Freebooters - an independent traveler's view of France and its history.

Want to travel or live in France? Let me show you things you’d never find….

Want to find a place in France your friends don’t know about?

Want to know more about French food, drink or culture?

Dreaming about owning a home in France?

Want help finding something about France today or in days gone by?

Come into my world, and expand your own.

I'M MOVING ON

As of June 2007, I have ceased to add any articles to France for Freebooters, partly because its structure is old-fashioned and hard work to manage. I encourage any of you who are looking for interesting articles about France to take a look at the Travellers' Tales section of lookat-france.com This thoroughly modern site is going to take quite a while to complete, but there should be enough there already to whet your appetite.

Join the Club

If you enjoy Freebooters, TELL YOUR FRIENDS. That's how most of you found this site.

Use the Notice Board to ask questions and find new friends. After six months or more of neglect, I'm looking after it again. My apologies to those of you who tried to post while I was retreating from Africa to France.

Browse. Take your time. Follow links in the box below, or scroll down and click on a link to a category in the All Articles List

Oh... one other thing: try clicking on the picture in the top right corner - You'll find offers for free brochures. I wouldn't have bothered to include it, but I found that quite a few of the packages fit rather well with my goal of showing you things you'd never find on mainstream travel sites.

Don't just select a country - select an activity too. I tried France>Painting>Rousillon and found a real gem. It's an excellent landscape painting course, but it's also based in Collioure. If you don't know about Collioure, take a look at the Collioure Tourist Office Site (in English)

A little bird told me....

Masked Weaver. (c) Mike

Kindom-Hockings 2003

Old Citroën van. (c) Keith Kellett 2003.

That it was time I forgot Africa and trains and things, and got back to France and French Food.

Phyll and I left Africa in July 2004, complete with 6 dogs and 5 cats,but it's taken this long to get enough sorted out to leave time to attend to the Freebooters website. I'm slowly doing things behuind the scenes to make the site more efficient, but at last I've done something you'll notice - add new articles.
I'll be showing a lot more images than before, and I hope some of them will be interesting enough for you to want to buy prints. Take a look at a small photo gallery that I've used to test my ideas. I've even managed to put the photos in frames and mounts, to give an idea of what I hope to be able to offer for sale.
I have also launched a new site, Don't Stop the World - I'm enjoying the ride, for everything except France. I'll use its leaner, cleaner presentation and lavish illustration as the model for all future Freebooters articles, too. Take a look.

One of the things that has frequently distracted my attention from working in this site is the worldwide community Kay and Dave McMahon have built up around the BritishExpat.com web site, and the associated BritishExpat Forum . The main site is a mine of useful information, leavened with contributions from several very competent writers with a light-hearted touch.

Dr Graeme Porte (Dr Grimy, as his students call him) recounts hilarious tales of optimism and misunderstandings derived from his efforts at teaching English as a Foreign Language to Spaniards.

Mike Clark runs a nursery on the north coast of Scotland, and contributes to both the main site and the forum, on subjects ranging from gardening to single malt scotch, in English and in Doric, the dialect of the Scots language that comes from around Aberdeen. He has been kind enough to provide me with an article about moving plants around Europe, based on his painstaking research within the depths of UK bureaucracy.

At last, I've made an effort myself. Take a look at French Sex - the death of a stereoptype

Vivienne Mackie's latest tale concerns a Statue of Liberty in France. Enjoy the new look for Freebooters pages, based on ideas developed for Don't Stop the World.

Trevor Dykes is a more recent arrival at Britishexpat.com, and is a bit of an enigma. He has let me have an article giving a light-hearted but informative look at a fossil site under a French rubbish tip, but he also writes tales about the mythical Dorset village of Dipwytch, created originally as a form of revenge on those Nigerians who keep offering you millions of dollars for help in laundering even more mythical ill-gotten gains.
* * *

How about taking a look at a couple of reviews from Keith Kellett? First, George East's French Kisses.

Then a new magazine for independent travellers who do not fly. Happy Trails.

I owe an apology to Kim Knopp for the time it has taken me to publish his Costa Brava article. If you find yourself near the eastern end of the Pyrenees, why not do as he did, and take a quick trip into Spain (especially if you already speak a bit of Spanish).

Ever been on the Troglodyte Tour? Vivienne Mackie, born and educated in Zimbabwe, is now Fiesta Editor for JustSayGo.com . Her article tells of an unusual tour - and provides pictures.

Janni Oldham is an Australian with an adventurous spirit who also teaches cooking back home. Follow her and her friend Ali as they travel round Italy and France - and pick up a few excellent tips, too.

Want to travel or live in France? Let me show you things you’d never find….

I'M MOVING ON

Fond of Travellers’ Tales and Pictures?

Join the Club