aidanneal paris1. Go Off-season

Europe in the summer is a nightmare for many reasons and legitimately doesn’t seem worth the price. It’s literally one of those, I need a vacation from my vacation destinations in the summer. The crowds and wait times for everything from museums, to restaurants and other attractions at least doubles in the summer time. In the winter, you can find round-trip, non-stop tickets for $300 to $425! In the summer the low end cost for flights to Europe will run you around $850.

2. Stay in an AirBnb

Whether I stay in an Airbnb or a hotel, all depends on the area, what I’m looking to do and how I’d like to stay. More often than not, the decision to go with Airbnbs is normally a result of not being able to find a 2+ bedroom suite in a hotel, or wanting more square footage.

3. Travel With a Group

I’ve said it so often it’s starting to sound preachy but the more you have, the cheaper and nicer your accommodations can be. Our Airbnb was $1595 for our 5 night stay. That worked out to about $395/pp or $79/night. I paid for myself and my mom and it was still much cheaper than getting two rooms at an Ibis (perhaps the best low cost for value hotels). To boot, we stayed on Avenue de Suffren in a penthouse apartment with two bedrooms, en-suites, kitchen, living room, and 3 balconies spanning the width of every room in the apartment. To top it off, we had a direct and most spectacular view of the Eiffel tower. There is not a single hotel in Paris that offers that view for anything close to that price. In fact there aren’t any hotels along that side of avenue du suffren.

4. Buy a Museum Pass

Any experienced Paris traveler will tell you the best and most economical way to see the sites is with a museum pass. You can pay ahead for one online here. You pay one price and it gets you skip the line access to over 200 sites (pretty much anything worth seeing except the Eiffel tower).

5. Uber Everywhere

The most expensive Uber we took around the city was $12. Divided by 4 people that’s $3 a person for a ride. At an average of about $6-8 a person a day, that comes up to less than $40 in rides for a 5 nite trip. Plus! If any person in your group hasn’t used Uber before, every new user is entitled to a $20 ($5 off 4 rides) coupon.

6. Book a Le bus Direct

If 4 or more persons are travelling, you will only spend $17 each way (about $23 individually) to get to and from the airport and if you’re staying on Avenue du Suffren, along the Trocodero or Champs Elysees they’ll drop you right outside your doors. Otherwise, taxis from CDG to Paris transport at a set rate of $55. Booking a taxi from Paris to CDG is even harder and more expensive (approximately $85). An Uber will run you $50 and an Uber XL will run $75-80. You can book your Le bus Direct here.

7. Take the Train

Paris has one of the worst and hardest to navigate public transport systems I’ve ever come across. The signage is so poor and the assistance, while not abrupt or rude at all, is almost always incomplete, botchy, completely wrong or lost in translation. Use Google maps if you dare and you will more or less get the accurate route. We took a train to Versailles for $4. An Uber would have been $40. The train also saved us major time and money when visiting Mont Saint Michel.