The French Traveler prides itself on excellent customer service, dedication to each traveler’s needs, attention to detail and the ability to help you get the most from this cross-cultural experience. We speak fluent French and English and know France intimately. Our custom tours of France are seamless: we are rigorous in our details to make sure everything runs smoothly, as we promised.

 We prefer to spend time only in France, savoring one city at a time and fan out from there, rather than race through the European countryside to see several cities in as many days. You’ll unpack only once. We take pains to discover the local fauna and flora, seek opportunities to converse and interact with the locals, experience what the region has to offer in the way of culture, cuisine, and sights. We extend our network of friends to make the trip a highly personal one for you. Many of our travelers form friendships during their trip and often plan future travel together.  We invite you to come along and become travelers, not tourists, with us.                                            

For language teachers who wish to improve their fluency and deepen their cultural awareness of France, we’ve led summer immersion workshops for French teachers in every major city in France since 1998 . We speak only French during this tour; all use of English is discouraged. Because France is such a culturally rich and diverse country, the specificities of each region create a unique experience every year which we use to our advantage. Morning seminars on the substantive issues of France today and afternoon excursions to places of historical and cultural importance form the basis of our daily routine, while culinary pleasures and personal interactions with French natives round out the immersion experience. We arrange for meals with the local hosts and introduce you to people whom you would probably not meet on your own. Many of our participants come back year after year, eager to re-immerse themselves in another region of France, discuss the burning topics of France today, and exchange ideas for improving classroom techniques.

We host a Best of Paris tour in English in the spring months which gives you Paris: Food, Art, and History, with lots of insider visits, optional activities, and great restaurants.  Our Senior Lecturer from the renowned Rhode Island School of Design provides exquisite guided visits to museums and neighborhoods of Paris.  We also offer an annual Sip and Savoir Wine Tour in the late summer whose focus on wine tasting, hilltop villages, and dramatic landscapes combine amusement and learning some French.

Valerie Sutter, Founder and Director of The French Traveler, has been chasing France her entire adult life.  Born in the US, she fell in love with the French language in high school, which led to a major in French at university.  The day after graduation, she proceeded to live and work in Lyon, France where she obtained a Master’s degree from the Faculté de Lettres de Lyon while starting her teaching career there.  Marriage to a Frenchman led to a 13-year adventure in Brazil, courtesy of the French Ministère des Affaires Etrangères.  Valerie taught for many years at the Escola Americana do Rio de Janeiro, and then upon her return to the US, continued teaching French at private schools in New England.  

Her enriching experiences living and traveling internationally for over thirty years led naturally to founding The French Traveler in 1998, combining her love of the French language with her passion for cultural acquisition.  Taking her cues from Edward T. Hall, the father of intercultural communication, who once said, “One of the many paths to enlightenment is the discovery of ourselves, and this can be achieved whenever one truly knows others who are different,” Valerie is a strong believer in foreign language immersion as the means of knowing and understanding another culture–and most important, one’s own.  She is fluent in French and Portuguese and has a modest grasp of Spanish.   She resides half the year in France preparing custom tours and the other half in Florida, where she is active in francophile groups.  She runs her own “French Movie Night” club and teaches French language and culture courses to adults at various “OLLI” programs in both Florida and Massachusetts universities.   

Pascale Rihouet, who joins Valerie to co-direct on the Best of Paris trip, is a French-American art historian, teaches both in Paris (IESA Arts & Culture) and at the Rhode Island School of Design. Parisian born and bred, she knows the city like the back of her hand and shares her deep love for it with contagious enthusiasm. A certified conférencière and tour guide, Pascale brings over 30 years of experience as a lively, spontaneous, and passionate educator. She has published widely on art and ritual—from processions to banquets—and continues to captivate audiences as a guest speaker and researcher. Beloved by her students and tour participants alike, Pascale turns every encounter into an inspiring journey through art and Parisian culture.

Alexander Hutchins, who will be co-guiding with Valerie on the Sip and Savoir wine tour in Burgundy, brings a wealth of academic and practical expertise to The French Traveler. Holding a Master’s degree in French Literature, Alexander has taught the language at both the high school and university levels. He has traveled extensively throughout France and has a long history of leading students on immersive linguistic exchanges. Alexander knows France intimately, spending several months of the year living in the country. This regular immersion allows him to share France as it is lived and felt, combining academic insight with the instincts of a seasoned traveler and resident. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Sip and Savoir tour in Burgundy, where Alexander looks forward to sharing what he loves most: learning through conversation, discovery, and a good glass of wine.

The French Traveler is proud to be advised in educational matters by the following members of the Advisory Board:

• Professor Jean-Pierre Berwald, Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

• Professor Brian Thompson, Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA

• Professor Joseph Reiter, Perry Professor Humanities, Emeritus, Phillips ExeterAcademy, Exeter, NH

• Professor Griffin Morse, Former Headmaster, Pinkerton Academy, Derry, NH, currently Educational Consultant

• Pascale Rihouet, Senior Lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design