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France Less Traveled travel guide

Updated 18 May 2024 by Leyla Alyanak — Parisian by birth, Lyonnaise by adoption, historian by passion

I'm as much a sucker for France's major attractions as anyone else, but I love heading off the beaten path several times a year to what I call "France less traveled". These are the places you'll want to explore once you've seen the highlights. Or maybe even before...

If you're visiting France, especially for the first time, there's every chance you'll begin with Paris. If you have more time, you'll probably head off to Provence... and maybe tuck in a Loire chateau or two.

And so you will have covered... about 1% of my country.

This page is dedicated to the other 99%: many places will be familiar, and you may even have visited one or two, but I trust (or at least hope) some of them will lead you to new discoveries.

Less visited départements

Some of you will read these and say, "Wait! I've been there!" Of course, plenty of people have. But at least 2/3 of visitors to France bypass these delightful corners of the corner in favor of the better-known Paris, Loire Valley or French Riviera. 

Those of you who don't know the areas below but who want an authentic French experience should consider visiting!

Côte d'Or (21)

Eure-et-Loir (28)

Haute-Marne (52)

Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)

Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64)

More off-the-beaten-path places

There are other parts of France that I've just touched, and some that I even haven't visited yet (so I've asked others more in the know to share their insights). But one of these days, I hope I'll have visited every corner of my country – it's a lot larger than it seems!