Holidays in Vendee

Travelling to the Vendee by car

You can use the usual Michelin or Mappy websites for planning your trip to the Vendee and getting to your holiday cottage, or rely on your GPS/Sat-Nav when in France, but beware of errors and omissions. Postcodes in France relate to a large area, often several villages or a vast area around a town so you can't just use the postcode to pinpoint a holiday property on a map website or with a Sat-Nav. Some hamlets or small groups of houses ("lieu-dit" in French) may not even be listed.
We recommend that once your are in the general area you make use of the detailed arrival instructions that will be provided with your holiday accommodation paperwork, as these will be based on real local knowledge.

Choosing your channel crossing

If you are planning a sea crossing, the following chart of distances from the ferry ports will help you in deciding on your holiday travel arrangements.
The shortest sea crossing times from the UK to France are Calais and Cherbourg.
For the Vendee, the shortest drive in France is from St Malo (only 3 hours to central Vendee), followed by Caen and Cherbourg. From Ireland it's usually to the port of Roscoff, which is under 4 hours drive to central Vendee. The tunnel offers a good choice with flexible crossings for those living in south east UK, or travelling down from the north, where the port destination is less important to the travel time. Bear in mind that this gives the longest journey in France - count on 7 hours driving.
The distances below are calculated to the town of Lucon which is roughly central in the south Vendee, by the usual road route. Your holiday property may vary from this depending on its exact location.

List of the cross channel ferry routes to France

See below for links to the ferry companies.
This section is no longer accurate, we will update it as soon as possible.

UK & Ireland Ports	Destination Port	Ferry Company
Dover	Boulogne	LD Lines
Portsmouth	Caen	Brittany Ferries
Dover	Calais	P&O Ferries
Folkestone	Calais	Eurotunnel
Portsmouth	Cherbourg	Brittany Ferries
Rosslare	Cherbourg	Celtic Link Ferries
Dublin	Cherbourg	Irish Ferries
Rosslare	Cherbourg	Irish Ferries
Poole	Cherbourg	Brittany Ferries
Dover	Dieppe	LD Lines
Newhaven	Dieppe	LD Lines
Dover	Dunkerque	Norfolkline
Portsmouth	Le Havre	LD Lines
Cork	Roscoff	Brittany Ferries
Rosslare	Roscoff	Irish Ferries
Plymouth	Roscoff	Brittany Ferries
Poole	St Malo	Condor Ferries
Weymouth	St Malo	Condor Ferries
Jersey	St Malo	Condor Ferries
Guernsey	St Malo	Condor Ferries
Portsmouth	St Malo	Brittany Ferries
Poole	St Malo	Condor Ferries

Also see our Vendee fly-drive page for air travel to the Vendee. Flying is a practical alternative to taking the ferry accross the channel. It can offer a good value solution for couples and smaller families by using the low cost budget airlines. You can arrive at either Nantes or La Rochelle airports. Car hire is available at both of these.

Great accommodation of all types...

Check out our Vendee Directory to find your ideal rural gite, country cottage, or coastal villa, most with swimming pools. Find local attractions, places to vist, restaurants and more... Search by category or by map.

Featured cottages, gites and villas in the Vendee

Our partners propose...

Useful links...

• Brittany Ferries
• Eurotunnel
• Condor Ferries
• P&O Ferries
• LD Lines
• Irish Ferries