If you lose mobile signal between a Dordogne village and your holiday cottage, Google Maps can still give driving directions. The important bit happens before you leave home. Download the area containing the whole journey, including the roads you will take back. Searching for the cottage on your phone, or sending yourself a link to it, does not put those roads on the device.
Take a day out from Sarlat-la-Canéda to La Roque-Gageac, then along the river to Beynac-et-Cazenac and back to Sarlat. This is a manageable area to download and test. It also illustrates an easy mistake. A close crop around the village where you intend to have lunch can leave your bed for the night just beyond the edge.
Choose the roads and the right end points
While you have internet access, ask Maps for driving directions from your accommodation to your first stop. Look at the route it actually draws. Repeat for the next leg and the drive home. Keep the display at a scale where you can recognise the broad shape of all three journeys. The return from Beynac may take you away from the river well before you reach Sarlat.
Decide where you want the car to finish each leg. At Beynac, La Balme is beside the Dordogne on the D703. The Parking du Château is up by the castle. Both might look like a reasonable result for someone typing the village name. They make quite different destinations for someone meeting friends on the quay. The village council’s parking guide lists the upper and lower car parks by name and street.
For the cottage, use the entrance your host gives you. A pin on the main house can put your arrival point on the far side of a field. If the directions mention a hamlet, a particular bridge or a turning beside a barn, keep those words with the booking address in a note you can open offline. Ask about the approach while you can still send a photograph or a map link.
Coordinates can settle a disagreement between the booking address and the pin. If the host supplies decimal coordinates, enter the latitude first, then a comma, then the longitude. Keep the decimal point in each number. Check that the pin lands at the agreed entrance before saving the pair in your note. Google illustrates the accepted formats in its guide to searching by coordinates.
Download the Dordogne area on your phone
Connect the phone you will use in the car to Wi-Fi. Open the Google Maps mobile app. On Android, check you are signed in. On iPhone, leave Incognito mode if it is on. Search for Sarlat-la-Canéda to get your bearings. Tap your profile picture or initial, choose Offline maps, then Select your own map. Move and zoom the map inside the frame until you have your chosen area.
Frame Sarlat, La Roque-Gageac and Beynac together, with space beyond each stop. Look out for stretches of road that bow outside a straight line drawn between the villages. Include both banks where you might need a different river crossing and leave room around your accommodation. Tap Download and let the job finish on Wi-Fi. Reopen Offline maps and check that the area appears in the downloaded list.
This selection method works even when the rectangle you want has no obvious town at its centre. Google’s Android guide to offline areas also explains how to rename a finished download. A name such as Dordogne villages will be easier to recognise beside another map for the journey down. The iPhone instructions cover the same area selector and the controls for managing downloaded maps.
If the download stalls, check the phone’s available storage and whether the Wi-Fi connection can open a fresh web page. Hotel networks sometimes require a sign-in. If space is tight, frame just the day trips first. An old map for a previous holiday can be deleted from the same Offline maps list.
Try a route with the internet switched off
You can test the French roads from your kitchen. Turn off Wi-Fi and mobile data temporarily. Open Maps again, choose La Roque-Gageac as the destination and ask for directions by car. Replace the starting point marked Your location with your Sarlat address. Otherwise the app may try to plan a journey from your home, hundreds of miles outside the area you downloaded.
Check that a route appears between the two places. Preview the roads, then ask for the leg to La Balme and the trip home. Use the actual accommodation entrance for that last test. Planning from a different starting point gives you a preview. Once you are there, leave Your location as the starting point to navigate from the car. Switch your connections back on when the test is over.
If the destination appears but driving directions fail, check the selected transport mode and the map boundaries. Zoom out far enough to inspect the middle of the journey. A bridge or junction beyond the edge can break coverage even when both destinations fit comfortably. Reconnect, download a wider area and repeat the same failed leg with both connections switched off.
Know what changes when the signal drops
Keep location access enabled for Maps. The phone can use satellite positioning to locate you without a mobile data connection. The download supplies the road information around that position. What goes missing is live traffic, including the information you would use to choose between alternative routes. An offline arrival estimate cannot tell you about a queue that has just formed ahead.
If a road is closed, follow the signs. Let a passenger check the downloaded map, or pull over somewhere suitable before looking for a crossing or the next village on the diversion. Space around the planned roads helps here. If the diversion carries you beyond the saved area, local signs and a paper road map can still get you to a place where you can reconnect.
There are no offline walking, cycling or public transport directions in Google Maps. For an afternoon on foot in Beynac, download the tourist office’s illustrated village plan before departure. Open the saved PDF once without internet access. It also lets you point out the route back to the car to someone travelling with you, without interrupting navigation on the driver’s phone.
Keep the holiday map ready for the return drive
Offline maps expire. Shortly before leaving, open Offline maps and check the area again. Select an expiring area and tap Update while you have Wi-Fi. If you downloaded the Dordogne weeks before booking the ferry, this is also a good time to check whether your plans have grown beyond those three villages.
Treat the drive to the Dordogne as its own journey. Your local rectangle ends well before the Channel. For a longer approach, choose areas along the road you expect to take, allow overlap and try each day’s drive offline from its overnight stop. Keep the return address and the next stopping place accessible on the phone. Before leaving the cottage, give the return journey one last check. From the parked car, turn Wi-Fi and mobile data off, enter your next stop and look for driving directions.