Getting Started With Your Paris Trip
I've been planning trips to Paris for years and the process hasn't changed much, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. The city is well-organized for visitors but it will still try to take your money if you don't know what you're doing. This To Paris User Guide For Beginners is meant to save you from making the same mistakes I made on my first three visits. The Charles de Gaulle RER B train costs about 11 euros and gets you to central Paris in 35 minutes. Taxi drivers at the rank outside arrivals will quote you a flat rate to the Right Bank of 56 euros or Left Bank of 61 euros. The Uber option usually comes out to around 45 euros depending on demand pricing. Most beginners choose the taxi without knowing the RER is cheaper and honestly about the same speed during normal traffic. Get a Navigo Découverte pass if you plan on staying more than four days. It costs 5 euros for the card itself and then you load a weekly pass on it. The weekly pass covers all zones 1 through 5, which includes the airport and Versailles. You'll need a passport-sized photo for the card. I spent 20 minutes at the machine trying to figure this out on a Tuesday morning because nobody at the counter was speaking English and I had already missed my train.
Understanding Metro Zones
Paris metro tickets, called single-journey tickets or "ticket t+", cost 2.15 euros each and are valid for one trip with one transfer within 90 minutes. They do not work on the RER past zone 2 unless you buy a separate ticket. This trips up a lot of people who assume their single ticket covers everything. If you need to go to the Louvre, one ticket is fine. If you need to go to Disney World or Versailles, you need a different ticket entirely. The Navigo weekly pass eliminates this confusion but only if you buy it before Wednesday for it to be valid starting that Monday. That means if you arrive on a Thursday, you're stuck buying individual tickets or a separate weekly pass that won't start until the following Monday. There is a workaround. You can buy a carné of 10 tickets for about 17 euros, which covers most airport-to-hotel trips plus several days of metro travel, and then switch to the Navigo for whatever remains.
Where People Actually Waste Money
The Eiffel Tower elevator ticket to the second floor runs about 18 euros for adults. The stairs ticket to the same floor is 9 euros and takes roughly 30 to 40 minutes depending on your fitness level. I took the stairs on my second visit and honestly it was better because the lines for the elevator were about two hours long while the stairs line moved in under ten minutes. The view from the second floor is nearly identical either way. Restaurant prices near major attractions are typically double what you'd pay five blocks away. A simple cafe meal near the Louvre will set you back 25 to 35 euros. Walk two streets away and that same meal drops to 15 to 20 euros. I once ate at a bistro on Rue Cler that was a ten-minute walk from Les Invalides and the food was genuinely better than somewhere I tried right outside the museum. People don't tell you this because it hurts the restaurant owners' feelings but it's true.
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Getting Around Without Losing Your Mind
The metro map is color-coded and each line has a number and a destination printed on it. Lines 1 and 4 are the most frequently used by tourists and they cross through the center. Line 6 gives you a nice views of the river if you sit on the right side between Bir-Hakeim and Invalides stations. Line 14 is the newest and most modern but it only runs between the edges of central Paris so it won't help you get anywhere in the middle. Download the Citymapper app before you arrive. The Paris Metro official app works fine but Citymapper handles transfers between metro, RER, and bus in a way that actually makes sense. It also tells you which carriage to sit in for the shortest exit at your destination station. This matters more than it sounds because escalators at some stations are on one end and elevators on the other, and the difference can be five minutes of walking in a direction you didn't expect.
What You Should Skip
TheSeine river cruise costs about 15 euros and takes 1 hour. It's fine if you've never been to a city with a river running through it. It's not special. You can see the same monuments from the banks for free while sitting on a bench at a cafe. I did the cruise on my first visit and then did the same route walking along the quays on my third visit. The walking version was slower but I noticed things the boat skipped over completely. A lot of Paris tours include "skip the line" access to the Louvre. The Louvre has multiple entry points and the main pyramid entrance is the longest line. The Carrousel du Louvre entrance through the shopping mall almost always has zero wait. The Musée d'Orsay sells timed entry tickets online and the walk-up line can run 45 minutes on a weekend in summer. Booking ahead online saves you that entire wait and the ticket price is the same whether you buy it online or at the door.
A Problem That Almost Ruined My Trip
On my fourth trip I tried to use my Navigo pass on the RER to get to Orly airport for a flight. The system rejected it because Orlyval is a separate people-mover that requires its own ticket. I had to buy an additional 9.50 euro ticket at the machine and had to explain to the bus driver at Orlyval that I was confused about the zones. The whole situation cost me about 20 minutes and some embarrassment. The workaround is simple: check whether your destination requires a supplementary ticket before you leave home. The Ratp website has a planner that tells you exactly what zone you're traveling through.
Bottom Line
Paris is straightforward if you understand the transit system and accept that some things cost more than they should. The city doesn't have hidden traps beyond the usual tourist pricing. A week-long trip with decent hotels and regular meals will run about 1,500 to 2,000 euros per person depending on the season. The best months to go are April through June and September through October. July is crowded, hot, and the restaurants that matter most are closed for vacation anyway.
