This post is also available in: Français (French)
Hello my dreamers,
I hope you’re doing well 🙂
Today, I start a new chapter of travel. I take you to Corsica (Southern Corsica more precisely) where I stayed with my boyfriend for 8 days, at the end of August 2021.
I was the one who chose the south because in photos, the landscapes of the south attracted me a little more but it is sure that I will go north one day. Afterward, the big difference I heard between the north and the south is that the south is more conservative.
Oh and for those wondering if the rumor that Corsicans are racist, is true…I just want to tell you that we are an Asian couple (with my boyfriend who is dark-skinned) and we had no problem during our whole stay. We must not make generalizations. Each individual is unique and in fact, there are more good people than we think.
Anyway, in this first short article, I am going to tell you the little things that I think are useful to know for a trip to Corsica.
Here is the summary of this article:
- Roads
- Payment
- Budget
-
- Plane tickets
- Car rental, fuel, and parking
- Airbnb rental
- Groceries
- Total addition
Roads
There are no “big” roads, only small roads, sometimes with slopes, and where the maximum authorized speed is mostly limited to 80km/h. Also, be careful of wild animals, especially at night because roads are not very well-lit. There are almost no traffic lights and few streetlights.
Waste sorting bins are not numerous but they are found on the side of the road or in certain villages.
Finally, avoid honking a Corsican because it is equivalent to an insult!
Payment
In some places, there is no network. Which can be annoying if you need to use the internet but also if you want to pay by credit card. The card machine cannot access the network, so you will have to pay in cash. Always have cash on you. If you find an ATM, I advise you not to wait for the next one to withdraw money because there are not many of them. There are so few ATMs that some are empty. We were only able to withdraw from the post office’s ATM in Figari.
Budget
We all know that staying on the Island of Beauty is expensive because it is a destination that many of us dream of. But every dream has a cost 😬 By telling you about my own experience, I hope to help give you some idea of the budget you would need for a trip to Corsica.
1) Plane tickets
To go to Corsica, we took a Ryanair flight from Bordeaux to Figari, only with cabin baggage. This journey of a little less than 2 hours cost both of us 99€ + 18€ for the choice of our seats. That is a total of 117€.
For the return, we took an Air France flight from Figari to Paris, with a 2-hour stopover in Nantes. It cost 300€ + 7€ for the Trip and Tree program, which consists of offsetting our carbon footprint by planting trees. For our journey, the cost was 3€50 per person. It is not mandatory but I wanted to pay for it. I think it’s a very good idea of Air France.
2) Car rental, fuel, and parking
In Corsica, you have to rent a car (unless you come with your own car by ferry from the metropolis), otherwise, you cannot go anywhere. We rented a small Ford Fiesta (petrol) from Avis Budget, which was easy to park and go everywhere with. We paid 360€ for rental and 60€ for fuel, for 500 km traveled in 8 days. Regarding parking, we paid about 16€ in total because we found several free parking lots.
3) Airbnb rental
By looking for the cheapest accommodation, I saw that the price of 1 night was at least 50€. But at that price, it was modest accommodation and not necessarily well located. In the end, I preferred to pay more. Not to be better located, since anyway, we had to use the car we had rented. I preferred to pay more to have a beautiful and comfortable accommodation. And I don’t regret it at all.
Instead of renting accommodation located in the city center, which is small and expensive, I preferred to rent a spacious, comfortable, well-equipped house, quiet in the middle of nature, with a garden not overlooked. For me, who lives in an apartment without a garden, in a Parisian suburb, that is what I call a vacation. In addition, we made friends with a nice dog and a very endearing cat who came to visit us.
Our Airbnb was a bit pricey but it was the best I had found. We felt great there, we lacked nothing, it was perfect. We were not near places of interest but while driving, we saw beautiful landscapes, our car was fuel efficient, and moreover, the traffic was not dense at all.
It was a house for 4 people, located in Figari (only 10 minutes from Figari airport and 30 minutes from Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio) and rented by a lovely hostess, at the price of 615€.
4) Groceries
To limit expenses, we mostly ate at home. Near our accommodation, in Figari, we only had the Utile and Spar convenience stores. But in Porto-Vecchio, we found a big Géant Casino. For our entire stay, we had about 200€ worth of groceries (but not just food).
I cannot say the prices were very cheap. But once, we were entitled to a 10€ discount because we had spent 100€ on groceries the previous time. And at Géant Casino, I had seen that from a purchase of 100€, customers were entitled to a 20€ discount. Therefore, I advise you to see if there are these kinds of discounts in the store where you do your shopping and thus, stock up on groceries at once to be able to take advantage of them.
5) Total addition
- Plane tickets: 424€
- Car rental: 360€
- Fuel: 60€
- Car park: 16€
- Airbnb rental: 615€
- Groceries: around 200€
This makes a total of 1675€, not including meals at the restaurant and activities which are optional. Afterward, I will write 2 articles to talk about it in more detail.
So if we count the same things to pay as us, I would say that you would need at least a budget of around 1500€. But you can spend less because you can, for example, come to Corsica by car, at another period, rent cheaper accommodation, etc. If you come with your own car, you need to be comfortable driving it on small roads. This was not the case for my boyfriend and his long car 😬
That’s all for this first article about Corsica, which I hope will be useful to you 🙂 In my next article, I will share with you some good restaurants.
And you, have you ever been to Corsica? North or south?
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What do you think ?