Our French gîte: the peace of Landes is perfect escape from tourist traps

If Nigel Bond, 56, was given a test of French vocabulary relating to the kitchen or bathroom, he would score an A. 

Évier, robinet, placard, plan de travail, luminaire, colle, enduit and joint all roll off his tongue easily, thanks largely to his hard work renovating an 1830s property in Moustey, a village of 680 inhabitants in Landes.

“When I first arrived, my French vocabulary of bricolage items increased much faster than any other area,” he laughs.

L’Airial Moustey, as the house is called, is where Mr Bond envisages living out the second part of his life.

He had long aspired to quit work before 50 and enjoy a slower pace of life in a quiet countryside village after years living abroad in big cities doing various jobs within the United Nations.

However, he also knew he wanted to avoid traditional expat traps.

‘Why would a Brit be interested in Moustey when the expat community tends to buy around the more popular coastal locations of Mimizan and Biscarosse?’ his friends asked him. 

“Living somewhere like Saint-Emilion would be a nightmare to me,” says Nigel. 

Ticked all boxes

“Although a beautiful city, it does not have any atmosphere because it is overrun by tourists.”

The Moustey property ticked all his boxes: an hour away from the beach and a big city, and in an area with no other British expats. 

He says he quickly eliminated southern France for being too expensive, crowded and “chichi”.

After viewing the property, Nigel requested to live in it for a week to see how he liked it. During this time he also met Vincent Ichard, the mayor.

He eventually bought the house in September 2016 for €295,000 and moved in properly in January 2018.

He now lives in L’Airial Moustey from September to May. For the rest of the year, he rents it out while he tours Europe by car with his dog Sami, who was rescued from the streets of Kabul.

The property is branded a ‘real get-away-from-it-all’ location.

Read more: Has France’s reform of tax on holiday rental properties changed?

Workaways

It is surrounded by pine and oak trees, completely secluded and only reachable from the dead-end Chemin de la Pellette road, 3km north-east of the village.

Nigel accepts English-speaking ‘workawayers’ (volunteers who contribute a pre-agreed amount of time per day in exchange for lodging) at his property in September and October to help him maintain the home and garden.

“Being rather linguistically challenged, I have a few tips for them on how to survive in an unfamiliar foreign tongue,” he says, having travelled to more than 100 countries and lived and worked in 12 different countries on four continents.

“Hearing people speak English at the bakery always suggests they are Mr Bond’s guests,” the village’s mayor, Mr Ichard, joked to The Connexion.

Nigel’s risk of moving to France seems to have paid off.

“I earn enough money to live on year-round without having to work much during the winter,” he says.

Guest bookings for this summer are already full and he has started accepting reservations for 2026. He is particularly pleased that none of his guests, mostly British and other foreigners, have caused any serious damage or problems in the time he has been renting the property out.

“French bureaucracy is not as horrendous as you think,” he says, when questioned on what else he has learned since opening his meublé de tourisme / location saisonnière business.

That was particularly true during the Covid period, when Nigel was eligible for state aid thanks to tax returns showing a healthy rental revenue.

Only two things worry him.

First, the government’s unpredictable policy regarding rule changes for Airbnb businesses and VAT tax. 

Second, the difficulty setting accommodation prices for his guests because of the lack of local competition.

Read more: ‘We took a bread oven building left dormant for centuries and gave it a new lease of life’

What about learning French?

As surprising as it is for someone who has spent nearly half of his life travelling around the world, Nigel confesses not having a brain for languages.

He passed his B1 recently as part of his application for French citizenship.

Communicating with bureaucracy is “not bad”, he says, maybe because his brain works well around technical terms, much like his aptitude for picking up DIY vocabulary.“The French I most want to have is French à table, so I can communicate better with friends because everybody speaks at the same time and people eat all the words,” he says.

“I am still taking French lessons, trying to improve. But it is very frustrating.”