France Planning - Which Cities?

Remember how I was dreaming about a road trip in France? Well, flights to France have been booked! I make it sound like I just reserved the tickets but actually, it's been over a month since I hit the 'buy' button. I just was too caught up in the holidays to share earlier. Plus, I wanted to have something more substantial to share (like tentative plans) before I made the announcment and had nothing else to include in this post.

I found $700 direct flights from JFK to CDG through XL Airways France and I pounced on them because I didn't think we'd find a better deal. The best price I've seen for flights to Paris in the Spring/Summer time was last year when I found flights for $650 so $700 is not bad at all.

Ever since I decided that I wanted to do a French road/train-trippy holiday, I've been obsessing over which cities we MUST visit. I've narrowed it down to a handful now, but we only have 9 full days so I need to choose wisely. I want the trip to be kind of laid back and have a somewhat flexible plan so that if we miss a city, it's not the end of the world, you know? I want to choose a circular route (that starts and ends in Paris) that is accessible primarily by train.

No definitive decisions have been made, but I've started a slideshow (through Google Docs) to get myself organized. I drew up a little calendar to mark up how much time we could potentially stay in each city.

I'm also making little slides for each city with a lovely photo and notes. Hopefully, this will help the decision-making process feel easier and less stressful.

Right now, the cities I'm seriously considering are Lyon, Annecy, Nice, and Rocamadour. Rocamadour is the most out of the way, but I think it looks amazing so I'm having a hard time letting it go.

I'm so excited to start booking trains and hotels and all that jazz. Reading reviews on TripAdvisor is one of my favorite things. Does that make me weird? I don't even care.

xoxo.