Paris
Paris is the one city where our travellers log more sights than meals, and the big ones sit an afternoon's walk apart. Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Marais, Saint-Germain, and the Eiffel Tower sparkling free on the hour.
Paris in a nutshell
Paris: what to expect
We looked at how travellers actually plan Paris on Stippl, across 311,000+ planned stops in France.
Paris is a walking city with a metro underneath it, and most of a first visit sits inside a five-kilometre circle. The Seine splits it: the Louvre, the Marais and the Arc de Triomphe on the right bank, the Musée d'Orsay's station clock and Saint-Germain on the left. The Eiffel Tower flashes for five minutes on the hour after dark and that costs nothing. Sainte-Chapelle holds fifteen windows of thirteenth-century glass, Montmartre still has a vineyard, and Versailles is a day.
Nobody routes through Paris, they arrive at it, and it pairs with nothing. Nearly four in ten of the trips carrying Paris begin there and more than one in eight go nowhere else in France at all. Every French partner big enough to measure, Nice, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux, turns up on a Paris trip less often than on an ordinary one: people do not route through Paris, they arrive at it.
Keep it short and dense rather than the fortnight base you might want elsewhere: two nights is the typical stay. Only a quarter of Paris stays run four nights or more. It is also the one French city our travellers plan right through the winter, with a fifth of arrivals falling between November and February, where Nice manages one in twenty. Budget for it: a logged room here runs well above the French norm, and nothing about the city is cheap by default.
Plan Paris in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
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First-time Europe travellers
Paris opens a trip 38% of the time and is its only stop 12% of the time; for many people it is the trip, not the way in.
Museum-goers, above all
Paris is the only destination on Stippl where logged sights outnumber logged meals.
Off-season travellers
A fifth of Paris arrivals are planned for November to February, beaten in France only by Strasbourg and its Christmas market.
Walkers
The distance between the Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Marais and Saint-Germain is a comfortable afternoon.
Budget travellers, with effort
Hostels, bakery lunches, free first-Sunday museums and a €12.30 day pass make it workable, and most give it 2 nights.
Maybe not for you: anyone who wants one relaxed base for a fortnight, since the typical stay is two nights and only a quarter run four or more; Paris rewards a short, dense visit and most people treat it that way.
The best time to visit Paris
Shoulder
April to June and September to October
The answer every source gives and the months our own travellers pick: mild, the terraces open, the queues shorter than in summer and the light at its best. Book the museums anyway.
High summer
July and August
Hot, full, and the month Parisians leave: independent restaurants and small shops close for weeks in August and the city runs for visitors. Bastille Day on 14 July is the one night to be here for.
Winter
November to February
Grey, cheap outside the Christmas fortnight and the city that works through the whole cold half of the year. The museums are empty on a January weekday and the markets run from late November.
- July is the month most travellers plan Paris for on Stippl, and France as a whole is planned about 72 days ahead. 14.2% of Paris plans are made inside a fortnight, which works in every month except the Christmas one.
- The Louvre is free on the first Friday of the month after six, except in July and August. It is also free on 14 July; the timed slots for both go online in advance and the walk-up queue on those evenings is the long one.
- August closes the Paris that locals use. The neighbourhood bistros, bakeries and small shops shut for two to four weeks; the museums, the big brasseries and the Seine are open, and the streets are the quietest of the year.
- Fête de la Musique on 21 June is the one night the whole city is outside. Free live music on every corner until late, the metro running through the night and no ticket for any of it; plan the evening for it and the next morning around it.
- Bastille Day is a morning parade and a night of fireworks, with the metro closed around both. The Champs-Élysées is shut from early morning and the Champ de Mars fills by afternoon; a river bank away from the Eiffel Tower sees the show with room to stand.
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Describe your trip, get a Paris itinerary in seconds
Everything in this guide is already in Stippl. Tell the planner how long you have and what you like: it builds the route, the days and the travel times, and you edit whatever you want.
Things to do in Paris
Photo by Bharat Patil via UnsplashThe Eiffel Tower sparkling
Watch the tower flash for five minutes on the hour after dark from the Champ de Mars or Trocadéro, free. The ascent costs about €30 and a queue; the sparkle costs nothing.
The Louvre in one targeted run
Pick two wings, use the Wednesday or Friday night opening until nine, and leave; the collection is too large to see, about €22. Free on the first Friday of the month after six, except in July and August.
The Musée d'Orsay
Spend a morning with the Impressionist collection inside the Beaux-Arts railway station, with the station clock still in the wall, about €16. Thursday evenings run until half past nine and are the quiet slot.
