In 2012 I set up The Good Life France website to keep in touch with family and friends from France, but it rapidly became a website for everyone. From less than 500 visitors in its first month to 60,000 in six months and now reaching more than 1.5 million people each month.
It is a dream come true and my dream job.
It’s a little bit of a bigger team now but I continue to be the editor of the magazine and website. I write about the wonderful places I visit in France and share my insider knowledge and secret places. We work with tourist offices and PR companies throughout France to make sure we know what’s new and what’s great so we can share it.
The Good Life France also works with companies and brands from all over the world to connect great products and services with readers and followers. We only work with companies we know and trust and are happy to endorse. And we say no to more enquiries to feature companies than we say yes. We’re adamant that The Good Life France retains it’s integrity and authenticity.
We love social media and you’ll find us every day on our Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram where we interact with an engaged following of +400,000.
If you’d like to know more about working with us – please get in touch with The Good Life France publisher Trudy.
Good Life France Advertising and Media Pack
Want to know more about me? Here are 20 secrets!
1. I have had a home in France for 20 years and I’ve been renovating it for 14 years and still not finished!
2. I used to sing in a band in London. They had a hit song after I left!
3. I love French cakes as you may know if you follow me on Facebook where I share a ton of photos! I go into almost every boulangerie and patisserie I see in France and take a photo, much to the amusement of the people who work there.
4. I adore French monuments and chateaux and I write a lot about them! I once climbed the wall of the Roman theatre in Orange to stand with the statue of the Emperor at the top – I was invited, I’m not a vandal!
5. I have 4 dogs and 6 cats and my vet has made me promise to stop taking in stray animals.
6. Cheese is my weakness. I won the 2014 ABTOF (Association of British Tourist Operators to France) Award for best French online article for my story of my local cheese producer, AKA The Goat Lady.
7. I have 4 ducks, 2 geese and 27 chickens who are mostly so old they don’t lay eggs but they’re happy.
8. My great grandma was an Italian trapeze artist – I have no circus skills whatsoever, though I love to dance (I have always wanted to be a professional disco dancer).
9. My favourite region of France? Impossible but I adore Nord-Pas de Calais where I have a home in the stunning and off the beaten track Seven Valleys. I also love Paris and won the French Media Awards Best Social Media feature 2016 for my article about where to kiss in Paris! Pretty much everywhere I go, that’s my new favourite place in France. I phone my husband and I say “if we were ever to move, I’d definitely like to live here.”
10. I wanted to be a writer from the age of 3, but life got in the way, mortgage and bills to pay, so writing came later in life to me.
11. I first visited France when I was 14 and on a school exchange visit and I completely fell in love with tarte tatin and the French way of life.
12. I like to grow vegetables and once grew a pumpkin that was nearly as big as me.
13. I could not cook when I came to France. My French friends used to say “you are Flop Chef notTop Chef” – but I’ve got a lot better thanks to patient neighbours and friends insisting I learn.
14. My favourite French historic character is… I can’t do it, I can’t pick just one. If you asked me who I’d like to meet if I could go back in time – I’d say King Louis XIX, Napoleon, Queen Marie-Antoinette, Claude Monet, Renoir, Victor Hugo… I’d have a big list and then I’d just have to do ip dip, your it.
15. My favourite French drink is Champagne.
16. I used to work in McDonalds in London in my school holidays! Little known fact – there are more McDo’s at the French call them, in France, than anywhere in the world except the US.
17. I was born in London, Bermondsey which is about as inner city as it is possible to get (it wasn’t yuppified thenI), and a complete contrast to my rural French life now and I pinch myself daily at how lucky I am to be here.
18. I hate flying. As a freelance travel writer this is usually a bad thing but as I only write about France, I go everywhere by train and I love train travel.
19. I’ve written four best-selling books: My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Living the Dream in Rural France all available as ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online. And How to be French, a hard back book that’s perfect for coffee tables!
20. I am also writing a novel, a romance set in France of course! And you’re the first to know!
Want to know more, listen to my first podcast when I talk about life in France.
