Have you ever daydreamed about moving to France? If you share my Francophile tendencies than I’m sure the answer is “yes”. Or “oui”! Well, I happen to have friends who have actually done it and agreed to share their story. We met Doug and Toni in New Orleans a number of years ago. While we will miss seeing them on our visits to New Orleans, I must admit I’m living vicariously through their adventures in France. Here is how and why they are now living in Orleans, France.
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Moving to France
Doug and Toni Bookout
“Why don’t we just move to France?” That was the question that kicked it all off. We were living in New Orleans in 2025 and literally watching the country falling apart around us. Louisiana, always in a race to the bottom, was being hit hard with hurricane insurance increases and exorbitant price surges for essential goods and services. Our flood insurance alone increased six times in 18 months. Our $1000 deductible went up to $10,000 for decreased coverage. We were one bad hurricane or one fallen tree away from a $10,000 loss in our retirement savings. And for what?
The writing was on the wall. As my wife Toni and I discussed options, where to go, what to do, I asked the question: “Why don’t we just move to France?” That’s the dream, isn’t it? We had just returned from an amazing anniversary trip to Paris in April, so we were still basking in the afterglow of that experience. There were still several places on our European bucket list to explore, so it didn’t take Toni long to respond with “You know what, let’s do it.” Thus, the adventure began. And so did a lot of hard work.
We quickly listed our home and had a solid offer within just a few weeks, thanks to our good friend, and realtor, Robert Van Meter. We rented a huge storage unit, pared our stuff down and listed a lot of furniture and collectibles on Facebook Market Place. We had garage sales and made dozens of visits to Good Will and local charities. The pickup guys knew Toni by name. We cut deep in our pile of accumulated stuff so we could travel light but left ourselves enough furniture and appliances to reconstitute our lives back in the states if things didn’t work out. Once all that was done, we set our sights forward on our new life in France.
Now at this point it was July 2025 and we were still six months out from our target date on February 1st, 2026. Since you can’t apply for a long stay visa until 90 days before your targeted arrival date, we had some time to kill, but that was a good thing. We squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment so we could condition ourselves for small French accommodations and got busy on the next step. At this point we still had to figure out where we wanted to land in France (Paris was out of the question – too loud, too fast and too expensive). We watched hundreds of YouTube videos by content creators such as Les Frenchies, French Lifestyle by Johnny Benoit, French with Elle and Baguette Bound. All amazing resources we highly recommend.
It was also pretty overwhelming. Here we were, tearing though language studies with Babbel, gathering supporting documentation for our visa application, making farewell tour travel plans to see our families on both U.S. coasts and we still had no idea where we were going in France and if our visas would even be approved. So many choices: Brittany, Occitanie, Lille, Tours, Rouen, Nantes, Bordeaux, Nice. Yikes! How do you choose?
Then one evening I went into the French Quarter to give a New Orleans Dark History Tour (one of my retirement bucket list gigs), and as I discussed the scandalous bon vivant French character behind the founding of the city, The Duke of Orleans, it hit me. Why not there? Orleans. It was perfect. A cosmopolitan city an hour south of Paris by train, but one tenth of the size. Amazing history, great food culture, beautiful architecture, low crime, a renown Cathedral and Museum, situated right on the Loire River. It ticked all the boxes. It was a mini-Paris. I stayed up until sunrise the next morning doing research and watching all the videos I could find. Once Toni agreed, voila, we had our place.
Now the visa application process is no joke. It is one of the major hurdles and stressors of the whole undertaking. Fail at that and you may have to choose another location. You have to state your intent for your visit, in writing, to the French Government. You have to prove your income, all of it. Bank statements, retirement statements, tax returns, paystubs, etc. You also have to have a place to live for three months, already established, before you even walk in for your visa interview. Yep. Before the interview. Not after the approval. So, since we didn’t have a kindly French aunt with a villa in Chambord, we turned to Airbnb. We did our research and found a cute little place a few blocks from the city center that billed itself as Le Charme à Orléans. We booked it for 90 days and added the receipt to our visa application package. So that was done. Whew!
Next we logged into the Official French site on October 1st, completed our application packages, uploaded our supporting documents and waited on pins and needles for a few days until we got the email saying our applications had been accepted for review. But that didn’t mean we were done. Nope. Not by a long shot. You have to go online and book a face-to-face interview on the vendor site nearest to you so you can come in and present the whole package, with all your legal documents (passports, I.D.s, marriage certificates, birth certificates, etc.) to a representative for a quality control check and bio-metric capture session. The closest office to us in New Orleans was Atlanta, GA. So, we were driving to Atlanta.
Now here’s where I have some advice. Before we did any of the visa processes we had an online consultation with a visa consultant. They were very reputable and highly recommended. When they moved to France, years earlier, they were a small family, husband, wife and small daughter. They told us when they went in for the interview they all went in to see the representative together. They all sat down in the same room, went through their package and everything was great. Three applications (one of each of them) consolidated into one package. Cool. So that’s how I put ours together.
