I Spent a Month Traveling in France for Under $650 — Here's How I Pulled It Off

The bottles shimmered like glowing lanterns between the vines. Vin de France — a simple French table wine made from the very grapes we picked that morning. Two dozen of us gathered around a folding table at the foot of the Alsace vineyard, with dirt-stained hands passing fresh bread as conversations flowed between French and English.

Tu veux more, ma chérie? Jeanne asked, refilling my glass with a $17 bottle of Si Rose — a blend of gewürztraminer and pinot gris. Just three days earlier, I had paid $85 for the same wine at a Brooklyn bar. Here, we easily finished six bottles pulled directly from the cellar during lunch.

I wish I could say the wine tasted better because it was free, but honestly, what wine doesn’t taste amazing in a sunlit vineyard? The real joy came from sipping it without worrying about the price.

While most around me were paid workers, a few of us were volunteers, or bénévole, through WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). We committed to three weeks of wine harvesting for food and housing with natural winemaker Christian Binner. It was a chance to expand my wine knowledge hands-on and spend almost a month abroad without draining my savings.

Wine harvest is indulgent, exhausting, romantic, and humbling. You wake with the sun, grab coffee and shears, then head into the vines to clip grapes. Afternoons involve stomping grapes, and evenings are for cooking meals like pasta and pissaladière while practicing French. It’s not a vacation — more like a tough summer camp that’s become the highlight of my year.

If you're interested in work exchanges, here's how I set mine up, allowing me to spend under $700 for a month on a beautiful French vineyard.

I contacted the winemaker through their U.S. importer — though I’ve also used platforms like Workaway and WWOOF in the past.

Cost: $32

While you don’t necessarily need experience to help with a harvest, I wasn’t new to vineyard work. I had already spent time with winemakers in Umbria and Burgundy, using a similar work-exchange model. I found these chances through sites like Workaway and WWOOF, which connect travelers to various exchange opportunities like agriculture, hospitality, childcare, and more. Most platforms require a small membership fee. For this harvest, we made WWOOF accounts to sign the agreement.

For wine-related opportunities, I’ve also found it useful to check Raisin, which lists natural winemakers seeking harvest help, or to contact the importer directly. Domaine Christian Binner is imported by Jenny & François Selections, whose social media I manage, so I was fortunate to reach out directly.

I took on extra work and sublet my apartment beforehand to cover my expenses.

As a freelance wine and travel writer, my income fluctuates. While I usually work remotely while traveling, I learned last year that harvest takes too much energy to juggle other jobs. So, I reached out to my clients — magazines, digital outlets, and a wine importer — to arrange time off and took extra assignments in advance. I also worked a few shifts at a friend’s wine bar to ensure I could comfortably cover my expenses.

Though my vineyard housing was included in the exchange, it would’ve been a huge financial strain to keep paying my Brooklyn rent. Fortunately, I found a sublet through a friend of a friend.

I booked my flight with a budget airline.

Cost: $435

I usually use credit card points or airline miles for flights, but I couldn’t find a direct round-trip ticket from NYC to Paris for my travel dates. I decided to save my points and booked a flight with French Bee, a trusted budget airline I’ve flown with before. I flew economy with just a carry-on to avoid baggage fees. Although the airline doesn’t offer point redemptions, it provides affordable fares (and Champagne for premium class).

I purchased basic travel insurance.

Cost: $109

I always buy essential travel insurance for emergencies while abroad, and since harvest work can be physically demanding, I chose broader coverage this time. I went with OneTrip Prime through Allianz Travel, which covered trip cancellations, emergency medical needs, and emergency transportation.

Food and housing were included.

As part of the agreement, the winery provided my meals and accommodation in return for my labor. Although platforms like Workaway suggest 25 hours per week, the nature of wine harvesting is more unpredictable. When grapes are ripe, they must be picked, sometimes from sunrise till evening; on slower days, I might only clean tanks for an hour.

I hadn’t inquired much about the living arrangements before arriving, aside from confirming I wouldn’t be camping, which is common for harvest workers. (While I enjoy working in nature, sleeping outdoors is a step too far for this city girl.) I also neglected to ask how many people I'd be sharing a room and bathroom with — the answer: one roommate, eight people sharing the bathroom.

I was thrilled to arrive at a charming, half-timbered house in the picturesque village of Ammerschwihr. My room had a picture window overlooking 70-year-old vines, and my desk was made from a wine barrel. The house, where Christian and his sister Béatrice (who manages the administrative side of the winery) grew up, had a well-stocked pantry. Béatrice coordinated with whoever was responsible for dinner each day, ensuring we had the necessary ingredients for our rotating cooking and cleaning duties.

Despite incurring a few miscellaneous expenses — a group of us enjoyed a traditional Alsatian meal (featuring tarte flambée and a tower of sauerkraut) at the charming Bratschall Manala in nearby Kaysersberg, and we took a train to Strasbourg on our day off — I managed to keep my total under $700 for the month, including flights. (For context, that’s roughly half the cost of my monthly rent in Brooklyn.)

Though harvest is physically demanding, it has been the most peaceful my mind has felt in years. The work carries a meditative quality, and something magical occurs when you don’t associate hours worked or bottles consumed with monetary value. It’s a rhythm of work, drink, sleep, and repeat: a cycle I feel incredibly fortunate to engage in each year, and one I romanticize to the point of forgetting its challenges. I’ll surely be reminded soon enough — I'm set to do it all over again in a few weeks.