Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez: a concierge’s guide

If you ask me which is the finest week of the year in Saint-Tropez, I answer neither July nor August. I answer Les Voiles, from 26 September to 4 October 2026 for this 28th edition. The gulf fills with some 250 boats, classic rigs and racing yachts, the light turns golden, and the village recovers something it loses entirely in summer: a reason to be there.

For around ten days, two worlds share the same bay. On one side the classic yachts: wooden hulls, outsized masts, some a century old, maintained like musical instruments. On the other, modern racing yachts, faster and less photogenic, but astonishing to watch go past under sail.

The races are run in the afternoon in the gulf. In the morning the port is an open-air museum where you walk the quays between the boats. In the evening the village is full, but with a crowd of sailors rather than holidaymakers, and the mood is nothing alike. To my mind it’s the best version of Saint-Tropez after dark.

• On board, by far the best seat. You head out into the gulf and follow the racing from the water, close to the starts. It’s what I arrange most, and what clients bring up afterwards.
• On the quays, free, and magnificent in the morning when the crews prepare the boats. Go early: by eleven it’s packed.
• From the heights, the citadel and the high points give a plunging view over the gulf and the starts. A terrace lunch with a view does the job perfectly.
• In the village, with nothing planned, you cross paths with the crews in town in the evening, and the atmosphere alone is worth the trip.

A week like this is prepared like an event, not like a weekend.

• Accommodation goes early. Les Voiles fills the village and the whole peninsula: villa or hotel, book several months ahead.
• The boat to follow the racing books even earlier than the accommodation. It’s the scarcest resource of the week, and the one people ask me for last.
• The harbour tables are besieged at dinner. I book the evenings at the same time as everything else, never after.
• October weather is changeable, and on the water it’s ten degrees colder than on the quay. Bring layers: you watch a regatta standing up, in the wind.
• Parking is difficult all week. Take a driver and stop thinking about it.

Les Voiles is the week I recommend to clients who tell me they’ve already done Saint-Tropez and don’t understand the fuss. They did Saint-Tropez in August, which is frankly not the same town.

In October the sea is still warm, terraces are available, the peninsula is empty, and something beautiful happens in the gulf every afternoon. If I had to choose one single week to bring someone here for the first time, it would be this one, or the Braderie weekend, a little later, for an entirely different reason.