39 Practical PARIS Tips in 17 Minutes | Your 2025 Paris Travel Guide

You are heading to Paris and there is so much to know, but this one video is going to get you like 80% of the way there. We're going to go fast, we've got lots of tips to share with you, we're going to take you all over Paris. You're going to have a great time just watching this. Hi, I'm Jordan. And I'm Erica. And we're your Guides Abroad. The most common way to come to Paris is by Eurostar or flying into Charles de Gaulle Airport. We're at Gare du Nord station right now where the Eurostar comes in. Eurostar is great. It leaves from St. Pancras station in London, right to Paris Gare du Nord station. It's a good price, it's a fast way to go, it's a comfortable journey. We have a wonderful, incredible video up there on taking the Eurostar, so check that out for more information. Taking the Metro is very easy and so is paying for it. So you can get those paper tickets from the machines, the T-Plus tickets, or you can get a Navigo card that you can reload. Or even easier, you can use the IDF Mobilities app. Use it just like you would a Navigo card to enter the Metro station. And this is fun. You can also recharge or top up your Navigo card using the IDF Mobilities app, in case you have both. Each person needs their own form of payment, so you may end up with two. High on your list is probably getting some delicious bread, pastries, all the things you've seen and they are as good as you think they are going to be, trust me. But I do want to explain a couple differences so you know what shop you should be walking into. Alright, so the first one behind me, a boulangerie. This is a French bakery and they must bake their bread on site in order to use the word. They might also sell pastries on site. Alternatively, a patisserie is a bakery that employs a licensed master pastry chef. Tip, go early in the morning to beat the morning crowds. So like before 9am, it also can get busy again after school and many of them will be closed on Mondays, like a lot of things you'll find in Paris, closed on Mondays. It's cheap, easy and delicious and most of these places you take the food to go and head to a park, picnic or bench nearby or back to your hotel or apartment. Tip number seven, while I'm on top of the Eiffel Tower, I remembered, leave a tip, help somebody else out. If you have a favorite tip on visiting Paris because we don't cover them all here, leave it down in the comments below. Help everybody out. Thanks so much. So one thing we always do when we walk in, we say bonjour, bonsoir, we make sure to acknowledge the other person who we are seeing in the restaurant or the store and yeah, I think that's made the difference. I hope, I don't know, everybody's just been so friendly. Now we're heading to the Place du Beauge. Alright, let's talk about getting around the city. So our favorite app for public transportation is CityMapper. This helps us navigate the bus, the metro, the trains and figure out exactly where we want to go. It's not foolproof. It does have glitches and issues. It's only as good as the data it's receiving and sometimes that data isn't very good but we find this to be the best for public transportation. For walking around the streets, I use Google Maps. I find that the interface is more accurate than CityMapper's walking interface and I feel like it's a lot easier to use. So those are the two apps we use multiple times per day to get around. If you come to visit and you are planning to head to the base or even the top of the Arc de Triomphe, there's a big roundabout around it that is very busy and you do not cross at street level. You cross down the stairs. Make sure you find those before you go. And for more tips, make sure you check out our YouTube playlist because we have lots of Paris content to help you with your trip and our website, yourguidesabroad.com. One thing to be prepared for is it takes longer to get around than you think. Transportation is easy. It's really easy to move around the city. It just takes a while. I'm in a cab right now. Great. Easy. There's also wonderful public transportation. You can take the metro, the trains, the buses. It's all very accessible. Just make sure you give yourself enough time so you are not late for your museum entrance like we are. All right, and if you are coming to Paris and you are because you're watching this video, make sure you check out our Paris itinerary at yourguidesabroad.com slash itinerary. It takes you on excursion days around the city on a perfectly planned out route so you can see some amazing sights, eat at some wonderful restaurants. It comes with a video guide, an audio guide, and a transportation guide. So it'll make your trip planning so much easier. Check it out. You're going to want to make sure that you book tickets in advance for popular attractions. This is so important even when you're outside of busy summer tourism months. So things like the Louvre, Saint-Chapelle, Dorcet, the Catacombs, Pantheon, Versailles. Just make sure you book those tickets in advance. I'm going to go see what everyone's looking at over here at the Louvre. If you want a truly authentic sit and savor experience, do as the Parisians do and picnic. Just go out, especially on a beautiful sunny day. So there are so many parks and gardens that you can picnic in. Just go pick up some food from a market. We're doing this tomorrow in the Luxembourg Gardens. We also like doing it in front of the Eiffel Tower, especially at dusk. I know, touristy, cheesy, but guess what? I'm a