anyone can recommend any places to visit around france???

Give us a little assistance. How long will you be traveling around after your exchange program? What kind of transportation do you plan to use? What sorts of things interest you, e.g., art, architecture, scenery, sports, markets? What kinds of these things also!

France is the largest country in Europe so there is a lot to see and each region is quite different so you won’t see it all but you can manage quite a bit.

While you are on exchange, I hope your hosts will do some sightseeing with you. They are also a good source of information about other things to see. I’m sure they’ll give you some excellent ideas and also give good advice about getting around. You will discover an excellent public transportation system in France, so going where you want is pretty easy and also inexpensive.

You might want to check http://www.lonelyplanet.com for tips from younger people who are students and backpackers. There is a forum there called The Thorn Tree and you’ll get some good advice from people your own age, many who have been there and done that!

Another helpful forum is http://www.virtualtourist.com and there are lots of people there of varying ages. The nice thing about Virtual Tourist is they have a lot of members living in the countries who are giving advice.

Fodors and Frommers also have forums but they tend to be older travelers. You might check those for specific ideas because they are well traveled people and many have children who travel.

Good luck.

Hi SalB,

Thanks for the info on the sites… i would most prob be extending my stay for 1.5-2 weeks just to tour ard france… are you french? would like to hear from someone living in france about where to visit and so on… i don’t really want to visit the overly commercialised places… as in our hosts… i don’t think we’ll get any guides as they do have to attend classes i think… so yeah prob get a few galpals to travel with… so any suggestions???

angel

oh yeah i’m on a budget travel… so maybe i should get some sort of a pass of something? rail or bus? thanks!

angel

1.5 to 2 weeks is not a lot of time. You might want to choose a particular region that interests you and spend your time there.

No, I’m not French. We visit a couple times a year and usually stay a month or more but we live in southern California. Talk about commercialized . . . !!

Since you are a student and on a budget, I’m going to again strongly suggest you check the Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum. You’ll find a lot of kindred souls there. There are a lot of French members on Virtual Tourist too so that would be excellent.

On this forum the only French we have are crc95 and ManuNice. Hopefully one or both of them will weigh in and give you some suggestions.

Rail (and bus) travel is inexpensive and for a couple weeks, you probably wouldn’t use them enough to warrant paying for a pass. Just get point to point tickets in 2nd class. If you click on the blue and red France.com at the top of this page, you go to the home page. Over on the right side of your screen is a button marked Rail Travel. Click on that and it will give you all the rail pass options so you can compare them and think about what you want to do.

For comparison, you can check RER and Metro prices at http://www.ratp.fr I’m assuming you can read French since you’re an exchange student. There is a lot more information on the French language site than if you click into English. They assume you are a tourist if you’re reading English so it’s geared to tourists. You can check it but be sure to check the French language section too.

Will you be studying in Paris? If so, you can do a few day trips from there and get a feel for that area. Afterwards, you might want to visit the Pyrenees, Brittany or Provence depending on your interests and the time of year.

If you are staying someplace else, you would probably want to go to the Paris area and visit the city and take a few day trips. If you do that, you really don’t need a rail pass because there are a lot of wonderful day trips that are really inexpensive, like Versailles, Giverny, Chartres, Provins, etc.