Montmartre before the coaches
Walk Sacré-Cœur, the vineyard, Place du Tertre and the lanes below it before nine, free. The funicular takes a metro ticket and the steps take five minutes.
A day at Versailles
Take the train forty minutes for the palace and the gardens; the Passport ticket is about €25 in low season and €35 in high, and the late-afternoon slot is discounted. Go at opening or after three; the middle of the day is the queue.
Sainte-Chapelle
See the fifteen windows of thirteenth-century glass in the upper chapel on the Île de la Cité, about €13, a short visit rather than a museum day. A sunny afternoon, and book the slot online.
The neighbourhoods of Paris
The Louvre and Palais-Royal
Monumental, central, everything
The first arrondissement: the Louvre, the Tuileries, Sainte-Chapelle and the arcaded Palais-Royal, with the grand hotels. For first visits and for everything monumental within a walk.
Everything on foot, and the highest prices and the tour groups.
Le Marais
Medieval lanes, galleries, bars
Medieval lanes opening onto Place des Vosges, Renaissance mansions, Jewish delis, galleries and LGBTQ+ bars, with boutique hotels and the one district that trades on Sunday. For art lovers and for the best walking in the city.
The best streets and Sunday open, and the crowds in them.
Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Literary cafés, boutiques, the garden
The Left Bank literary heartland: Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, designer boutiques and the Jardin du Luxembourg, with classic hotels. For classic Paris and for the calmest big park.
Old-world cafés and the garden, and old-world prices.
The Latin Quarter
Student streets, cheap bistros
The Sorbonne's student district: pre-Haussmann streets, Shakespeare and Company and the Panthéon, with the cheapest central hotels. For budget travellers and for affordable bistros in a medieval plan.
The cheapest central beds, and the tourist bistros on the main lanes.
Montmartre
Hilltop village, Sacré-Cœur
A hilltop village above the city crowned by Sacré-Cœur: cobbled lanes, a working vineyard and cabarets, with small hotels on the slopes. For the one part of Paris that still feels like a village.
The village and the view, and the stairs and the crowds on the hill.
Canal Saint-Martin
Footbridges, roasters, apéro
Iron footbridges over a tree-lined canal, coffee roasters, canal-side apéro and very little English, with hostels and small hotels. For local evenings and for a younger crowd.
The best evenings by the water, and a metro ride to every sight.
See every Paris neighbourhood on one map
Save the areas you like and Stippl plots your days so you're not crossing the city twice.
Where to stay in Paris
Stay in the Marais for a first visit: central, on the Right Bank, walkable to both banks and dense with places to eat late. A hotel in Paris runs about €300 a night in what travellers log, and the gap between a good stay and a bad one is almost entirely the arrondissement. Never book beside the Eiffel Tower; it buys one attraction and a metro commute to everything else.
The Louvre and Palais-Royal
The grand hotels and palaces, from €500, and a few mid-range places in the side streets, €180 to €300.
Le Marais
Boutique hotels in the old mansions, €180 to €350, and apartments that make sense from four nights.
Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Classic hotels behind the cafés, €200 to €400, with the Luxembourg garden a walk away.
The Latin Quarter
The cheapest central hotels, €90 to €160, and student-quarter apartments.
Montmartre
Small hotels on the slopes, €100 to €180, and hostels in the 18th from €35 a bed.
Canal Saint-Martin
Hostels €30 to €45 a bed and small hotels, €100 to €170, with the cheap nightlife outside.
What to eat in Paris
The protected daily loaf; the queue outside a boulangerie is the quality signal
All-butter, bought before ten and eaten standing up
Grilled ham and cheese under béchamel; the madame adds a fried egg
Onion soup under a bread-and-gruyère crust
Snails in garlic-parsley butter, eaten with tongs and a small fork
Steak, thin fries, one sauce, no ceremony
Sweet wheat crêpes and savoury buckwheat galettes, the Breton half of Paris
Almond meringue sandwiches; the tea-salon export
Île Saint-Louis's ice-cream institution, sold across the island
Discover food spots in Stippl
Find restaurants and markets on the map, save them to your itinerary, works offline too.
Paris customs and what not to do
Bonjour opens the transaction
In a shop, a bakery or a bar the greeting and the au revoir on leaving are the transaction, not politeness; skipping it reads as rudeness and is answered with it.
Open with French
Even if it collapses immediately: three words before switching to English changes the reception measurably, and leading in English does not.
Service is unhurried by design
The bill comes when you ask for it, and waiting to be checked on is waiting for something that will not happen; the table is yours for the evening.
