WHY: Beach Clubs for Regular People

Photo by Ted Victor on Unsplash

If you’re like me, when you think of French beaches you might have the St. Tropez jingle echoing in your head, invoking the ultra-rich locales of Nice, St. Tropez, and Cannes where the beautiful people go to see and be seen.

Outside of those locales, however, we discovered that beaches in places like Stes. Marie de la Maire in the Camargue, Deauville on the Normandy coast, and, on this trip, the Valras Plage near Beziers were the places regular people went to enjoy the sand and surf. On our 2018 trip we discovered the “French Beach club”, a place, an idea, if you will, we frequented this past summer. Readers, we are never going back.

Sure, Americans are familiar with swim clubs—I grew up going to an extremely affordable one in upstate New York, Red Oaks, and my kids grew up going to an equally affordable club, Briarwood, in Conway Arkansas (because neither place provided public pools, which is a whole other story). But for my whole life beach trips from Rockaway, NY to Cape Cod to Nantucket, MA have always involved schlepping a bunch of equipment—portable beach chairs, towels and blankets, food coolers—and finding a place to stake your claim. Sure, there were “private beaches” that sometimes had their own fancy equipment and etc. but they were always attached to hotels, extremely pricey hotels where my decidedly middle-class teacher family could never afford to stay. So we kept schlepping.

Enter the beach club for regular people. Do you have 16 Euros (per person, per day) to pay for two cushioned, chaise lounges, a capacious umbrella, access to a nearby, clean bathroom and a full restaurant and bar? Then congratulations, you have access to a French beach club.* Would that price have been a bit high when we were a family of four? Yes, and that probably would have given us pause—after all, there was nothing stopping us from schlepping our stuff and kids prefer to play in the sand more anyway. But now that we travel as a couple, let me tell you, 32 euros to set up at La Voile Vert at Valras Plage in relative comfort for an entire day, with someone else to grapple with the umbrella, a soft, cozy lounge chair to nap in, easy access to a bathroom and Apero Spritzes delivered to me whenever I want, is an absolute bargain if you ask me.

At French beaches, these clubs are everywhere, which is probably what makes them affordable. Because the idea is (one of my Nana’s favorite phrases, btw, RIP 14 years ago this month) you should not have to be one of the 1% to enjoy a day at the beach in some comfort. Sure, the more tony beach clubs will always be out of my price range, and that’s fine, but in the US, in my experience, the only alternative to the tony ones is the schlep, dragging your towels and your chairs and your beach blanket and your cooler, setting up somewhere a half mile from the bathroom (and at my age, bathroom proximity important). There’s a time and place for the schlep, always. Sometimes it’s the best choice. But I love the idea that I have the option of the beach club, of a cozy chaise, and umbrella and table service. That I actually deserve that on vacation.

Because in France, we all do.

**They probably have beach clubs in other European countries, my experience is only with France.

(Our favorite beach club, Le Vert Voile. Seek and find: can you find the snoozing mom with the snoozing kid in her lap?)

(I discovered the Aperol Spritz this summer and treated myself to one occasionally, of an afternoon, on our weekly beach days. Self-care, people, self care!)