Searching online

Searching for your séjour home

Before you begin your search, make sure you’ve asked yourself these questions and thought about your desired lifestyle. It’s fun to look around, but you can very quickly get lost in searches if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Your search criteria

Begin by defining your basic search criteria. This list will help you narrow down your search and very quickly rule out many listings. I’ve completed this one to give you an example:

Websites we love

Far and away, my favorite websites for finding a home are HomeAway, its sister site VRBO and Trip Advisor. Here’s a little about each:

HomeAway

This site lists over 160,000 rental properties in Europe alone (65 thousand in France). You can search by location, price, bedrooms or features. You can read reviews from previous tenants. And there is an excellent map funcionality that allows you to view all the properties in a certain area. That’s especially helpful when you’re interested in a particular region, but don’t know the names of every single town and village.

VRBO

I’ve had incredible luck with this site, even though it’s not much more than a long list of properties. You can sort by number of bedrooms and availability. But you cannot search by price and there is no map functionality.

Trip advisor

Known for its hotel and restaurant reviews, trip advisor also lists property rentals, although not nearly as many as you will find on HomeAway or VRBO. You can search by price and bedrooms and you can also view properties on the interactive map.

* There are unique challenges to planning a séjour. For more information, please check out our Séjour Planning Services or contact me.