Where Should We Retire In France?

Where Should we Retire in France? That’s the big question my husband and I are starting to explore — and in this video, we take our very first scouting trip to find out.

We spent two weeks road-tripping through central and western France, visiting the areas around Poitiers, Angoulême, and Tours to see if any of these regions could be the right fit for our future retirement. We stayed in a quiet countryside gîte, visited charming villages and market towns, and evaluated each place based on what matters most to us: access to healthcare, proximity to Paris, local markets, mild weather, community life, and architectural charm.

This isn’t a “we’re moving” vlog — we’re still years away from retiring. But this is the beginning of a slower, more intentional journey to find a place where we can one day settle down and build a new chapter of our life in France.

Towns we visited include:

Poitiers · Chauvigny · Ruffec · La Rochefoucauld · Jarnac · Angoulême · Loudun · Chinon · Azay-le-Rideau · Amboise

If you’re also dreaming of retiring in France, curious about small-town life, or just love slow travel through the French countryside, I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:01 Why We’re Scouting France
04:34 Retirement Checklist
10:43 Where We Stayed
11:35 Poitiers & Surrounding Areas
13:10 Angoulême & Surrounding Areas
15:05 Tours & The Loire Valley
17:35 Where to Next?

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Hey, friends, welcome back
to Chronically Overdressed. So today’s video is going
to be a little different. Back in May, my husband and I,
and of course Mildred, took a two week road trip around
central and western France, not just for fun or vacation,
although it was very fun. We very much enjoyed it,
but because we are actually scouting for a place
to retire someday. Now we are still a good nine
years out or so from when my husband is going to retire. And we are loving life
in Vienna, so don’t worry, we are not moving
anytime soon, but we want to take advantage of our time here
in Europe and really explore all the different areas of
France to see where we might want to settle long term. Our plan is to buy a property
within the next 4 or 5 years, and that way we can have time
to fix it up to our liking. Do any renovations that need to
be done and have a little vacation place in the meantime
before we make it our permanent home? So in this video, I want to
take you along and show you the regions that we visited
around Poitiers, Angouleme and Tura. I’ll talk about what we are
looking for in our future location where we stayed,
and our honest impressions of each area. The good and
the disappointing. We both have loved
France for a long time. We love the language,
the people, the food, the landscape, the slower
pace of life. Over the years, we’ve traveled
to quite a few places in France big cities,
tiny little villages, coastal towns
and the countryside. And along the way we have
really fallen in love with more than a few places. But this trip and the trips to
come aren’t just about finding beautiful spots to admire. Now we are looking through a
completely different lens, what it might be
like to actually live there. Not for a week
or two, but for years. The rest of our lives we’re
thinking about things like access to healthcare,
train routes, community events and daily routines, and whether
a town feels alive year round. And now that we’re living
in Europe again. We’ve we’ve decided to take
full advantage of that and start
scouting more intentionally. Call it retirement recon. We’ll be taking 2 or 3 week
trips every so often to really explore different regions,
and I’ll be documenting these not only to benefit us, but to
share with you and bring you along on our journey. The goal isn’t to hit tourist
attractions and rush from one place to the next. We want to slow down and stay
in one area long enough to really notice the details. What are the markets like? How friendly are the people
whether the town is vibrant or empty? How easy is it to get around
places and and also what kind of homes are actually available
on the market? It’s about imagining what daily
life will be like there. What is the best boulangerie? How are the flea
markets and vintage shops? What community Events or
attractions are nearby that we would like to explore. Just what would it feel
like on any ordinary day? We’re looking for more than
just charm, though that is quite important to us. We’re looking for a rhythm or
atmosphere or a vibe, if you want to call it that. That we can see ourselves
living in day to day. And hopefully through
these trips, we will really start to narrow down the places
that just feel right. As we start planning for our
eventual retirement in France. We have spent a lot of time
thinking about what actually matters to us, what is our
priority in a place that we want to live. So here is what’s
guiding us on our search. Proximity to Paris by train. Paris is one of our
favorite places, and since we can’t afford to live there,
we do want to be able to get there easily. Our ideal spot would be within
a three hour train ride to Paris, whether that’s via
the TGV or a well connected regional line. This gives us
access to international travel, cultural events and visits from
