Why this site exists
I have family in Corsica. I make the crossing more than fifteen times a year, counting both ways, in every season — without any right to the resident fare. For years I booked like everyone else: discovering the price of the day, with no idea where it had come from or where it was heading. I postponed visits because there was no cabin left in August. I gave up family occasions because the fare decided for me. And in 2023, I paid nearly €1,000 for a return trip with my family.
It was while looking for my own crossings that I came to see what booking sites never show: Corsica ferry prices climb in successive steps, and those steps close behind you. A ferry is not a low-cost airline. Ship capacities are regulated and hard to extend; once a fare step has sold out, it almost never reopens. Waiting for a promotion, in this market, is nearly always a mistake (I learned that the hard way before I read it in my records).
So I started writing prices down, with their date, and keeping them. In Tempu grew out of that.
An observatory, not a reseller
In Tempu displays ferry prices to Corsica and publishes them with their date. You cannot book anything here, and that is deliberate: selling tickets is the ferry companies' business. Mine is to observe what they display, over time, and to make it legible.
The same crossing can cost twice as much depending on the booking date, the port of departure or the company selling it — including, less well known, when two companies sell the same ship at different prices. There is nothing abnormal about that: prices move constantly in this market. What matters is being able to follow the movement. That is the work of this site: keeping track of the fares recorded, so that anyone can see when, from where and with which company a crossing was actually displayed at its lowest price. A price without a date means nothing.
What I measure
A single type of price: the standard all-inclusive fare for a non-resident traveller, the one shown by default on each company's website. Discounts tied to Corsican resident status are not included. It is also the fare I pay myself on every crossing.
Five companies serve Corsica from the mainland, and my records cover all five: Corsica Ferries, Corsica Linea, La Méridionale, Moby Lines and Cors'Express. One note on the last: it is a fast ferry for foot passengers only, a daytime crossing sold on deck, with no cabin, linking Bastia to Livorno, Genoa or Civitavecchia. Italy only, then — not France.
Every reading is taken from the companies' official websites, with no booking intermediary, and every published price carries its observation date. The online version is frozen as of 24 September 2026: these are the fares as they were displayed on that date, kept as they were. Neither real-time nor estimate.
My two rules
The first: publish only observations. If a price appears on this site, it is because it was seen, on a precise date, on a company's website. When a period has not been recorded, it is missing, and that is shown. A minimum ("from") and an average ("on average") are two different readings of the same set of records; I never infer one from the other.
The second: independence. In Tempu has no ownership ties and no exclusive contract with the companies named, whose brands belong to their owners. The site lives on affiliation: some booking links earn me a fee when you use them to buy your ticket. This changes neither the price you pay nor the price I record.
What I do not yet cover
Resident fares, first. Some arrival times too, which makes a few crossing durations approximate, taken as they are from the carriers.
The full method — sources, cadence, how averages and minimums are built — is described on the methodology page.
Who writes here
In Tempu is published by Julien. For any question, comment or report of an error in a reading: [email protected]. Documented corrections are welcome; that is how an observatory improves.