Nice Airport to Saint-Tropez: the honest guide
Saint-Tropez is about 110 km from Nice Airport. That number tells you almost nothing useful, because the last thirty kilometres of the journey are the whole story and they behave completely differently depending on the month. This is the guide we would want to read.
The road, and why the last stretch decides everything
The motorway takes you to Le Muy quickly and reliably. From there the road runs round the Gulf of Saint-Tropez on a single route that everyone — residents, deliveries, day-trippers, every other transfer — has to share.
Out of season that stretch is about forty minutes. On a Saturday afternoon in August it can be two hours, and occasionally more. The total journey is therefore somewhere between an hour and three quarters and three and a half hours, and which one you get is a function of the calendar and the hour of the day rather than of the driver.
Any operator who quotes you a flat journey time for August is either not paying attention or hoping you will not notice until you are in the car.
The ferry across the Gulf: the trick that actually works
A passenger boat crosses the Gulf between Sainte-Maxime and Saint-Tropez in about twenty minutes. It runs frequently in season, and it entirely skips the road that everyone else is queuing on.
That makes a combination worth knowing about: car to Sainte-Maxime, boat across. In peak season this is regularly faster than driving all the way round, and it is more pleasant by a distance. It only works with luggage you can carry, and only while the boats are running, so it is a summer answer rather than a year-round one.
We will suggest it when it is the better plan. It means a shorter, cheaper transfer for us, which is exactly why it is worth telling you.
Fly into Toulon instead, if you can
Toulon–Hyères is about 55 km from Saint-Tropez and approaches from the other side, avoiding the Gulf road entirely. The transfer is roughly an hour and costs materially less than the Nice run.
If your flight works from Toulon, take it. If it does not, Nice is the right airport and the drive is worth planning properly. What you should not do is book Nice, assume the map is telling the truth, and discover the Gulf road at four o'clock on an August Saturday.
Sharing, and why it does not work here
Shared shuttles price per person and make sense on short, dense routes. On a hundred-and-ten-kilometre run with an unpredictable final stretch, a shared vehicle means waiting for a full load and then dropping other people first — on the same road, in the same queue.
For two people the arithmetic is arguable. For three or four it is not: a private vehicle at a fixed price is usually cheaper in total and always faster.