My Paris travel tips will be very handy for first time visitors.
To see Paris and die: do you agree with this? 🙂 I heard this expression when I was a kid, and I just had to see the city to understand the meaning. It is true, Paris is a beautiful city, though not everywhere, a city of love, history, and culture and home to some of the most iconic landmarks, museums, and art galleries in the world, but I guess I had to live at the times when the expression was coined to grasp its meaning.
I have visited Paris a couple of times already, with my last trip being in December 2022. I wanted to see it at Christmas hoping for a spectacle of light and decorations. Well, I was a bit disappointed, though it was much better than Christmas in Rome 🙂
And when it comes to the financial part, I have to say that Paris is expensive, but I have here some tips to save money and make the most of your trip to the city of lights.
Paris travel tips: travel passes
1. Save money with Paris Museum Pass
The Paris Museum Pass was my best investment during this trip. You see, entrance fees are quite high, getting into the Louvre will cost you 17 EUR, Versailles is 21,50 EUR, the Arch of Triumph is 13 EUR, and there are other fantastic places to visit, and all these fees add up to hundreds of euros.
I was looking for ways to save some money on entrance fees, and came across the passes offered by the city. If you search for passes, you will for sure come across the Paris Pass and the Paris Museum Pass: they are different:
- The Paris Pass is about experiences like dinners and tours, and the Paris Museum is about visiting museums and palaces.
- You can buy the Paris Pass for 2, 3, 4 or 6 days.
- The Paris Museum Pass is sold for 2, 4 and 6 days.
- If you buy the Paris Pass for 4 or 6 days, it comes with the Paris Museum Pass included.
- The passes don’t include transportation.
- The Paris Pass is much more expensive than the Paris Museum Pass.
- Please pay attention to the sites the Paris Museum Pass offers free entrance to as the Eiffel Tower isn’t included.
As I travelled to Paris for a week, the Paris Pass was pretty expensive: 229 EUR, so I opted for the museum pass which is 85 EUR, and despite the fact that I didn’t have time to see all it offered, it really helped me to save a lot of money.
2. Book tickets and select time slots in advance
Some attractions in Paris are so popular that you will need to book tickets in advance to actually get there. I know for sure that one of these places is the Louvre, another one is MusĂ©e de l’Orangerie located in the Tuileries Gardens and houses eight large Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet and paintings by Paul CĂ©zanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, etc. And it doesn’t matter whether you want to buy the tickets directly from the website or you intend to use a museum pass: you still have to go to their website and reserve a time slot.
I know about this because when I bought the museum pass, the lady at the counter recommended that I book a time slot at the Louvre immediately. Frankly, I thought she was a bit exaggerating: after all, it was December around Christmas and I thought that not so many people were visiting Paris around that time. But she was right, and I managed to book one of the last places a couple of days later.
When it comes to the MusĂ©e de l’Orangerie, I missed this opportunity. Again, it didn’t even occur to me that this museum would be so popular, but it was, so when I finally decided to book a time slot, none was available.
At the same time, there are two other places that require booking time slots: Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie. While there was a stricter check at Sainte-Chapelle with people queuing to get in at the selected time, they were more lenient at the Conciergerie.
3. Should you use the Paris Visite pass?
In addition to the travel passes I mentioned above, Paris offers one specifically for transportation, namely Paris Visite which is available for 1, 2, 3 and 5 days. If it sounds nice, you have to consider that there are 2 types of passes: one gives you the right to travel around Paris in zones 1-3 and the other one is for the greater Paris area with zones 1-5 (if you want to travel in and outside Paris, like to Versailles, for example). Naturally, the price is different as well, so it’s up to you to decide what you want.
One regular ticket is 2,10 EUR, a 3-day pass for zones 1-3 is 30,10 EUR, and a 3-day pass for the greater Paris area pass is 60,70 EUR. When I travel, I make sure that I have to use public transport only twice a day: to the city centre and back to the hotel. Of course, your travel style may be different, so you can calculate your expenses and see whether a pass is worth it. In my experience – I had a similar situation in Rome – transport passes aren’t always a good investment.