tourist and I'm cheesy and I love it. We'll put up some parks on the map. Just enjoy yourself. Ugh, Paris on a sunny day. Is there anything more beautiful? I don't know. Everyone wants a great Eiffel Tower photo, obviously, and this is a beautiful street to do it on. There are a number of beautiful streets to do it on, but if you want a great picture of just you and no one in the background, come early. And I'm talking like 7am in the summer. We came here. Check out this picture that we got. No one's in it. There are a lot of cute fruit stands and markets, things like that, but if you need something a little extra, there are plenty of grocery stores that you can pop into. The local produce markets are super cute and delicious. Something special tonight because this lovely lady, she booked a reservation for us for dinner. And that brings us to our next tip. When you're in Paris, if you've got a favorite restaurant you want to go to, make sure that you book it in advance. And actually, really just try and book a lot of your dinners in advance because you don't want to be stuck looking for a bad restaurant. There you go. The big tip. Alright, we're going to go enjoy a nice dinner right now. And we do say make reservations in advance, so you can either make them on the restaurant's website, you can call the restaurant, or you can book on the Fork, which is an easy place to go to restaurants. In general, your meals happen lunch from about 12 to 2, dinner from about 7 to 10, 10-30-ish. But some places serve meals all day, and that's, you'll see signs that says, continue service, service continue. And that's how you know they're serving food all day long. Since we're talking about restaurants, France, and especially Paris, is accredited with the first restaurant opening, especially in Western civilization. The article I found from the History Channel says that it's actually the Chinese that opened up the first restaurants in the 12th century. They had lots of restaurants in thriving trade areas. But out here in the West, the French did open the first restaurant, their bouillon restaurants opened up in the 1760s and 1770s, before the French Revolution, as a place for people to go and actually eat, instead of just a tavern keeper saying like, hey, this is what we got for lunch today, and you better show up at one o'clock. They had printed menus, you sat down at a cafe table, and you know, you could come at any time of day, or certain times of day, in order from the menu. That started here in France, and the bouillon restaurants were so popular. Bouillon was a really hearty meal, people liked a lot, especially during the Enlightenment era. Gave you like, vigor and nutrients. That wasn't so well, that gave birth to fine dining restaurants that you started seeing after the French period of the Revolution and the Enlightenment. There you go, so enjoy that French restaurant, that's where it started. Number 18, try Langcourt, a restaurant, in our free download that we have down below. It's a great itinerary, and we end in Langcourt, where we give you some recommendation on restaurants. We are not in the Langcourt right now, we are in the first, we're pretty close to Langcourt. One tip, is to don't overthink it, especially when it comes to food. The food is great, you are probably going to have some absolutely fantastic meals. The internet food information, I should say, can be overwhelming when you are chasing the best cafe, the best baguette, the best whatever, croissant, in Paris. Just find some place that looks lovely, if it has some locals there, amazing, and you'll probably have a wonderful meal. Here's a quick tip for you if you find yourself out and about, and you need to use the bathroom. Hop into a cafe, hang out, have a quick drink, coffee, an actual alcoholic drink if you like, whatever, and take this as an opportunity to slow down and relax, rest your feet for a minute, and if you don't want to sit at a table, you can usually even sit at the bar for a quick drink. Alright, you are probably going to need to use the toilet while you are out and about, so some tips for you. Have change, because some of the toilets require you to pay 50 cents, a euro, something, so make sure you have change on you for that, and if you take an espresso at the bar, rather than sitting at a table, it's usually cheaper, fun fact. And there's the toilet right behind me that you have to pay for. Hey, do something unique when you go to Paris. I say do a unique tour, like a bakery tour, we did a croissant making class, which is really cool, a bike tour is also great, just go out, find some cool tours to do, we have a link down below, of course we do, to help you out, because we have some favorites that we've done around Paris. Enjoy those fun experiences. Don't overload your itinerary, you want to make sure, obviously you see some great things and have some stuff planned, but make sure you don't overload things, save time to stroll around, like at some great markets. You sit out here on the steps of the Opera House, enjoying your ice cream, smoking is still very prevalent in France, especially in Paris, so if you're sitting out at a terrace like at a cafe, expect to have smokers nearby, it just happens. Alright, you're coming to Paris, you want to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle, right? Sparkles for five minutes on the hour after dusk, and then the last sparkle is at 11.45, so we're here during the summer, so dusk is until like 10 o'clock, so it's only one sparkle, that's at 11 o'clock. So be