friends and family who would probably fly into Paris
to come and visit us. It also just makes life easier
if we ever want a quick city break. We found that towns that have a
direct line to a TGV hub, like two or Poitiers are
really ideal, even if they’re small and they don’t feel cut
off no more than 30 minutes to a mid to large sized city. While we love the
charm and peace of a countryside village, we are
very aware that we are not 25 anymore. And as we age, being within
easy driving distance to a proper city means access
to hospitals, specialists, services and just daily
conveniences like larger supermarkets or
home improvement stores. While our ideal is to live on
the outskirts, either in a small village or a hamlet,
we don’t want to be more than 30 to 40 minutes to a
well-resourced city that has reliable infrastructure, a train
station, and ideally decent health care options,
good restaurants and a cultural scene in or
near a market town. A weekly market isn’t just
about food, it’s about life. We are looking for a town that
holds regular open air or even covered markets with stalls for
local produce, cheeses, breads, all the local fare, the kind of
place where you bump into your neighbors and chat
with the vendors. Market towns just tend
to be more community driven. There’s a pulse to them. Even in the off seasons,
they usually have a pretty solid mix of
residents over just tourists or second homeowners. Moderate temperate weather. We are both
very clear on this. We hate the extreme heat. I can tolerate a warm
week here and there, but long, hot summers are an
absolute no, especially in Europe where there’s no AC. At the same time, we
are not looking for a ski chalet either. We want to
avoid long, harsh winters and heavy snowfall. So our sweet spot is just a
temperate climate somewhere with four seasons but
relatively mild ones. Enough of a chill to get to
wear my cardigans and a nice coat and enjoy cozy evenings,
but not enough to need a snow shovel and in the summer,
air conditioning, running for two months straight. We also plan to
have an extensive garden and fruit trees, so a longer
growing period would be ideal near a body of water. Now we are not beach people. You are not going to see us
sunbathing on the on the beach with umbrellas and margaritas. But there is something deeply
calming about being near a river or a lake,
or even the coastline. It just adds to the feeling of
space and tranquility. And being near water also tends
to mean better microclimates, greener surroundings and
of course, picturesque towns. We don’t need
waterfront property, just proximity. Architectural character. This one’s a little bit harder
to define, but we know it when we see it. We are drawn to areas with 18th
and 19th century architecture stone houses with shutters,
iron balconies, slate roofs, and we would love to find a
maison De Smet, or even an elegant farmhouse with
outbuildings as our home. We’re not interested in
modern subdivisions, obviously, or new builds. We want something that just
feels rooted in history with a sense of place
and aesthetic cohesion. We are open to doing
some renovation, but we’re not looking for an incomplete
project or anything too primitive. A sense of community. This is probably one
of the most important things on our list. We don’t have kids and
we don’t have any family here in Europe. We don’t want to be isolated or
even surrounded entirely by other expats. We want to integrate,
to participate in local events, go to
the flea markets and fêtes, support small businesses and
get to know our neighbors. A vibrant community to
us means year round life, not just seasonal tourism. We are looking for
towns that have public spaces, regular festivals, civic pride
and places where people gather. And lastly, gîte potential. We are also considering
starting a small gîte business. It’s basically a holiday
rentals attached to your home or on the same property. That means the area should have
some tourism appeal. Interesting history,
beautiful scenery, attractions or events that
could draw in visitors. It doesn’t have to be
a hot spot. In fact, we’d prefer
that it wasn’t. But it should offer enough
charm and activities that people want to spend
some time there. Having a gîte would give us a
little bit of income in retirement and just the
joy of sharing our space. Meeting new people and enjoying
the region with others. For the majority of our trip,
we stayed in a darling gîte in Chaunay, in the
Charente department, it was in a quiet hamlet surrounded
by cherry trees. Strawberries in the garden
and beautiful flowers. This peaceful and
very charming, and it was perfectly situated to explore
the towns around Poitiers to the north and Angoulême
to the south. After several days in
those areas, we headed north towards Tours to slowly make it
back home, and we explored the towns in the Loire Valley. We stayed in a small
village called Launay. I was just about ten
minutes from Ambroise. That also made a really good
home base for that area. We enjoyed Poitiers. It had a great
old town with shops, restaurants
and walkable streets. There were a few towns and
villages just north of where we were staying, on our
way up towards Poitiers that we really liked. Chauvigny,
