Where to go in France in October?
The 15 best destinations for a trip to France in October, ranked on the weather actually recorded.
For a trip to France in October, we kept regions and cities in metropolitan France during their best season. Temperatures and rainfall are real records, averaged from 2015 to 2024 at each destination's reference point, and the sea is measured at the nearest coastal point. 15 destinations pass this filter. Top of the ranking: The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence (22 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain).
The ranking at a glance
| # | Destination | Afternoon | Rainy days | Sea (°C) | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇫🇷 The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence | 22 °C | 6 | - | €100-180 a day |
| 2 | 🇫🇷 Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël and the Esterel | 23 °C | 7 | - | €80-150 a day |
| 3 | 🇫🇷 Uzès and the Pont du Gard | 22 °C | 7 | - | €80-140 a day |
| 4 | 🇫🇷 The Gers and Armagnac | 21 °C | 7 | - | €65-110 a day |
| 5 | 🇫🇷 The French Riviera | 22 °C | 8 | 20 °C | €110-200 a day |
| 6 | 🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence | 21 °C | 8 | - | €90-160 a day |
| 7 | 🇫🇷 The Côte Vermeille and Collioure | 21 °C | 8 | 20 °C | €80-140 a day |
| 8 | 🇫🇷 Gaillac | 21 °C | 8 | - | €65-110 a day |
| 9 | 🇫🇷 Marseille | 21 °C | 8 | 20 °C | €80-160 a day |
| 10 | 🇫🇷 Tarn-et-Garonne | 21 °C | 8 | - | €65-110 a day |
| 11 | 🇫🇷 The Verdon Gorge | 19 °C | 8 | - | €80-130 a day |
| 12 | 🇫🇷 Corsica | 22 °C | 9 | 22 °C | €100-170 a day |
| 13 | 🇫🇷 Roanne and the Roannais | 18 °C | 8 | - | €75-130 a day |
| 14 | 🇫🇷 Avignon | 21 °C | 9 | - | €80-150 a day, bien plus en juillet |
| 15 | 🇫🇷 The Camargue | 21 °C | 9 | 20 °C | €80-130 a day |
The 15 destinations in detail
Region1 🇫🇷 The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence
🌡️ 22 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain · 💶 €100-180 a day
The Alpilles are a range of white limestone as long as a day's bike ride, between Arles and Avignon. On its slopes stand a citadel dismantled by Richelieu at Les Baux, a quarry where Picasso is projected onto the rock, the ancient city of Glanum, the cloister where Van Gogh painted his irises, and mills that press the olives.
City2 🇫🇷 Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël and the Esterel
🌡️ 23 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €80-150 a day
Fréjus was Forum Julii, founded by Caesar and later Augustus's naval base, and it keeps an amphitheatre, a 5th-century baptistery and a cloister whose ceiling is painted with fantastical creatures. To the east, Saint-Raphaël opens onto the Estérel: red volcanic rock, a corniche road laid out in 1903, clear-water calanques and trails up to the Pic de l'Ours.
City3 🇫🇷 Uzès and the Pont du Gard
🌡️ 22 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €80-140 a day
Uzès fits into a pocket handkerchief of honey-coloured stone: a ducal castle still lived in by the same family, a round tower pierced with windows, an arcaded square where the Saturday market overflows with truffles, olives and goat's cheeses. At the foot of the town rises the spring that supplied Nîmes via the Pont du Gard, twenty minutes away by road.
Region4 🇫🇷 The Gers and Armagnac
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €65-110 a day
The Gers unfolds from hill to hill, among vines, sunflowers and bastides: Larressingle and its walls, Fourcès and its round square, Marciac and its jazz, Lectoure on its spur. In Auch, the cathedral's choir stalls feature more than 1,500 figures; in the Armagnac country, you taste the brandy with the people who distil it.
Region5 🇫🇷 The French Riviera
🌡️ 22 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain, sea at 20 °C · 💶 €110-200 a day
From Cassis to Menton, the Côte d'Azur strings together 200 kilometres of turquoise coves, hilltop villages and legendary towns. You dive into the En-Vau calanque in the morning, stroll through Old Nice in the afternoon and dine facing the sunset in Èze in the evening. Between beaches, Porquerolles and its crystal-clear waters play at being the Caribbean, just 15 minutes by boat from the mainland.
