“Must See” List and Walking Tour for Paris on a Budget, Paris, France

Welcome to our guide to preparing for a budget trip to France, including our favorite sights in Paris! We recently updated this page and added a few new tips to make it even better. Enjoy!

I put together this guide while in France for three and a half weeks, which was Jedd’s first visit. I (Michelle) have visited France four times, since I have close relatives living in Paris, and I studied there for six months in college.

A majority of our first France trip together was spent in the Loire Valley countryside, but we also had about a week in Paris. Although we wanted to see a lot of the sights in Paris, we also needed to keep costs low.

Fortunately, we were able to save big on airfare (this was the first international trip where we only used frequent flyer miles), and we didn’t pay for any accommodations while in France. Instead, we stayed part of the time with my Aunt and Uncle, who live there, and the rest of the time we did a Help Exchange in a chateau. That left the bulk of our expenditures to food as well as a few train rides and metro fares.

In the planning and preparation of our trip, I used a number of free resources that I wanted to share here. I think we’ve also put together a great plan for getting the most out of our time in Paris without spending very much at all. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).