How to spend 6 months in Provence every year

When author and journalist Sheryle Bagwell bought a French village house with her husband Michael, it cost about the price of a Sydney garage. Nearly ten years on, it’s not worth much more – but it’s the lifestyle that keeps them there.

My husband and I live in the rhythm of a perpetual summer: six months in Provence and six in Sydney. As soon as May rolls around, we begin moving our clothes and other personal belongings to our Bondi garage. We make an inventory of what is stored, and what we carry with us, so we don’t bring back anything we don’t need. With the help of our long-time agent, we find tenants willing to rent our beachside, furnished apartment for only six months (not too hard in Sydney), with the promise that they’ll take care of our balcony plants (a little harder). We close our gas and electricity accounts, and buy two one-way tickets out of the country, because we’re never sure of our exact return date or the route we might likely take to get back home. And then we’re off.

Nearly a decade ago now, we bought an old stone house in the centre of a little village in northern Provence – population 700 - for the price of a garage in our part of Sydney. Friends thought we were crazy: ‘Just how often are you going to use a house on the other side of the world?’ they asked.

At first, it wasn’t that often; we both had full-on fulltime jobs as journalists which made overseas holiday travel difficult. But then we got older, Covid came and re-set our priorities, and we took an early off-ramp from our career paths. We became greyish nomads but with a second home in France rather than in a camper van. We leave Sydney when sea temperatures at our beloved Bondi start to fall below 20 degrees and when the flower market comes to our village in Provence, heralding the arrival of the northern spring. As our French friends say, we’re living our new life à cheval sur deux pays; we straddle two countries enjoying the fierce sunshine of two hemispheres.

Straddling two countries is not as painful as it sounds, but it does require determination, planning and commitment. We have two houses to maintain, two sets of clothes to keep track of, two lots of household bills to pay, two sets of friends to keep up with, two cars, two motorbikes - two different lives to live.

I often go looking for a book or a dress in one of our homes and realise it’s in storage on the other side of the world. I keep up with friends and family back in Australia via social media, although it’s clearly not as satisfying as sharing a laugh over a cup of coffee or a meal. I feed the stray cats at our French back door and do short-term fostering stints with rescue cats in Sydney. But it’s not the same as having a companion animal all year round.

Yet I wouldn’t give up this lifestyle for, yes, the world. We love France but I knew from my first, life-altering visit to Paris in my thirties that I would never feel French enough to be ever able to make it my permanent home. Australia and its parochial politics drive me mad, but not enough to make me turn away for good from its light, its beauty and, yes, its culture. I want to be that emigrant who regularly returns home. I do not suffer from homelessness, just home-looseness.

We chose rural France for the lower cost of living and the slower pace of life. What I mostly enjoy though is the sense of detachment that comes with living in two places, even if it is at times unsettling. I get to experience the world through the lens of two different cultures, two languages and two communities on opposite sides of the world.

In Australia, I laugh with the kookaburras and swim in the open sea; in France, I savour Provence’s luscious and plentiful figs in summer and gaze at the silver moonlight filtering through the plane trees. If I could live in two countries at the same time I would. Maybe one day the tech bros’ rocket ships will open that door; it would be a huge selling point.

Yes, I know I am lucky and privileged to be living this life. Yet in this globalised world, it is a life that’s within reach of many of us; we have only to seize it. In France, we have an inexpensive house in the countryside and buy the cheapest airfares available. We held down good jobs for most of our working lives, which allowed us to accumulate enough superannuation savings to fund our retirement years. We have Australian and Irish passports, which makes it much easier to move between Australia and Europe, although we know plenty of Australians, Americans and now Brits who do the same as us, but on accessible long-term visas.

As self-funded, reasonably well-off retirees who aim to spend half their pot of savings in France, we are mostly welcome with open arms. But we are also careful not to attract too much attention from the notorious French bureaucracy.

We don’t rent out our Provencal house when we are in Australia or earn any money in France. This helps us to remain Australian residents for tax purposes, which we also do by limiting our time in France to under six months (183 days is the rule) and declaring Australia as our primary residence.

To stay longer in France risks tipping us into the murky world of the French tax system, which we are very keen to avoid. That could result in our pot of super, which is tax-free in Australia for over 60s, being treated as income in France and thus subject to progressive tax rates of up to 45 per cent! The French tax rules are opaque when it comes to the treatment of Australian super, but we don’t intend to test them anytime soon. Needless to say, always seek sound financial advice before retiring to another country.

There are taxes, however, that non-resident homeowners in France must pay – including a property tax known as taxe foncière, as well as the housing tax known as taxe d’habitation paid by all second-home owners. These are levied based on the size and value of your house – in our case, we pay a total of around 1400 euros in both taxes each year.

A second home is also subject to capital gains tax (as much as 36 per cent on the profit of the sale) when you do sell – but given the property market remains pretty soft for houses like ours in tiny French villages, we are not too concerned about capital gains. After ten years, we still think we’d be lucky to get our money back, including the extra we’ve spent on modest renovations if we were to sell our house now.

Brexit put a big dampener on the French rural property market, particularly for houses like ours with two floors (steep stone stairs, while quaint and attractive in your fifties, are less so after you pass sixty or so) and no land (we opted for a terrace overlooking the village square rather than a big back yard; there is nothing sadder, and more of a red flag to burglars, than an empty house surrounded by weeds.)

Yet we didn’t buy our house as a financial investment; it was always an investment in lifestyle. We made the choice to chase our dreams while we were still capable of doing so, while we were relatively young and healthy. After a few months of post-career self-doubt (who am I if I don’t work?), I too became glad to be free of the demands of a media career. 

In France, I also found time to reflect on my life and that of my long dead mother whose dreams of travelling to France I was now fulfilling. After finding an old edition of the selected letters by the famed French 17^th century writer Madame de Sévigné in the attic of our new Provencal house, I decided to write my own book. In her letters, Madame de Sévigné would advise her daughter to live with all her senses wide open. I too wanted to do that too.

But it also helps that in France, we also have access to state health care. Under a 2016 law, residents who reside for three consecutive months are eligible to register for L’Assurance Maladie , which covers about 70 per cent of our GP costs and 80 per cent of hospital costs. But like everywhere, the political sands are shifting in France towards immigration -- one French MP has already proposed withdrawing universal healthcare protection for non-EU nationals.

But such changes, should they be introduced, won’t dampen our love for the place. As a part-time expat, I may not have much to offer France, except my feeble Australian dollars and my deep affection. I’m a bystander in a country whose ways I don’t always comprehend. I am like the stray cat at the back door of our French house, pushing its nose against the glass door, trying to peek in. Yet even a stray cat leaves a trace on the glass. Maybe what I leave behind is my perspective; I offer my French friends an opportunity to see their country through a foreigner’s eyes. Perhaps that’s enough.

 Published in The Australian Financial Review - February 26, 2026.

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/how-to-spend-six-months-in-provence-every-year-20260205-p5nzyd