How to rent a van in France?

Are you leaving for a travelling trip on French roads? Here's our mini guide to rent a van in France!

Renting a van in France yes, but which one? The Hexagon is rich in must-see sites, landscapes and historical monuments. On the programme, discovering the invaluable treasures of French culture and natural landscapes. You will not have enough of one trip to see everything. Making a van road trip allows to avoid hotels and to travel freely.

Let's discover our guide to rent a van in France! After our advice, the rental will be a game of children.

How to choose a van?

Renting a van makes it possible to swivel the roads while being more comfortable than camping in the tent or in a sedan car. The van is also more manageable and discreet than a motorhome. The “vanlife” gives a lot of freedoms, but comfort is nevertheless more rudimentary: there is not always a shower, toilet or fitted kitchen.

The choice of the van depends on the budget and also on the desired services (size of the van, length of the van, number of beds, kitchen or not, electricity or not, autonomy or camping, duration of the trip, etc.). As soon as these needs are identified, you can choose from several types of vans.

Compact vans

Compact van is called those whose height does not exceed two metres. The compact vans are true descendants of the combination Volkswagen with flowers of the hippie era. These vehicles therefore offer a compact template that allows you to pass under the porticoes that allow you to enter the parking lot.

In addition, you stay in category 1 of highway tolls, as well as all cars. These are utilities whose emblematic is the Carrier (T3 to T6) from Volkswagen. Others (Renault, Ford, Peugeot, Mercedes) offer this type of van. Most of these vans have a liftable roof, which allows you to stand on board. This is the ideal for cooking if the vehicle is fitted in this direction. You can insert a double bed to sleep on the roof, and travel up to 5 people with reversible benches in the back.

Finally, most equipped vans include a kitchen block with refrigerator, sink and water reserves. Sometimes the vans also have a sanitary corner with toilet and shower.

Furnished vans

If you want to have more comfort, you can also opt for a fitted van. This vehicle is located between the motorhome and the compact van. More discreet than the camper and more spacious than the van, the van is a great option if you want to enjoy the space without any manipulation of seats or benches.

On board you will find a fixed bed (sometimes two bunk beds), a toilet (WC, sink, shower), a kitchen corner and a small living room. The advantage is the possibility of returning the seats to enlarge the “living” space in the day. At night, the living room turns into a room again.

Vans and vans

Would you like to venture on less accessible paths to visit France outside the beaten paths? You must be able to roll on non-bitumen surfaces (sable, earth, mud, snow...). The so-called armoured vans, or any terrain, are equipped with suitable tires and a limited slip differential. On the other hand, some even have an enhanced chassis with buffalo, to cross bumps or obstacles that would be inaccessible to the wheel of a compact van.

These 4×4 vans therefore offer additional comfort: that of travelling in a hand-held vehicle!

High-end vans

Cheaper than all other vans, high-end vans offer exemplary service quality. Very equipped, they allow to face all seasons of the year and extreme temperatures.

Where to find a van rental in France?

To rent a van in France, the best way to book your rental online. For this, there are several booking platforms among individuals. The other way is to go through a van rental agency. To book an online van, the platform Yescapa has imposed itself as a reference in this matter. And the research process is simple:

• Identify the area where to rent your vehicle,
• Set your preferences: sleeping, mileage, daily rate, pets allowed or not, etc.,
• Choose your benefits: toilet, kitchen, refrigerator, liftable roof.

To compare, other providers exist on the market: Wikicampers, Outdoorsy , Drivy, Vanloc, Hapee, Campanda.

What is the price of a van rental in France?

As much as you can say immediately: it is not because a van is less voluminous than a motorhome that its rental will be less expensive. Renting a van in France costs relatively expensive. On the Yescapa platform, renting a van in France costs on average 103€ a day. We have chosen the estimated fictitious date from 15 to 16 May 2020.

To rent vehicles of good quality, count instead around 150 to 200€ a day. This may seem paradoxical, but compact vans are more expensive than fitted vans. The price, finally, will logically fluctuate depending on the type of van, the number of beds, the mileage to be covered, or the seniority of the vehicle.

Where to travel in van from France?

This is now a fundamental question: renting a van in France, okay, but where to travel? France offers an incredible diversity of places to go. Here are some ideas of itineraries to explore in van.

Stay in France

• Visit the north of France in a month: Paris, Caen, the landing beaches, the Cotentin, the Mont-Saint-Michel, Rennes, la Breton coast, Brest, Nantes, the Châteaux de la Loire, Tours, Orleans, Parc de la Forêt d’Orient,Alsace and the Vosges massif,
• Visit the south of France in a month: Bordeaux, the island of Ré, the island of Oleron, Basque coast, the Pyrenees, Toulouse, the park of Haut-Languedoc, the Cathar Castles, Canal du Midi, Sète, Montpellier, the Gorges de l’Hérault, the Gorges de l’HéraultArdèche, Les Cévennes, les volcanoes d’Auvergne, Lyon, le Vercors, Grenoble, la Drôme Provençale, the Luberon, the Var coast.

Discover Europe

France opens the door to beautiful destinations to visit in Europe. Here's where to go from France:

• From Toulouse: the Albères chain, the Vermeille coast (Collioure, Banyuls and wines), Cadaqués, the Catalonia, Valencia, Chulilla and Chera-Sot Nature Park, Murcia, Cartagena, the Sierra de la Muela Cabo Tiñoso y Roldan, Granada and the Costa del Sol,
• From Lyon : Grenoble, Chambéry, Annecy, Genève, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Turin, Milan, les lakes in northern Italy (Light Lake, Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano, Lake Como, Verona, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples,
• From Nice: Genoa, Venice, Ljubljana, Budapest, Belgrade, Podgorica, Kotor, Tirana, Ohrid, Thessaloniki, Athens,
• From Strasbourg Lake Constance, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Malmö, Göteborg, Stockholm.

You now have all the cards in hand to rent a van in France? The roads are waiting for you!