Paris
Paris Without the Queue Tax: Arrondissements, Timed Slots and the Nights the Museums Stay Open Late
The median Paris bed runs $184 a night in August and $302 in October, and almost everything else you will overpay for is a choice rather than a price. Book the arrondissement that costs $100 less for a twelve-minute Metro ride, take the Thursday and Friday late openings when the galleries are half empty, and buy lunch from a bakery instead of a monument terrace.
Quick facts
- Best time
- February and March, then late August into the first week of September, and November. February at a $199 median and March at $207 are the two months where you can get a same-day timed slot at the Louvre and still eat outside on a good afternoon. Late August is the queue-averse traveller's month: $184 is the cheapest bed of the year, Parisians are away, and the galleries are open while half the bistros are shut. November at $186 is wet and dark by five, which is exactly why the Orsay and the Pompidou feel like private collections. Avoid the first three weeks of July, and any week the fashion calendar or a big trade fair at Porte de Versailles is running, when hotel rates move faster than the weather does.
- Days needed
- 5-6 days
- Stops
- 1 stop
- Cheapest month
- August · $184/night see costs
When to go — what it costs
| Month | Avg nightly hotel |
|---|---|
| January | $209 $39 below the annual average |
| Highs near 7C/45F, grey, dark by 5.30pm. Emptiest museums of the year. $209 median, though the January sales fill the shops. | |
| February | $199 $49 below the annual average |
| Best value Cold and often clear, about 8C/46F. Crowds low, same-day timed slots available. $199 is the best queue-to-price ratio of the year. | |
| March | $207 $41 below the annual average |
| Best value 10C to 14C, 50F to 57F, showery, terraces reopen. Crowds building but manageable. $207 buys February prices with April light. | |
| April | $269 $21 above the annual average |
| Peak 12C to 17C, 54F to 63F, blossom, real rain. Queues arrive with it. $269, and every timed slot goes days ahead. | |
| May | $281 $33 above the annual average |
| Peak 16C to 20C, 61F to 68F, long evenings, several public holidays that shut museums. Crowds high, $281. Check the calendar first. | |
| June | $288 $40 above the annual average |
| Peak 20C to 25C, 68F to 77F, daylight to 10pm, Fete de la Musique on the 21st. Peak crowds and $288, the second-dearest month. | |
| July | $257 $9 above the annual average |
| Peak 25C to 30C, 77F to 86F, and airless on the Metro. Parisians leave, tourists do not. $257; late openings are the cool slots. | |
| August | $184 $64 below the annual average |
| Best value Hot, 25C to 30C, and half the bistros shut. Crowds thin, and $184 is the cheapest bed of the year. The queue-averse month. | |
| September | $387 $139 above the annual average |
| Peak 20C to 24C, 68F to 75F, the year's best light. Reads $387 but that is a 12-month-out sample; expect nearer $280. Busy. | |
| October | $302 $54 above the annual average |
| Peak 14C to 18C, 57F to 64F, gold light and sharp showers. $302 is the dearest real reading of the year and hotels run full. | |
| November | $186 $62 below the annual average |
| Best value 7C to 11C, 45F to 52F, wet, dark by five. $186 and second-cheapest. You get the Orsay and the Pompidou nearly to yourself. | |
| December | $204 $44 below the annual average |
| 5C to 9C, 41F to 48F, lights on the Champs-Elysees and markets. $204 median, with a real spike over Christmas week itself. | |
below average above average
What a day costs
Shoestring
$135/day
A room in the 12e or 18e near $80, a bakery breakfast and a EUR 6 jambon-beurre, a market dinner, $8 of Metro on a Navigo Easy, and $12 of sights built from Pere Lachaise, the parks, the Petit Palais and the Carnavalet, which are all free.
5-day trip · $675
Mid-range Most readers
$290/day
A small hotel in the 2e to the 4e around $165, lunch taken as the main meal on a prix fixe, one booked timed-entry museum a day near $30, $10 of Metro, and a glass of wine sitting outside in the evening rather than standing at the bar.
5-day trip · $1,450
Comfort
$620/day
A room in the 1e with a view around $400, $160 of food including one dinner booked six weeks out, $20 of taxis when the Metro is not worth it, and $40 of tickets, which covers the Louvre after closing time or a guided Versailles slot.
