How Expensive is the French Riviera?

We spent 8 nights along the French Riviera as a family of 4.  How expensive is the French Riviera with kids?  The answer might surprise you.  Here is a detailed breakdown of our costs, including flights from Spain.

Transportation: $264

• $150: We flew RyanAir from Malaga to Marseille.  With European discount airliners, you can find amazing deals for one-way flights, but pay attention to the price calendar.  By extending our stay in Malaga, Spain, we saved a bundle on the flight cost.
• $38: Flixbus from Marseille to the Nice Airport.  
• $7: local bus from Nice Airport to Cagnes-sur-mer.
• $34: round-trip train to Monaco
• $35: 2 round-trips via train to Antibes for the beaches 

Lodging: $481

Our one night in Marseille was $78 for a studio apartment-style room.  It had multiple units that were accessed from the same interior stairs, so Jon implemented his safety gadgets.

We spent 7 nights at an adequate Airbnb for $403.  It challenged our comfort zones initially, but who needs hot showers anyways?  It had 1 bedroom, a pull-out sofa, a great pool, and a 15-minute walk to the beach.  We had stove-tops both inside and outside on the balcony, an outdoor small convection oven, and a washing machine.  Our clothes dried very well between our travel clothesline and the French weather.  Next time, we would budget accordingly and choose a different level of lodging.

Food: $364

We spent a total of $100 eating out and $264 on groceries over 8 days in the French Riviera.  To combine reasonable health and a reasonable budget, we eat multiple servings of both fresh fruit and a combination of fresh and frozen vegetables every day.  We typically eat meat at one meal (sausage, bacon-wrapped chicken, beef sauce with noodles) per day.  Pizza is on the menu every week: just like at home.

Our “restaurant” meals along the French Rivieria included lunch at the beach on both days we visited Antibes.  Each meal cost about $40 for great food on the beach, which we found very reasonable.  Jon got one of his favorite meals for dinner in Marseille, pita shawarma, along with burgers for the kids, for $20 total.

Entertainment:  $36

We had a great time with virtually no cost while in the French Riviera.  There are plenty of ways to spend money, but there is a lot you can do for free.  Read about what we did with our kids here, but here are the costs:

• $63: Canyon Forest ropes adventure course for 2 with added bike rental.  Worth every penny.
• $12: Rental for a pedal cart along the beach for the girls.
• Musée Océanographique de Monaco: one of the highlights of the week for our kids, definitely plan to visit!  For a family of 4, standard admission will cost about $60 total.
• -$39: It costs $20 to enter the Monte Carlo Casino.  Then, they give you a voucher worth $12 for use in the casino, which Jon turned into $59.  Net cost of -$39!  (Yes, this is both true and sarcastic, read the linked article.)
• FREE!  All the beaches, the Grimaldi Castle, walking around Monaco (including the free visit into the casino entrance), the Le Sentier du Littoral hike, and enjoying all the views.

Pro-tip:  Many of the beaches have private sections and smaller public areas.  To use the private beaches requires renting lounge-chairs, often from a beach-side restaurant.  It is very expensive!  The prices that we found ranged from $20-40 – per person!  A family of 4 could easily spend $150 on chairs for the day: plan to use the public access spots!

Miscellaneous: $37

• $2.50 – access to the bathroom at the Marseille train/bus station
• $18 – sun umbrella for the beach
• $6.50 – generic ibuprofen (Jon is getting old)
• $10 – kids bought another round of sand toys (decided to take them with us to Italy)

There you have it.  How expensive is the French Riviera?  8 days along the French Riviera with kids cost $1,182.  Another way to look at it is that the French Riviera can cost just over $1,000/week for a family of 4, including transportation into France if you follow our example.  We found the French Riviera to be extremely affordable for a family with kids during our trip around the world!

The French Riviera was one of our first stops during a year-long trip around the world!  To see all our travel adventures, head over to our Instagram page.

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If you have questions or tips for traveling to France with kids, let us know!