patient, it's worth it. You probably don't speak French, and neither do I, though I am trying to learn a few words, and it is actually really fun to try and say things in French, and guess what, everyone who I have ordered from or said something to in French, they seem to like it and appreciate it, and then usually they'll talk to me in English, but anyways, this tip is Google Translate is your friend. Download the app on your phone, and that way you can use it if you need to speak to somebody and you're not sure what to say, and they don't speak English, or you want to at least attempt in French, or if you see signs like this, you can just go down, take a picture, translates the whole thing, and then you know what this is, you know what's going on, and you can, I don't know, be a little bit more knowledgeable about what you're seeing. Alright, if you are paying for something with your credit card or debit card, and you are given the option of paying in the local currency or paying in your US dollars or whatever your home currency is, it is, I think, almost always, best to pick paying in your local currency, you'll get a better conversion rate. So for example, at the same exact ATM yesterday, I pulled out 100 euros, and it asked if I wanted to pull it out in local currency or have the conversion done here, I picked local currency, the conversion here, it would have charged me 114 dollars, and when I checked my bank statement, it was 107 dollars, so a 7 dollar difference adds up over your trip, so don't want to waste that money. Alright, when you arrive on Eurostar at Gare du Nord station in Paris, you can take the metro, which is really easy, or hop in a taxi. A big tip on the taxi, make sure it's a meter taxi. You wait in the taxi rank right behind me, but get this, in our trip to Paris, we wait in the taxi rank for the families and groups, we got in the taxi, once we got in, it changed from a meter, he wanted to have 115 euros, dollars, or pounds. So the fact that he wanted cash was a big sign that it wasn't right. He even showed us a yellow laminated card saying it cost 115 euros for the ride, none of that was true, you got to do a meter taxi. Now obviously if you don't do the rank, you have guys walking around saying taxi, taxi, so stand in the rank, make sure you do the meter, that's a big tip for you, right? You want to start off your trip right. If you don't want to deal with that, grab the metro, or grab an Uber also. And make sure you make time for a romantic walk along the Seine. My job is to hold her hand. I also will say, if you have kids with you and it's not such a romantic walk, along this walkway, they do have little parks and play areas for kids, so make sure you check those out. This is nice, huh? It is nice. We are at Versailles right now, another tip for you, is a day trip like out to Versailles or Giverny worth it for you? Now our rule of thumb is if you're only staying in London for two or four days, then you have so much to do in Paris that you won't have time for a day trip. Try to do it on another trip or something like that, right? And that reminds me, my next tip is don't overload your itinerary. You don't want to pack it full of too many things. You'll just get exhausted. I do that to my family all the time. So, just plan out, have a good structure to it, put some rest in there, lots of time for cafes, a lot of time to just sit and savor. Take it all in. We do have itineraries, Paris itineraries, at yourguidesabroad.com, slash itinerary, and you're going to love those because those are perfectly planned out. They have an audio guide included in there and a transportation guide to help you get around plus four excursion days all throughout Paris. You're going to have a great time. All right, on to the next tip. Let's talk about tipping because that can be confusing when you are traveling through multiple countries. So, tipping is not compulsory here. It is not expected, but it is appreciated if you have enjoyed your meal or have wonderful service. You know, tipping a little bit extra is always nice, but it is not required or expected. It's just not part of the culture. If you're in a touristy, very touristy restaurant and they want to try to rip you off a little bit, they may ask how much you would like to add on for a tip and that's a sign of you're being a little scammed. Pack the ugly but comfortable shoes. Trust me. We are walking like 20,000 steps and just pack the ugly shoes. You can do it. I'll be honest. These are like fairly comfortable, not the most comfortable. I would pack like some big old tennis shoes right now for these big walking days. And you know what? I don't care what people think. I don't care. Make sure you bring your water bottles with you. You will find water refilling stations on the street. I love that this says be Parisian, drink tap water. It says it in English, which is funny. There are also sparkling water fountains around the city. And this one misted from the top. Good for a hot day like today. Whoa, you got misted. That's awesome. You got misted. I got misted. So, we know these practical tips are going to help you on your trip to Paris. It's like, you know, your foundation to having a great time and a great experience here. Like I said, don't overload yourself, enjoy the sights and the sounds, plan a perfect itinerary for yourself. It is the practical tip you need. Luxembourg Palace is behind us. It's stunning. It was built by Marie de Medici in I think 1611. Such great history here. You enjoy Paris. Thanks for watching. Thank you.