From plucky start-ups to multibillion-pound platforms, the sharing economy has infiltrated pretty much every area of life over the past decade. The world of travel is no exception. You’ll have heard of Airbnb and Uber, but there are hundreds of so-called peer-to-peer apps and travel services out there, helping you arrange everything from airport transfers and city tours to currency swaps and dinner in a local’s flat.

The sharing economy is guided by a single basic principle: what’s mine is yours, for a fee. And that fee — due to the ease with which the supplier and the customer can directly communicate with one another — can be a fraction of what you’d have paid using more traditional travel services.

These days, you could construct an entire holiday using only the sharing economy — so that’s what I did.

The Côte d’Azur in summer is the most rarefied of playgrounds: all Ferraris, facelifts, Gucci loafers and gin palaces. In short, the ultimate test of the sharing economy. If I could save money here, in July, it could work anywhere.

An easyJet flight to Nice, then I’m ready to begin the experiment. Friends generously describe my French as rusty, but on this trip there’s a linguistic spring in my step, thanks to the one-to-one lessons I’ve been taking with Maria Romanoff. The sharing economy, powered by the internet, has made it a lot easier for people to make a bit of cash on the side by “sharing” their skills. I found Maria after the quickest of googles. She’s an interpreter who now offers language lessons over Skype. No group classes, no journey time, just a patient polyglot in my pocket. The 30-minute taster session is free — so it wouldn’t have mattered too much if she weren’t any good. Thereafter, it’s £17 an hour. As a learning experience, it wasn’t exactly Dead Poets Society, but I found it stretching and absorbing. My French improved rapidement.

The taxi service Uber has revolutionised city transport using a model that viciously undercuts established services. The ethics of how its drivers are treated is a debate for another day; I have money to save.

Standard cab from the airport? “About €50,” I’m told. Ten minutes after sending out the Uber version of the Bat-Signal, I’m speeding towards the city in Richard’s aggressively air-conditioned VW Passat. I’m staying just up the road from his favourite restaurant. “Here’s their card,” he says as he helps me with my case. “Say that Richard the driver sent you. They’ll look after you.” I’m emailed the bill seconds later: €22.

More local knowledge follows. Showaround operates in nearly 8,000 cities under the tagline: “Find a local to show you around.” A third of the locals signed up to the platform offer their services free of charge. Mine, Diana, is asking €22 an hour, so it better be good.

It is. Diana, who has lived in Nice for five years and is married to a Niçois chap, is as clued up on belle époque architecture as she is on the city’s favourite son, Garibaldi. Loads of fun, too. No earnest pocket histories, just breezy banter and some cracking under-the-radar spots: the peaceful, hilltop Cimetière du Château, with its splendidly elaborate gravestones; a hole-in-the-wall in Le Vieux Nice selling slices of oniony pissaladière tart for just a few euros.