than what we think of as coolers.

Sometimes you can buy bags of ice at Picard. Otherwise yes, bring those blue bricks that you can freeze.

A few empty water bottles weigh almost nothing in a suitcase or carry-on tote. They can be filled (not completely full) in the evening and popped into your freezer.

Even if you cannot find ice and cannot manage frozen water bottles or ice packs, a decent cooler will offer some protection for awhile. I wouldn't trust that for the riskiest things like seafood and mayo-based salads, however.

Excellent point from AC Raven on filling the empty water bottles to serve as “cold bricks.”

I used to spend time in the desert southwest, rockhounding; you learn to be prepared one way or another. Water heated to the temperature of a car parked in the sun is unpalatable.

One other thought: If there will be space in one of your suitcases on the outbound flight, you might consider buying a modest-sized soft-sided cooler and taking it with you. (I don't know whether an insulated grocery bag would be helpful enough to be worthwhile.) I have done that on many domestic trips. You could discard it at the end of the trip. You might find it worked well enough you don't need to go looking for something more robust.

I agree that just taking one of the soft sided coolers cheaply and readily available in the US might be a good choice. You can just put it in your suitcase as a sort of 'cube' i.e. fill it with other stuff on the way over and perhaps leave it at the last AirBNB.

I have a soft-sided cooler with a hard plastic insert that I picked up at Walmart or Target for $10-15 (hard to find this time of year, though). It's 8" deep, 11" wide and 10" high. I like that it has the hard sides/bottom and it's tall enough to put 1/2 liter bottles in standing up. I have taken it once or twice to Europe when I rented a car and it's a godsend especially in warm weather - ice cold drinks all day long. And it will keep the cheese, butter, cold cuts for hours. When you put in in your suitcase, it looks like it's too big to take, but you can pack stuff inside it, of course. And the hard insert is great for protecting breakables on the trip home. When I stay at hotels, they have always put water bottles in the freezer for me overnight. Much better than melting ice cubes or gel packs that only take up space (and weight in your luggage).

We've always managed well with a soft, insulated coolbag when travelling around Europe and these can be bought at any reasonably sized supermarket in France along with plastic ice blocks that you freeze overnight. I can see no reason to invest in a hard box cooler. We also have a collapsable bag cooler with built in fan that plugs into the 12v socket in cars, this takes up very little room in the suitcase.

We usually bring an insulated soft sided bag with us. Trader Joes sells several versions, very durable, cloth exterior and keep items cold well. My wife usually uses it as her day bag on the way over and back, so it plays double, maybe triple duty, very handy for a number of purposes.

Tdecoste, how did you find Beaucaire? I haven’t heard of it.