5-day trip · $3,100
| Shoestring | Mid-range Most readers | Comfort | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per day | $135/day | $290/day | $620/day |
| Includes | A room in the 12e or 18e near $80, a bakery breakfast and a EUR 6 jambon-beurre, a market dinner, $8 of Metro on a Navigo Easy, and $12 of sights built from Pere Lachaise, the parks, the Petit Palais and the Carnavalet, which are all free. | A small hotel in the 2e to the 4e around $165, lunch taken as the main meal on a prix fixe, one booked timed-entry museum a day near $30, $10 of Metro, and a glass of wine sitting outside in the evening rather than standing at the bar. | A room in the 1e with a view around $400, $160 of food including one dinner booked six weeks out, $20 of taxis when the Metro is not worth it, and $40 of tickets, which covers the Louvre after closing time or a guided Versailles slot. |
| 5-day trip | $675 | $1,450 | $3,100 |
How long do you have?
2 days · A weekend with two tickets
- Day 1: the Louvre on a booked ninety-minute tour at $84, lunch under the Palais-Royal arcades, the Marais on foot all afternoon.
- Day 2: Notre-Dame on a free booked slot, Sainte-Chapelle at $41, the Arc de Triomphe rooftop at $64 an hour before sunset.
4 days · The city without the day trips
- Days 1 and 2: the two islands, the Louvre in the morning, the Marais and the free municipal museums.
- Day 3: the Left Bank by daylight and the Musee d’Orsay on its Thursday late opening to 21:45.
- Day 4: Montmartre before eight, a market lunch in the 12e or the 3e, an evening on the Seine banks.
6 days · City plus Versailles, properly paced
- Days 1 to 3: the core, built around one timed museum slot a day and nothing after four in the afternoon.
- Day 4: free Paris in the morning, market lunch, then the Louvre nocturne or the Pompidou late opening.
- Day 5: Versailles on a booked skip-the-line slot at $98, back in the city by four.
- Day 6: Montmartre at seven, a long lunch, and left-luggage at the station instead of a hotel night.
8 days · Add one long day and one empty one
- Days 1 to 6: the six-day plan above, unchanged.
- Day 7: the Loire at $161 or Giverny with Versailles at $203, both leaving before seven in the morning.
- Day 8: nothing booked. Canal Saint-Martin, Pere Lachaise, Buttes-Chaumont, and whichever cafe you kept going back to.
Suggested itinerary
Day 1 · Land and buy the Metro card
RER B from Charles de Gaulle reaches Chatelet in about 35 minutes; from Orly, Metro 14 takes 30. Both cost a fraction of the taxi. Load a Navigo Easy with t+ tickets at roughly EUR 2.15 a ride, or a Navigo Semaine if you land on a Monday. Drop the bags and walk your own arrondissement for two hours with no ticket booked for anything: find the bakery with the queue outside, the market street, the cafe you will use twice. Tonight, before bed, book tomorrow morning’s free Notre-Dame slot. They are released the evening before and gone by breakfast.
Day 2 · Louvre at opening and lunch at the Palais-Royal
Enter through the Carrousel du Louvre under the mall rather than the pyramid, where the visible queue lives. A ninety-minute guided run at $84 or a two-hour curated one at $92 buys you the Winged Victory, the Michelangelo slaves and the Mona Lisa scrum without four hours of drift. Out by noon. Buy lunch from a traiteur on Rue Sainte-Anne for about $14 and eat it under the Palais-Royal arcades. Afternoon: the Tuileries, then the Orangerie’s two oval rooms of water lilies, which take twenty minutes and beat most of what you queued for.
Day 3 · Islands by morning and Orsay after dark
Notre-Dame on your booked slot at opening, then Sainte-Chapelle on the $41 island walking tour while the sun is still on the east glass. Cross to the Left Bank and spend the afternoon on foot: Shakespeare and Company, the Rue Mouffetard market street, a coffee sitting down rather than standing at the bar because the counter price is half. Then the Musee d’Orsay on its Thursday late opening, when it runs to 21:45 and the Impressionist floor empties out around eight. Dinner afterwards in the 7e side streets, prix fixe near $30.
Day 4 · Free Paris and the market lunch
Save this one for a Thursday or a Friday, when the late openings run. The Petit Palais, the Musee d’Art Moderne, the Maison de Victor Hugo and the Carnavalet all charge nothing for their permanent collections, and none of them has a queue. Build the morning from two of those. Lunch is the point of today: Marche des Enfants Rouges in the 3e or Marche d’Aligre in the 12e, where a plate costs under $12 and the produce is what the restaurants around the corner are buying. Evening: the Louvre nocturne, three hours from $115, or the Pompidou, which runs late on Thursdays.