Dress unremarkable, not smart
Nobody is looking, and beachwear away from a pool is the one thing that is noticed; the Place du Tertre portraitists charge if you photograph their work.
Do
- Greet before you ask, every time
- Take the lunch formule rather than the dinner card if money matters
- Buy museum and tower tickets with a time slot, in advance
- Use the first-Friday-evening free window at the Louvre if your dates allow it
Don't
- Book beside the Eiffel Tower to save time; it will cost you time
- Expect independent restaurants to be open through August
- Photograph a portrait on Place du Tertre and walk off; the artists charge
- Leave a bag on the back of a café chair
What a Paris trip costs
Budget
€70–110
Hostel dorm, bakery breakfast and lunch, day pass, one paid museum.
Mid-range
€160–260
Three-star hotel or apartment, a sit-down lunch and dinner, two or three paid sights.
High-end
€400+
Four-star and up in the 1st, 6th or 8th, tasting menus, taxis.
Track what you actually spend
Set a daily budget per country and log expenses in any currency while you travel.
Fun facts about Paris
The Eiffel Tower grows up to 15 cm taller in summer. The iron expands in the heat and contracts in winter, and the tower also leans slightly away from the sun during the day.
The Louvre displays around 35,000 of its 380,000 works. Seeing everything on show would take months, which is why the guides say to pick a wing and walk out with the run done.
Paris has more than 1,800 classified historic monuments. More than any other French city, and the number explains why every arrondissement has something a guidebook lists.
The Louvre is free on the first Friday evening of the month, except in summer. The rule skips July and August, an exception that is usually left out when the free evening is mentioned.
Montmartre still has a working vineyard. The Clos Montmartre on the north side of the hill produces a few hundred bottles, and its harvest is a neighbourhood festival in October.
The 20 arrondissements spiral clockwise from the centre. The 1st is at the tip of the Île de la Cité, so a low number means central and a high number means outer.
Local tips for Paris
A single is €2.55
A Metro, train and RER ticket is €2.55 and the Navigo day pass €12.30, airports excluded. The paper carnet is gone: a Navigo Easy card costs €2 and loads trips at about €1.64 each.
The bus is for sightseeing
It is slower than the metro and better for seeing the city, because Paris traffic is dense. Vélib' bikes are everywhere and a poor idea in rush-hour traffic.
Six stations, six directions
Gare de Lyon goes south-east, Montparnasse west, Gare de l'Est east, Gare du Nord north and to London. Check which station your train leaves from; they are an hour apart in traffic.
How long to stay
Most people give Paris 2 nights on Stippl and it is the usual opening of a France trip. Book the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower online weeks ahead; both sell out.
Pickpockets on Line 1
Pickpocketing is the crime a visitor actually meets, concentrated in the 1st, 8th and 18th and on Metro Line 1 above all others. Bag in front, phone away at the doors.
Learn the three scams
The friendship bracelet at Sacré-Cœur, the petition-and-clipboard around the Louvre and Trocadéro, and the gold ring find. All work by getting a hand on you; keep walking.
Paris questions, answered
With the nights, not the sights. Paris is the first stop on 38.05% of the France trips planned on Stippl, so it usually sets the arrival date and everything else hangs off it. Block the nights out in Stippl first, fill the days after, and show the route to someone who has been before you book.
Two or three. Two nights is the normal stay across the 82,000+ stops planned in Paris on Stippl, and three is what a first visit wants once Versailles is in the plan. A fourth buys you the smaller museums and a morning with nowhere to be, which is the best day of the trip.
It happens more often than you would think: 27.78% of Paris stops planned on Stippl are a single night, usually an arrival or a rail change rather than a visit. One night buys you one neighbourhood and one museum. If Paris is the reason for the trip, give it two at the very least.
For the summit lift, yes, and the slots go weeks ahead in summer. The fallback everybody forgets is the stairs to the second floor: those tickets are sold on the day, the queue is shorter and the view over Paris is the one you came for. Buy on the official site rather than a reseller.
Yes, and give it the whole day rather than a morning. The palace is only half of it; the gardens, the two Trianons and the hamlet are what people actually remember, and they take hours on foot. Go early on a weekday with a timed entry booked, and skip it if Paris only has two days.
Paris is safe for the vast majority of visitors, and the risk is theft rather than anything worse. Pickpockets work the metro, the queue at the Louvre and the steps at Montmartre, so keep a bag closed and in front of you in a crowd. The central arrondissements are fine to walk at night.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Plan Paris in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
Download the app