The travel pass allows you to use the Montmartre funicular to get up to Sacre-Coeur, but it’s not mandatory to take it. I walked up to the cathedral, and it’s not so difficult to do it, though you will have to choose the way with less stairs.
I have a post with all the information I know about the Paris metro.
Paris travel tips: shopping
4. Galeries Lafayette are expensive
This one was a real disappointment. Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect, but I assumed it would be full of shops, both really expensive and more affordable ones. God, I was so wrong 🙂 Apparently, Galeries Lafayette is a high-end department store in Paris, known for its luxurious products.
Actually, Galeries Lafayette is in three buildings: two of them have clothes shops, and the third one is gourmet with chocolates, macarons, sandwiches, etc. I am not going to claim that I saw every shop in the Galeries, but what I saw was very expensive, and I planned to do some shopping there. Well, it would be fair to say that there was a Mango and Zara shop. At least, I saw their famous Christmas tree, though it was nothing special, and the decorations.
I thought I might have more luck in the gourmet section as I wanted to bring home some authentic French macarons and chocolate, but I was so mistaken again. The price range of one macaron was between 2,40 – 2,90 EUR. Chocolate in general isn’t very cheap in the centre of Paris, so I bought at the Galeries and paid 50 EUR for 300 grams! It was a selection of chocolates from Alain Ducasse, and I assumed that I would like them. I was wrong again, but I suppose it was my mistake as because of the crowds I just grabbed the box that looked more appealing, but my palate wasn’t ready for the flavours.
You can definitely visit Galeries Lafayette for window shopping, but, considering the crowds it will hardly be enjoyable. But if your plan is to buy clothes of well-known brands, that’s the place to do it. If you are looking for a different kind of shopping, I will talk about it below.
5. Shopping is better outside tourist areas
This one is kind of obvious, but the city centre is always more appealing. It seems nice to peek into stores and do some shopping, but it will always be crowded. I know because I tried. If you don’t know, there are countless affordable stores like Mango, Zara, Bershka, Uniqlo, etc. on Rue de Rivoli that leads to the Louvre Museum, so, naturally, it’s full of people. I took this street to get to the museum and went inside these stores, and in many cases it was so full of shoppers there was hardly room to move.
Then it occurred to me: why do I have to shop in these conditions if there is a shopping centre really close to my hotel? Indeed, I stayed at Hotel Inn Design Paris at Place d’Italie, and there was a shopping centre right at the square with Zara, Pimkie, Promod, etc. inside, and some other stores like Uniqlo along the street. And you know what, the experience of shopping there was completely different: no crowds, you can do everything at your own pace, nobody is pushing you, really a pleasure to shop!
These are chain stores, so the prices are the same, regardless of location, but if you want to buy something else like chocolate or macarons, you can find cheaper options in shops outside the city centre. For example, in the same shopping centre I bought macarons for 1,40 EUR per piece, which is almost half as cheap as at Galeries Lafayette.
When it comes to chocolate, I bought almost 500 grams for about 25 EUR at a Jeff de Bruges store at one of the metro stops far from the city centre, and the chocolate was amazing! There were no crowds, and I could calmly choose what I wanted!
6. Accommodation: stay in the city centre
Paris is super expensive, and for places like this it is usually recommended to choose a hotel far from the city centre as a way of saving money, but I don’t totally agree with this premise. Yes, the hotels at the very city centre can be really expensive, like more than 300 EUR per night, but it is possible to find options around 100-150 EUR as well at a reasonable distance. And these prices are the same for accommodation farther from the centre.
Another thing to consider is travel time. Frankly, you are not going to save much on transportation as Paris is huge and you will most likely have to use it anyway, even if you stay relatively close to the sights. I stayed at Place d’Italie which can be considered more or less central, and it took me about 40-50 minutes a day to get there and back. It is up to you to decide whether it is better to stay in the centre or spend additional time travelling.
