Reliable rental sites for France

[chachalaca]

Over the years we have used gites.fr, gites.com, cybevasion.fr and searches for homes/apartments/cottages for rent independent of a host site with great success. Pair that with recommendations from fellow SlowEurope travelers and we've been super happy. I also remember researching on Abritel.fr and Homelidays and Booking.com as well. So many homes appear in multiple places.

The last time we traveled was 2019. I was so surprised when I began searching for our 2024 trip. The first 50+ hits are all commercial sites: AirBnB.com, TripAdvisor.com, VRBO.com and more. There are a bunch of new-to-me sites Bluepillow.com, Casamundo.fr, ...

For those of you who don't return to the same rental each time you visit France, what is your go-to search parameter to find independent homes? Or do you rely solely on a certain search engine or two? Or maybe you have a tale of caution for a certain site to share. I'm listening!

For this next trip we've decided on Céret, in the SE Pyrenees area. If you have stayed there and know of a rental, will you share? I've found many options, but I am slow to book on some of these new-to-me-sites.

Many thanks,
Laura

 

[phirhon]

We used Abritel early in our travels, but since 2014 we have used Gites de France exclusively.

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We have always been happy with them.
We have never used AirB&B, but I have looked at a couple of places as a comparison. The fees seem to be a lot higher than Gdf. That might not bother some people, but I know we do not have as big a budget as others. So it really depends on what you want to spend. We travel for ten weeks and are budget travellers, so we try to keep costs down.
It is always difficult deciding which to choose. We returned at the end of June from ten weeks in France and were very happy with the six gites we stayed in, so we will continue to use GdF for any future trips.

 

[chachalaca]

Thank you for replying, Phirhon. We also use GdF whenever possible ( I think I said gites.fr when I meant GdF). The list is pretty short for Céret, and we don't have many "musts" so I went rogue looking, looking, looking.

You've brought me back to what's reliable and reputable. We don't use Airbnb much while at home either because of those fees.

 

[joe]

I don't have experience in France, but another thing you could do is zoom in on the specific area in Google Maps in which you would like to stay, and put the word "gite" in the search bar. You will probably get quite a few results, in which the owners' websites will appear directly.
There are 2 advantages to this :
You don't have to work through aggregate sites, and this usually means savings for you or the host.
If the specific geographical area is important to you, then this is a better way than sifting through lists on the main sites.
I do this when searching for agriturismi in Italy.

 

[chachalaca]

Joe, thank you! This allowed me to find a few other options that I hadn't seen before. It's also great not to comb through all of the aggregate sites.