Added to my original message:

Oh! I should add that the Hotel recommended I get to these two stations But said I mauy hve to take a cab from Moutiers. 

 

moutiers

notre dame de Briancoen

But none of these are in ANY of the itineraries i’m pulling up so i’m not sure what route to go with. The front desk person wasn’t trying to plan a route from Evian necessarily, just mentioned the stations to get to the hotel that are popular.

Now that’s a challenging one ;)

I think you go best via the transport planner of the région (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes): https://www.oura.com/

Unfortunately only available in French.

I think the closest station is Gare de Notre-dame-de-Briançon. A bit of a walk to your hotel (about 35 minutes), or you have to call a very local taxi. Knowing France a bit, pavements in this area, can be a bit tricky.

There seems to be a bus stop, which is not uncommon on the TER network. Some TER-trains get replaced by busses, because of works or “temporary” shutdowns (usually because the lack of investment in the rail infrastructure). You might just want to call your hotel Radiana and ask if they know more? It probably won’t be frequent if it’s a bus.Or you might ask them if they want to reserve the taxi for you. The taxi drivers probably don’t speak English ^^

If possible you best ask in a (bigger) station like Annecy, Chambéry or Albertville.

Itinerary information in France is very spread out, alas. Can be difficult if you don’t speak French, especially in the more rural parts. But I think you’ll end up in a very nice landscape.

 BAHAHA! I just had to pick a difficult route

oh boy. I do not speak french! LOL But i’ve been trying my best 

Thank you for your help! I’ll take a look at these and hopefully get there in one piece. 

This makes soooo much sense. I saw the bus on railplanner but it classified it as “Train” 

You are Brilliant! I didn’t even think to look for regional transit planners. Oy! So much to learn. Thank you @BrendanDB !!!

@BrendanDB can i get your opinion? 

i have 4 travel days left on my global first class pass. It expires end of November.
I’m currently in Evian and I want to explore more of south france after La Lechere (No specific plan hop around Lyon, Dijon, Nice, Marseille, Occitanie region (Montpellier, ax-les-thermes maybe)... maybe Bordeaux … I have to stop through Paris to pick up a few things (so maybe hit Dijon after Paris)

My plane ticket has me fly out of Frankfurt on 10/24 but i’m planning to extend my trip to the 28th or 29th (my 90 days in Schengen are up on 10/31) 

So i definitely need to use my first class Global pass:

• Bordeaux/south france > Paris (longer distance)
• Paris/Dijon > Frankfurt 
• maybeeeee if i can nab a few days in London i might use the last two trips to go there and back… i’m craving this dim sum restaurant LOL
• or whatever legs of the trip might be high demand/expensive or where it’s best for me to use my first class (it’s actually come in handy a few times like to Copenhagen - only first class was available for some legs) 

I’m wondering if you and the community experts would recommend getting a france only eurail pass to hop around or if it’s really just best to book point-to-point since i’m mainly in one country for the next 11-15 days. 

Now that i”m writing and thinking out loud, i think that means for today’s trip to La Lechere i should pay out of pocket OR buy a france eurail pass. 

Thoughts? 

Calculate the cost of a day of your pass, or of another pass you are thinking of buying, then you can compare to regular tickets from SNCF for a longer trip.

For days where you are travelling in a smaller area, especially if you need to use non-railway buses it will probably be cheaper to pay for travel separately. Check the website of the local transport authority, they may well have day tickets covering bus/rail/tram/metro for that area. In France these often have only French so use a good translating browser.

If you have no specific plan I think you’ll be best off with a one country pass France indeed. Since you start to get the hang of the flexibility of the pass, and if you stick mainly to local TERs, you can really consider the extra pass! A five or six day pass maybe?

You have very ambitious plans, for only 4 days left on your pass. You’re gonna do quite some distances, so I doubt that on the go tickets will be cheaper. It’s also very dependent from region to region.

In Hauts-de-France you can take a TGV “TERgv” without reservation between Lille and the coast, for a bargain. In Provence-Alpes-Côtes-d’Azur (PACA) ordinary trains are a lot more expensive.

I would caclulate the amount of days you want to do extra, and buy a one country pass. For other regions the price system is a complete riddle: I just can’t find ordinary prices for your trip today for example. France and easy, simple to use transport and ticketing are often not synonymous 

On TER there’s no first class, so better not buy a first class ticket. It rains strike-threats lately in France, so you might also want that extra flexibility. But if you stay in Dijon, and you want to visit Beaune for example. You’ll be cheaper off with on ordinary ticket.

If you extend your journey, you can grab some days of London. But it’s a lot of hassle extra with the Eurostar. It’s convenient to go to England, but I really hate the system in comparison to the ease of takings trains in the rest of Europe.

And will complicate stuff if you want to go directly from London to Frankfurt. Don’t do it for one day, but a couple of days and don’t plan it at the end. You don’t want to overcomplicate stuff, and hear of a last minute strike in France that might get you in trouble.Go on ordinary weekdays as well, as Eurostar on the weekends so close by risk to be fully booked.

I also recommend to not keep yourself in the biggest cities as well. Why not try a day out in Beaune (with all the history of the Dukes of Burgundy), Avignon (the other Papal palace), Nîmes (lots of Roman stuff), or small town at the Côte d’azur or the Étangs d’Hérault (Sète) for example on your route ?

For your trip today: you could also use this planner https://www.ter.sncf.com/auvergne-rhone-alpes/se-deplacer/horaires

This states more clearly when you have replacement busses. But again, only in French.

@BrendanDB I meant to update you! Your first comment actually gave me a brilliant idea and I decided to stay a night in Annecy and somehow…. My app actually gave me a route and ticket all the way to the station in les lèchére!!!!!!!!!!!!! we shall see if it actually pans out lol I’ll report back. But it basically broke it up so I wasn’t spending seven hours again on transit and not sure if I would make it to the town without a taxi! So thank you thank you for your brilliance also I love that you gave me ideas for a little towns to visit because I love the little towns that no one knows about 

actually I had never heard of Evian or Thonon. I actually only discovered it because I was looking on Booking.com for places cheaper than Lausanne and Montreux! 
 

Also all my God you’re right… I actually haven’t  experienced the strikes …. But I got updates.  knock on wood… But that would be horrible! Does that mean the trains just don’t run?

Thank you so much @Al_G ! I ended up buying my ticket to Annecy out of pocket as it was only 20 euros! I’ll have to figure out the rest of my trip from here

Good, splitting up always helps to bring clarity.

It’s still a bit unclear, but there’s a lot of social discontent in France (again). I would just stay way clear from Paris on the 18th of Octobre and avoid travel that day. There’s gonna be a general strike and manifestations that day. The rest of the period you’re in France there could be strikes, but difficult to say what it’s gonna give. Mainly in other sectors than the railway, so you’ll probably going to be okay. Just keeping checking the SNCF app or websites for the latest up to date info, in and around Paris interruptions are the most likely ;)

Update: the final bus to la lèchére came!!!!! I am sitting on it as I type. After having experienced Italian buses I was so afraid It would never show up and I would have to order a taxi using Google translate in the rain and dark   

In case it helps someone else in the future:

trainline was what i used.  Couldn’t pull anything on Omio and Rome2rio was not great. Google maps was really inefficient. 

First time using trainline!  I liked it better than the SNCF all and Oùra app wasn’t as good as the Oùra website and hard to book on mobile. 

going to figure out my final eurotrip days as there are some changes I need to make and it looks like I don’t have to fly out of Frankfurt. Thanks so much everyone and of course to @BrendanDB for all your help and input when I’m having a hard time making a decision!