When she moved to France to set up in the bed-and-breakfast trade, Susanna McGrath couldn’t have imagined that, three years later, she would find herself bedding down, night after night, in the kitchen of her five-bedroom house. Put the words “Loire”, “abbey” and “B&B” together on a web page, and even the greenest recruit to the hostelry business could find themselves with a rush on – and no room at the inn.

It has been 14 years since McGrath, a widow, began a new life in Cormery, a village in the Loire valley, on a whim, at 52. “Everybody said how brave I was, but I was doing business catering in London and I couldn’t see where I could get another job that would pay as well,” she says. “In 1992, I went house-hunting in France. I stayed at a B&B, and I thought, ‘I could do this.’ ” The following year, McGrath sold her three-bed bungalow in Weybridge, Surrey, for £160,000 and bought her French property, Le Logis du Sacriste (logisdusacriste.free.fr), for £110,000. She has spent the same again on renovation, adding an extra bedroom and five bathrooms.

Part of an ancient abbey, the house is well placed for the chateaux of the Loire and the stopover trade. The city of Tours – five hours by train from London Waterloo or a short flight from Stansted – is a 20-minute drive away.

Despite enjoying both cooking and company, McGrath has found it a struggle to make ends meet, even when the property has been full: “It is difficult to earn enough to live on doing B&B in France,” she says. “In my peak year, 1998, I had 1,000 people in my house, but I barely broke even. Prices here simply aren’t high enough.”

As a member of the national organisation Gîtes de France, McGrath charged in line with its recommendations – now £50-£75 a night for a double room and breakfast, plus £18 for dinner, including unlimited wine. Cleaning help, local taxes and heating costs gobbled up profits, even though word of mouth quickly propelled her into five guidebooks.

“One of my rules was that I had to be in bed by midnight,” she says. “It’s important when you are up at 6.30am seven days a week. I also resolved not to offer dinner every night of the week, just five.”

Part of the problem was that McGrath was managing the business on her own. “This is a job for two people,” she says. “Guests like to feel they are getting your attention. You can’t help with maps when you’re trying to cook.”

There are compensations, however: because two-thirds of business falls in the four months of summer, it’s easy to close completely for a few months. “You have a much happier life if you are not dependent on every last penny,” she says.

In Italy, another popular spot for B&B pioneers, a further complication is bureaucracy. A series of rules, which vary from region to region, govern not just when you can open – and close – but the number of rooms you can let, limiting the potential income.

A decade ago, Karin Ender, a Swiss woman, started to offer bed and breakfast at Casa Spertaglia (www.casaspertaglia.it), her home on the borders of Tuscany and Umbria. “Nobody here had heard of B&B in those days,” she says. “I had to ask permission from the mayor, but it’s simple to do.” Ender is allowed to let just three rooms – she charges £41-£51 for a double room, including breakfast – which, on its own, would not bring in enough for her to live on.

Matters can be more complicated in emerging countries such as Bulgaria. “People come here and think they can set up B&Bs willy-nilly,” says Jain Goodall, who lives in the capital, Sofia, and with her husband, Chris, publishes Quest Bulgaria (www.questbulgaria. com), a magazine that provides information for Britons moving to the country. “They don’t always consider whether people can get to them, and whether it will cost guests less than a package holiday.”

Last summer, Bill Watson, 50, and his wife, Jane, bought a fourbed 1930s concrete house in a village near Veliko Tarnovo (www.natures-view-bulgaria.com) for £22,000. They have since spent £45,000 building an annexe with three ensuite bedrooms and a guest dining room, creating a property worth about £120,000. They hope to open to guests next month, when they will charge £15 for a double room, plus £1-£2.50 for breakfast.

“The form-filling can be complicated,” says Bill, a former chef in the Royal Navy. “We were helped by a Bulgarian friend, but it can take up to 10 days to sort out.” The Watsons are looking to supplement their pensions by attracting walkers, bird-watchers and fishermen. “It’s stunning here,” says Bill. “We wake in the morning and look at the Balkan mountains.”

McGrath, meanwhile, is returning to England, and has put Le Logis du Sacriste on the market for £430,000. Keen to spend more time with her grandchildren, she has bought a three-bedroom house in Lewes, East Sussex, and, despite plans to retire, is considering doing a bit of B&B during the Glyndebourne season: “Everybody who stops doing B&B says that they don’t miss the work, but they do miss the people.”

BED-AND-BREAKFAST CLUB

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