As the stock of second homes in France is today of about three millions units, their owners and users have been defined as “special tourists”. While stressing that they are different, this definition leads to confusion, since it tends to confuse the meaning of the use of the countryside by the ones and the others (second home residents and tourists) and their impact on the local societies. These residents, urban nomads, build up an alternative relation to society, thus confering another value and function to the countryside.