Region6 🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €90-160 a day
Aix has lived on a reservoir of hot water ever since the Romans founded Aquae Sextiae here in 122 BC, and today it has around a hundred fountains, some of which still flow at 34°C. It is also Cézanne's city, where his studio, the Bibémus quarries and his family home can all be visited within a few kilometres of each other.
Region7 🇫🇷 The Côte Vermeille and Collioure
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain, sea at 20 °C · 💶 €80-140 a day
Where the Pyrenees drop into the Mediterranean, between Argelès and the Spanish border, the coast folds into schist coves, headlands and colourful harbours: this is the Côte Vermeille, 30 km of corniche road and four villages, Collioure, Port-Vendres, Banyuls and Cerbère.
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Region8 🇫🇷 Gaillac
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €65-110 a day
Between Albi and Toulouse, Gaillac holds one of the oldest vineyards in France, with grape varieties you'll drink almost nowhere else: braucol, duras, mauzac. Around it, bastides of brick and stone, Lisle-sur-Tarn, Castelnau-de-Montmiral and Puycelsi, line the river or look down on the Grésigne forest.
City9 🇫🇷 Marseille
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain, sea at 20 °C · 💶 €80-160 a day
France's second city, Marseille sits in an amphitheatre of limestone hills open to the Mediterranean, between a Vieux-Port that is still a working harbour and twenty kilometres of calanques reachable by city bus. It is a city that makes no effort to please, with its tired façades, its noisy markets and a light that redeems everything around 6pm.
Region10 🇫🇷 Tarn-et-Garonne
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €65-110 a day
Between the Garonne, the Tarn and the Aveyron, this small département packs in Moissac's Romanesque cloister, Ingres's drawings in Montauban, the Bruniquel castles and the cliffs of the Aveyron gorges. Add the bastides of the Lomagne, Auvillar and its round market hall, and the hatmakers of Caussade.
Region11 🇫🇷 The Verdon Gorge
🌡️ 19 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €80-130 a day
The Verdon has carved a canyon 25 km long and 700 m deep into the limestone, and its water flows through it in a turquoise green like nothing else. You discover it from above, from the viewpoints of the Route des Crêtes where vultures glide beneath your feet, and then from below.
Region12 🇫🇷 Corsica
🌡️ 22 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain, sea at 22 °C · 💶 €100-170 a day
The Isle of Beauty lives up to its name: from the white cliffs of Bonifacio to the red calanques of Piana, Corsica packs in landscapes the mainland can only envy. You swim in the translucent water of Palombaggia in the morning, hike beneath the Aiguilles de Bavella in the afternoon and dine on charcuterie and brocciu in a mountain village in the evening. A mountain in the sea, quite literally.
City13 🇫🇷 Roanne and the Roannais
🌡️ 18 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €75-130 a day
Roanne lives to the rhythm of the Loire and the Troisgros family, holders of three stars for decades, now based in Ouches. Around it, the river plunges into its gorges as far as the Château de la Roche, the canal runs off towards Digoin, and the Côte Roannaise lines up its gamay vines above medieval villages.
City14 🇫🇷 Avignon
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain · 💶 €80-150 a day, bien plus en juillet
Seven popes ruled from Avignon between 1309 and 1377, leaving behind the largest Gothic palace in the world and more than four kilometres of ramparts still intact around the centre. Since 1947, the city has led a double life for three weeks every July, when the Festival and its Off turn every courtyard, chapel and garage into a theatre.
Region15 🇫🇷 The Camargue
🌡️ 21 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain, sea at 20 °C · 💶 €80-130 a day
Between the two arms of the Rhône, the Camargue is a flat land where the sky takes up all the space. You drive between rice fields and sansouïres, a flight of pink flamingos lands in front of you, a gardian rides past with his trident and black bulls graze in the marsh.
Frequently asked questions
Where to go in France in October?
The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence, Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël and the Esterel, Uzès and the Pont du Gard, The Gers and Armagnac and The French Riviera top our ranking for a trip to France in October. In first place, The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence: 22 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain on average over 2015-2024.
Which is the closest destination in France in October?
The Gers and Armagnac, about 1h15 by air from Paris, with 21 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain in October.
Where does it rain least in October among these destinations?
The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence: 6 days of rain on average in October, with 22 °C in the afternoon.
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