en terre douce

14:45 Sep 28, 2018 

It's important to know what that "y" (as in Vous y trouverez toutes les informations...) stands for. Does it refer to the website itself, or to a guide book or a even tourist office?
You state that this IS a tourist website, and not that it is referring to one, implying that the text is actually taken directly from the website... This knowledge could make a big difference to the interpretation of the (somewhat brief!) text

08:40 Sep 28, 2018 

As you can see, this question is generating some fairly wide-ranging ideas. Basically it's because there is little context here and we don't know what is the focus of your text. Is it aimed at the casual tourist or could it even be about a river cruise along the Rhône?

06:38 Sep 28, 2018 

I think one of the problems here is that many suggestions include the notion of 'wandering', which suggests something fairly aimless and random; whereas if we take 'navigate' in its primary, literal sense, it very specifically means 'find your way around skillfully and purposefully'. I believe that notion carries over into its secondary, often more figurative senses. And I suspect that is the intended idea here: "We'll help you find your way around our beautiful area and get the most out of your visit."

If the websites is very much linked to the actual River Rhône, perhaps using it as some kind of 'fil conducteur', then it might even be a direct allusion to inland waterways and the major transport route that the Rhône is of course so famous as.

20:56 Sep 27, 2018 

It's a pity that the asker only asked about "en terre douce" and not "naviguer en terre douce" as that is the other half of the problem. After reading a comment by Tony M, I think the verb may end up being "sail" or "surf" cos "browse" and "navigate" don't sound right to me.

19:59 Sep 27, 2018 

Oooh, I'm sure they did it on purpose.... (;-)) Something romantic about the water image. I personally would say "gentle" should get a look in somewhere... "roaming gently through" .... but not terribly inspired I must say!!

19:43 Sep 27, 2018 

I agree that Tony's idea ("browse" and "check what's on offer") is probably the way to go here. And Katsy, I agree that the phrase couldn't possibly be meant in a negative way (it's advertising, after all); it's just that it sounded as if the authors had got their metaphors all mixed up. Thanks for "landlubber" - that's the word I was looking for.

19:36 Sep 27, 2018 

And how you "translate" this will largely depend on the overall style you adopt as well as the focus of the source text. It's all a matter of copywriting a coherent piece, rather than translating.

19:13 Sep 27, 2018 

I agree that "marin d'eau douce" can be derogatory (landlubber) .... but not always, especially if one is "en train de naviguer" and not taking oneself for a "marin"..... But I do think that it is some bright idea (in a non-seafaring/marine area) for saying that the land /area is pleasant, and that you can wander/float around.... one is nowhere near the sea in the Auvergne Haut-Rhône area.... for of course the name of the area is that of one of the major rivers of France.... As for suggesting a translation, well, for the moment that is something else as far as I'm concerned. But my first idea was to say that the connotation is not necessarily negative.

18:42 Sep 27, 2018 

Marketing language!
It sounds very much to me as if they have coined this expression — perhaps also with a clin d'œil à « Douce France » — because they couldn't think of anything very concrete to say about their "nice part of France"!
As ph-b says, ideally you need to ask the writer what (on earth!) they were thinking of; otherwise, I'd say just do a good copywriting job.

By the way, also don't forget that 'naviguer' is a buzzword in terms of 'browsing' the Internet — possibly this was (even unconsciously) lurking somewhere there at the back of their mind — "browsing" in the sense of looking around and seeing what's on offer; a bit more modern perhaps than the well-worn 'découvrir'...

18:40 Sep 27, 2018 

where even a single wrong punctuation could spell disaster, I don't think it's worth worrying too much about the finest nuances of meaning. Anything resembling the ST and making the visit to Haut Rhône sound like an attractive proposition could do.

17:46 Sep 27, 2018 

Naviguer en terre douce?! Odd... Some bright spark trying to be creative and getting it desperately wrong? :-) I didn't know one could naviguer en terre and while I'm happy to allow for poetic licence, it rather sounds as if they've coined this new phrase from naviguer en eau douce, which, unfortunately in this case, refers to a person without much experience, like a sailor who's never been in a sea-faring ship and only ever did river-sailing (marin d'eau douce), which is somewhat derogatory and doesn't sound too positive. Or am I reading too much in this? The translation suggestions below do make sense, but it might be a good idea to ask the author/client what they actually mean.