Laura McCullagh

In August last year my mom and I embarked on a lengthy roadtrip across the Brittany/Bretagne region of France. It was an amazing trip and we experienced so many wonderful ‘stars aligning’ moments and co-incidences while also seeing so many beautiful places and meeting loads of lovely people. Why Brittany? My mom spent a year there 40 years ago and always wanted to return. So we did. Over 18 days we drove just over 1700km covering Rennes, Cléden-Cap-Sizun, Paimpol, Carnac and loads of places in between.

Going during the height of the French summer holidays meant there were a lot of other people (tourists) around, and a lot of camper vans on the roads (which was a hectic additional stress, as if driving on the other side of the road and negotiating infinite traffic circles wasn’t harrowing enough) and it meant heat which wasn’t great, however it also meant festivals, parades and general celebratory activities all over the place which was amazing.

While I’d planned this trip for my mom, I snuck in a few activities for myself too – the highlight of which was seeing one of my all-time favourite bands giving an anniversary performance of one of my all-time favourite albums: watching Interpol and hearing Turn on the Bright Lights live at Saint-Malo’s La Route du Rock festival was a magical experience and definite trip (life!) highlight.

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One month till @irenemcc and I are embarking on our big adventure: a roadtrip through Brittany! Je ne parle français and traffic circles are one of my least favourite things so it's all pretty nerve-wracking but also super exciting, can't wait! 🌞

A post shared by Laura McCullagh (@laura.mcc_za) on Jul 10, 2017 at 4:08am PDT

Belated travel blogging seems to be becoming somewhat of a tradition for me; I’ll be using the next few posts to share my photos and memories of this time last year. I’ll also write a bit about the routes we took and the places we stayed. When planning the trip I joked that our budget would allow us to stay in a combination of ”chateau’s and shitholes” but really even the cheapest places we stayed at were great and I’ll happily share and recommend all of them.

If you travel and you don’t use Booking.com you really should it’s the best! I’m not 100% sure how the referral codes work but try mine if you haven’t used one before for a discount after your trip: https://www.booking.com/s/35_6/rattsi32

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BZH 2017: Intro  |  Pt 1  |  Pt 2  |  Pt 3  |  Pt 4  |  Paimpol 2017 – Festival du Chant de Marin 
Pt 5  |  Pt 6  |  Pt 7  |  Pt 8  |  Pt 9 |  Pt 10  | Pt 11  |  Pt 12  |  Saint-Malo: La Route du Rock Festival
Pt 13  |  Pt 14  |  Pt 15  |  pt 16  |  Pt 17  |  Pt 18