Valence-en-Poitou, and Civray and then just south
of where we were staying
was Verteuil-sur-Charente, and Ruffec were super charming
and lovely. They felt alive,
well-kept and inviting. And please don’t come
for me for my French. I’m still learning,
but the majority of the surrounding area. Honestly, it just kind of felt
a bit forgotten it. It is quite rural and
that area and we knew that. But many towns and village
centres that we visited all around there just had closed
up shops, little activity and just kind of an
overall rundown feeling. It just didn’t give us a sense
of vibrancy or community that we’re looking for. The current department is
pretty popular with British expats, and we actually
met a really wonderful couple who lives right down the street
from the geet that we were staying in. They were really,
really helpful and recommended a few places for us to
check out, so I’m not sure if we just need to kind of keep an
eye on this area to see if maybe some signs of life start
to show in years to come, but it just didn’t wow us. Now. We were really excited
to see Angoulême. We’ve watched several YouTube
videos on the city, and it just seemed like it would be a
really great kind of mid-sized city, and it’s
situated in a really good location. It’s near Bordeaux and there’s
a TGV line that goes straight to Paris. It looked perfect on paper. And while it does have some
architectural gems and really great views from
its hilltop settings. We just found that it, I don’t know, it appeared to be
a bit neglected and it was really disappointing. A lot of the buildings just
look like they hadn’t been cleaned in decades. It just wasn’t inspiring. And like I said,
the architecture was really lovely and the covered market
was a highlight. I will admit we really love
these old covered markets, but overall it just kind
of fell short. There were a
few towns near Angoulême, like La Rochefoucauld,
with its stunning chateau, super imposing and
gorgeous um, and Jarnac, which were really beautiful. But those areas are a little
bit pricier and without really liking the city of
Angouleme itself, it just kind of drops lower on our list. Now this area,
the Loire Valley, is really something special. There’s just a certain
magic about it. We already knew that we liked
this region we visited before on our travels, but you know,
this time, seeing it through the lens of long
term living, it just clicked. It felt different, like we were
seeing it not just as visitors, but as
potential future residents. We spent time in Loudun,
which is technically still in the Vienne department. C hinon, Azay-le-Rideau and
Amboise and every single one of them just felt like
you stepped into a storybook. Long, tree lined streets,
tiny cafes, just with people spilling out
onto those sidewalks. The kind of places that make
you exhale without realizing that you were even
holding your breath. But it’s not really just about
how pretty it looks, though it is stunning. I think what stood out
most for us was how alive these towns were. Even the small ones. There were people out
and about. Weekly markets were full,
and there was just this quiet sense of community humming
beneath the surface. Now, obviously, this area is a
tourist attraction, but these towns didn’t feel
overly touristy, but it didn’t feel forgotten either. It struck that rare balance
between peaceful and vibrant. This area really shot up
to the top of our list. It just feels right. The kind of place
where we could imagine putting down roots, hosting family
and friends, and starting the next chapter of our lives. And beyond the charm,
there is the practicality. One of the best draws of the
Loire Valley is its proximity to Tours, which is a well sized
city with everything you need shops, healthcare,
restaurants, cultural events and the city
itself is beautiful. Most of the towns that we
visited had regular regional trains that connect directly
to tours, and then from there the TGV gets you into
Paris in just over an hour. So even if we
settle in a smaller village. We’re never far from city
access or a quick trip up to Paris. That kind of accessibility
makes rural living a lot more feasible for the long term. Next, I think we
will be heading over to Normandy and Brittany. Now, we’ve spent a good bit of
time in Normandy and we love it. We’ve gone to
the D-Day commemorations. We’ve spent weeks traveling
around there, but this time, obviously we’re going to visit
with an eye towards living there. Um, Brittany will be a little
bit new for us. We’ve gone to a few places. Um, but we are really,
really excited to explore it more deeply. We are just at the beginning of
this journey, and it already feels so special to be looking
for a place to put down roots. It’s a place where we can build
the next chapter of our lives. I’ll be sharing every scouting
trip we take, not just for a record for ourselves,
but because I know many of you are curious about
this kind of slower, intentional living too. If you’re enjoying this series
or have recommendations for places in France to check out,
I would love to hear them in the comments. And if you’re into vintage
lifestyle and slow living, please be sure to subscribe. There’s a lot more
coming soon. Thank you so much
for joining me. I will see you soon. Bye.