Another thing I would recommend here is to book accommodation as soon as possible as availability runs out pretty quickly. I made this mistake when I was planning my December trip: when I checked booking websites a couple of months before my trip, there were apartments for 70 EUR per night, but by the time I decided to actually book a room, I couldn’t find anything below 100 EUR.
More on Paris:
- How to spend 1 day in Paris
- How to save money in Paris and make the most of your visit
- Paris in December: to travel or not?
7. English is much better now
I remember my first time in Paris: it was about 10 years ago, we stayed at a hostel and not so many people spoke English. A couple of years later I visited it again, and while wandering around the city I went into a boulangerie outside the city centre. It was a really big shop with several assistants, and they smiled when I entered. And then I made a mistake: I said hello instead of bonjour, and got completely ignored 🙂, which confirmed the stereotype of rude French people.
That’s why I was surprised during my last visit in December 2022, and it was a pleasant surprise. So many people speak English now, I couldn’t believe my ears. Waiters in the restaurants, assistants in shops and pharmacy workers outside the city centre, there was always someone speaking English, fluently and not so much, but enough to understand each other, wherever I went. The only tourist service I didn’t test for English was subway ticket selling counters as there are always machines available in 4-5 languages to buy tickets.
So, if you like me don’t speak French, don’t worry, it’s not so bad.
8. Asian food is blooming
I had a plan to eat as much French food as possible. I even made a list of restaurants serving French cuisine and marked them on the map only to realise that I would rarely be close to them during the sightseeing. And had no plans to deviate from my established route just to eat there. Besides, these restaurants were pretty expensive, so I gave up the idea. But I was still planning to eat as many croissants as possible, and I was true to my word 🙂
Before I came to Paris, my friend who has lived there for quite some time told me that Asian food is extremely popular in France and is cheaper than the local one. I didn’t really believe that, but she was right. The area I stayed at was full of Asian eateries, and I found a really nice place in the shopping centre I mentioned above. It had lots of options, and the assistants spoke English, so that was my place to-go almost every day.
My friend lives in a Parisian suburb, and I went to visit her one day. She spoke greatly of a new Asian place, and when we went there, the queue to get in was a couple of dozens of metres long, so we had to opt for a fish restaurant, which was pretty good.
9. Louvre is too big for one day visit
If you search for the largest museums in the world, the Louvre will always be somewhere on the top of the list. In fact, it is the largest museum by size, and that already has to mean something to visitors, namely that it’s impossible to see all exhibits in one day.
The museum houses collections from the Antiquity (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, etc.) to the 19th century, and I am sure everyone knows that you can see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo here. Countless paintings, including religious ones, sculptures, statues, jewellery are scattered around the museum, and you will need a couple of days to see them all.
Here you have to know that the museum is split in the three so-called wings: Sully containing mostly objects from the ancient world, Richelieu with mostly European paintings and sculptures and Napoleon III apartments, and Denon with antiquities, paintings and crown jewels. You can see the map of the museum with the rooms and information on the collections here.
When I went to the Louvre, I knew more or less what I wanted to see: I am interested in Ancient Egypt and really wanted to see some richly decorated rooms of the museum, so when I got there, I knew exactly where to go. And this is what I recommend you to do: check the map, mark the rooms you don’t want to miss, and don’t rush to see everything.
10. Pay attention to your belongings
Paris is a bustling and vibrant city, and like any big city, it’s important to be mindful of your belongings and keep them safe. Though it never happened to me, I understand that pickpocketing is quite a frequent event, especially on public transportation.
My friend says that sometimes the train drivers in the metro announce that pickpockets are in and passengers should keep an eye on their belongings. It looks like the criminals are quite well-known to subway workers.
Anyway, Paris is a stunning city with plenty to offer visitors, and you will definitely enjoy it. If you have any other Paris travel tips, or want to share your experience in Paris, you are more than welcome to do it in the comments. Bon voyage!
