Hotels and holiday homes offering free bicycles – find them here.
• in Britain • in Europe • The U.S. and Worldwide
A cottage, apartment or hotel with free use of bicycles can be a great way to enjoy a holiday or short getaway with the freedom to explore on two wheels whenever you feel like it.
Booking sites don’t provide a way to search only for accommodation with free bikes, but the links on this page do exactly that. They automatically filter the vast resources of booking.com to display only hotels and holiday homes that include ‘Bicycles Available (Free)‘ or ‘Complimentary bikes to borrow‘ in their list of facilities.
Complimentary loan bikes mean a substantial saving if you don’t want to transport your own. Hiring two bicycles instead typically costs at least £50 a day. Another plus is the cycling-friendly local knowledge that often comes with this type of accommodation.
But aren’t places that offer ‘free’ bikes more expensive? Not usually. That’s because prices need to remain attractive to non-cyclists too.
2. To see prices, enter dates in the booking.com search box. Unfortunately, this deactivates the ‘free bikes’ filter.
3. To re-activate the filter, come back to slowcycling.net and click the link again. Now you’ll see only properties+bikes with availability and prices for your dates.
4. To browse on a map or view different areas, select Map View and drag the map. Zoom in to see more properties. May be very slow to display markers on phones and tablets. Best on a computer.
Britain and Ireland
Hotels, cottages, apartments and B&Bs with free bikes:
Click a blue link and follow the 4-step guide (above).
Europe
Surprisingly, accommodation with free bikes is much more common in Europe than in Britain, with hundreds or even thousands of great options in each country. Click a blue link below to view lists and maps. (And be sure to follow the 4-step guide above.)
France
France is ideal for a holiday with some cycling. Brittany and Normandy, within easy reach of southern England, each have over 300 properties with free bicycles for guests. Similarly, in the South of France more than 1,700 hotels and self-catering stays offer complimentary bikes.
(Follow the 4-step guide above to access the lists and maps.)
• South-east France • South-west France
• Île de France (Paris region)
• Pays de la Loire • Centre-Val de Loire
• Poitou-Charentes • Dordogne
• Alsace • Champagne-Ardenne • Nord-Pas de Calais
• Bourgogne (Burgundy) • Auvergne
TIP: French hotels, B&Bs, apartments and self-catering holiday homes (gîtes) tend to get booked up a long way ahead, so plan your trip early if possible.
Italy
More than 4,000 Italian apartments, holiday homes, rural ‘agriturismo’ farmhouses, hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses, villas, country houses and even a few campsites offer free bicycles for the use of their guests. Tuscany is a wonderful area for exploring beautiful rolling countryside, medieval villages and fascinating cities on two wheels. For less hilly options, try the region of Veneto in the north-east.
Great for unspoilt countryside cycling and a relatively quiet coastline is Puglia in Italy’s south-east. Best in Spring and Autumn.
For other parts of Italy, just drag the map and zoom in at step 4 (See above).
Spain
One of the best areas for slow cycling in beautiful unspoilt countryside is, surprisingly, rural Mallorca, well away from the crowded coastlines and the mountains in the northwest – though these are great for hiking.
Or view accommodation with free bicycles in mainland Spain here.
TIP: Best times for cycling in Spain are outside the hot summer season. Springtime in Mallorca, for example, is wonderful, with almond blossom and oranges on the trees and pleasant weather.
… and the rest of The World
For accommodation with free bikes in the United States, the rest of Europe, the Americas, Australia, Asia and Africa, click any one of the blue links above, follow the 4 steps (See above), then drag the map to whichever part of the world you want.
The map will then populate with relevant accommodation markers in that area. Zoom in to see more. (Be patient if your connection is slow. Better on a computer than a mobile.)