I was recently lucky enough to make my first voyage to one of the top climbing destinations in the world: Fontainebleau—or Font, as it’s often called. For most of my climbing career, I’d heard stories about the beautiful sandstone boulders and the flat, sandy landings. I knew I had to experience it for myself one day.

Font didn’t disappoint. The climbing exceeded my expectations and the macademia nut brownies were out of this world tasty.

But let’s be honest: planning a climbing trip to a foreign country can feel overwhelming and even a little scary, especially if it’s your first time. To help make your experience smoother and more enjoyable, here are some tips I picked up along the way.

1) Know the Basics

Font is composed of many crags that are scattered throughout forests south of Paris. By car, the crags are about 1.5 hours away from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. The city of Fountainbleau is most famous for its grand palace. Paris is easy to daytrip via train on rest days. Many people speak english, but make sure to have the language French downloaded in google translate for offline translation abilities.

2)Download climbing apps

In the United States, Mountain Project is the predominant climbing app. But for Font, it only has a few hundred climbs listed. There are many, many thousands of climbs, and due to the sheer number of climbs, there isn’t one guidebook that covers everything. I used the app “boolder”, which is free. I found it had plenty of enough information for newcomers to find a wide variety of boulders. I even used the GPS coordinates as I was walking in order to find the boulders I needed. It usually got me within a few feet of the climb. It is also linked to the website Bleau.info. This is an extremely helpful website that contains beta videos and the most extensive search feature I’ve ever seen. For example, you can search by excluding climbs with certain types of holds or include climbs done by short people.

Some of the locals use an app called 27 crags, which is most useful if you use the paid version. It included even more climbs than boolder and has GPS to help guide you accurately to the boulders.

3)Rent a car

For my trip, renting a car wasn’t prohibitvely expensive and made the entire trip a lot smoother. The crags are so spread out and most crags aren’t close to hotels or Airbnbs that a car is necessary. It was easy to drive around and find parking. And in the city of Fontainebleau, the parking meters give you a free 20 minutes and don’t charge for parking during lunch time.

4. Rent Crashpads

Depending on how long you’re going, it may make sense to rent crashpads instead of flying with them. I rented from a store called Climb Fontainbleau. The pads were good quality, affordable, and after hours drop off is available.

5. check the weather

It’s important to know if it is going to rain or if rained during the night. Climbing on wet sandstone can permanently damage the rock and ruin a climb for every subsequent climber. Some climbs dry out very fast, so if it does rain, ask locals where it is safe to climb.

6. Climb le crocodile(6A)

Okay, I will admit this is a very biased recommendation, but I LOVE THIS CLIMB. It is so much fun that I think everyone should attempt it. It’s safe. It’s silly. What’s not to love?!

Climbing in Font was a real pleasure and the amount of rock there is just incredible. I hope these tips are helpful for planning your first trip to this magical forest!

Planning a Trip to Font? Don’t Miss These 6 Tips