We drive to Atlanta, check into our hotel, have a great dinner and get up the next morning excited and ready to go. We arrive early for our appointment, because that’s just what we do. The security guard greets us at the building, checks our I.D.s and tells us each to take a number. Um, wait. We’re here together. “Yes but”, she explains, “you will both have to meet with the interviewer separately.” But we have one package. “No”, she explains, “you should have two. One complete package for each of you.” Rut Roh. Apparently since our consultant went through the process the French Government had changed vendors and these guys, they did things differently. So, we had to impose on them to make copies of our shared supporting documents so we both had a full set. It cost us an additional $40 and didn’t make the best impression. We had caused an inconvenience, and they politely, and very Frenchly, made sure we knew it. That was my first heart attack of the day.
The second came later, during the accommodations portion of the interview, as I proudly pulled out my 90-day Airbnb receipt and passed it across the desk to my interviewer. She looked at it, twisted her mouth, and shook her head. “It should be at least 91 days,” she replied. What? But the requirement says 90 days. “Yes, but you can stay on your passport for 90 and you want to let them know you’re serious, so you should have booked over that.” I panicked, heart palpitations, sweating profusely, the whole deal. She told me to relax and that if I wanted to I could give them an extension receipt on the stay. I had one hour. No pressure. I finished my interview, completed my biometrics with a very sweet lady and immediately messaged our host in France, six hours ahead of us Atlanta time.
Fortunately, he responded within about 15 minutes and I had the extension. Quite possibly the longest 15 minutes of my life. Whew! We drove from there to North Carolina to see my family with me fully believing that I had blown the whole thing and we wouldn’t get approved. When we returned to New Orleans the next week a special courier dropped off our passports and when we opened them they were stamped “Welcome to France!” We had done it. Génial!
From there everything went like clockwork. We flew out on January 31st and arrived in France the next morning (a Sunday) to short immigration lines and a taxi waiting for us at the curb. We had ourselves, the clothes on our backs, and 4 large suitcases to start our lives over again, that was it. An hour’s train ride later we were in our new city, dropping off our stuff and heading out to the closest boulangerie for lunch. Our life in France had begun.
The Airbnb exceeded all our expectations. A very charming 2nd floor two-bedroom apartment in an old medieval half timbre building with vaulted ceilings and all the amenities. It became our base of operations as we explored our new city, headed to Paris for day trips, and got serious about finding a long stay rental apartment after our 98-day Airbnb contract expired. We started that process 60 days out, and I’m glad we did. We hit wall after wall after wall with realtors whose properties had insurance clauses stating they could only rent to French nationals. Great places, just not for us. We were worried, but we stayed on it.
That’s also when we experienced the French causality loop. A frustrating catch-22 where you need a permanent address to get a French phone number and bank account, but also a French phone number and bank account to get a permanent address. Yes, it’s really a thing.
One evening I found a great little apartment listing through Garantme Insurance service. I messaged the realtor, explained that we were expats, had the Dossier Facile (French Government approval documents), a rental guarantor policy through Garantme and a French Bank account with Bunq. I hit send and went to bed.
The next morning, I received a wonderful email from an agent named Corrine who said she represented clients who did not have French only clauses in their agreements, that she understood our situation and would be happy to help us. The next week she found our dream apartment, fully furnished, in the City Centre, for an amazing price. All we had to do was add art and personal touches. She literally made our dream come true and all because I hit send on a property I thought was a long shot.
So now we’re doing it, one step at a time and learning something new every day. We have zero regrets. And seriously, if we can do it, so can you. Bonne chance!
A few last tips; The language barrier is real, so if you’re not fluent, what we call “Survival French” is a necessity. An app called Pretty Fluent is great for that. It teaches you how to set the stage for transactional encounters (restaurants, grocery stores, boulangeries, etc.). And don’t forget to say Bonjour (during the day) and Bonsoir (at night). It’s essential. I also recommend Wise for international bank transfers. Fast, safe, convenient and great conversion rates.
P.S. I forgot to mention to bring your Amazon fire-stick with you so you can keep all your American programming in France. It’s been a lifesaver for us!
Dee’s notes: Thank you so much to Doug for sharing this experience with us all! Doug has written a book about his experiences as a New Orleans tour guide. We’ve taken his ghost tour twice and he was fabulous! Here is his book:
Guiding Spirits: The Haunting Experiences of a New Orleans Tour Guide
New Orleans, known the world over as one of the darkest, grittiest and most haunted tourist destinations imaginable. A place where we literally walk on the bones of the dead, party like there’s no tomorrow and revel in sin and vice. But, is it really that way, or is it all just hype for the almighty tourist dollar? Here’s your chance to take a no holds barred, behind the scenes, deep dive into these twisted goings on with some of the top tour guides in the city. These are our stories, some amusing, others, downright terrifying. So if you dare, take a walk with us and experience what it is truly like…Guiding Spirits.
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