Day 5 · Versailles on a booked slot
Take the guided skip-the-line at $98 and go on the first departure, or the half-day Tootbus at $92 if you want the afternoon in the city. Either way the gardens are the half people run out of time for, and they are free to walk on most days. Back in Paris by four, and give the evening to the tower. Take the Arc de Triomphe rooftop at $64 an hour before sunset instead of queueing for the Eiffel Tower’s lifts, then watch the tower sparkle on the hour from the Champ de Mars for nothing.
Day 6 · Montmartre at seven and one last long lunch
Be on the Butte before eight, when the funicular is empty and Place du Tertre is just a square. Sacre-Coeur is free; the dome climb is not, and the view from the steps is much the same. Come down through the 9e, ignore anyone who offers to tie a bracelet on your wrist, and finish with a two-hour lunch somewhere you noticed on day one. If you have a late flight, left-luggage at Gare du Nord costs less than an extra hotel night and buys you the whole afternoon.
Days 7-8 · The extension if you have it
One long day out and one day with nothing planned. The Loire at $161 gets you Chambord, Chenonceau and a tasting in thirteen hours and rates highest of all the day trips; Giverny paired with Versailles at $203 is the pick from late April when the water lilies are actually flowering. Keep the following day empty on purpose. Canal Saint-Martin, Pere Lachaise, Buttes-Chaumont, a swim at the Piscine Pontoise: the version of Paris nobody queues for is the one you will describe when you get home.
Where to stay
Montmartre (18e)
Villa Montmartre
$102 a night, budget
The cheapest credible bed here, on the hill in the 18e, with some rooms looking straight at the Sacre-Coeur dome. Right for people who want to be out at seven before the coaches arrive. Caveat: only 61 reviews, and Montmartre is a hill in both directions.
Bercy (12e)
CAMPANILE PARIS 12 – Bercy Village
$134 a night, budget to mid
Bercy is the value play: over a thousand reviews, cheap places to eat under the old wine warehouses, Marche d’Aligre a short walk away and Metro 14 into the centre in about eight minutes. Caveat: the neighbourhood is quiet in a suburban way after ten.
17e, near the Arc de Triomphe
Hotel Etoile Saint Ferdinand by Happyculture
$156 a night, mid
Ten minutes on foot from the Arc de Triomphe, which means you can walk to a sunset rooftop slot instead of budgeting a Metro ride for it. The 17e gives you central addresses at outer-arrondissement money. Caveat: it is residential, so nightlife means a walk east.
3e, Republique / Marais edge
Paris France Hotel
$158 a night, mid
Rated 9.0 across 724 reviews and the strongest thing under $160 in this set. On the Marais edge, which is the one part of Paris where dinner does not require a plan: walk out and something good is within four minutes. Caveat: rooms are Paris-small.
15e
Novotel Paris Porte de Versailles
$213 a night, mid to upper
Rooms that fit a suitcase open on the floor, which central Paris will not give you at this price. Tram and Metro 12 at the door and a straight run to Versailles. Right for families. Caveat: it sits beside a convention centre, so rates spike during trade fairs.
2e, Sentier
Nestay Sentier
$284 a night, upper
Apartment-style with a real kitchen, two streets from Rue Montorgueil and its fishmongers, cheesemongers and bakeries. Rated 9.8. The pick if you intend to shop a market and cook once, which is the cheapest good dinner in Paris. Caveat: 57 reviews, so it is young.
2e, Opera Comique
La Maison Favart
$337 a night, upper
Nine point six across a thousand reviews, with a basement pool and spa that earn their keep on a day you have walked fifteen kilometres. Five minutes from the Palais-Royal and the Louvre’s quieter entrances. Caveat: the Grands Boulevards are noisy at street level.
4e, Marais
Roi de Sicile Rivoli
$440 a night, luxury
Inside the Marais rather than near it, so the falafel queue, the Picasso museum and the Place des Vosges are all a two-minute walk and you stop paying the transit tax on every evening. Caveat: at $440 you are buying the postcode, not the square metres.
1e, opposite the Louvre
Hotel Regina Louvre
$566 a night, luxury
Belle Epoque, across the road from the Louvre, with Eiffel Tower views from some rooms. The one splurge that pays back logistically: you can walk out at nine for a timed slot and be back for lunch. Caveat: it is the most expensive bed in this list by $126.
What to do
Mona Lisa & Masterpieces: A Curated Tour of Louvre Highlights
Two hours and $92, rated 9.2. The tightest way through a museum of 35,000 works that you will never finish. Book the first slot of the day, see forty things properly, and be out on the Rue de Rivoli before the queue at the pyramid peaks.
Louvre Museum Masterpieces Fully Guided Tour with Reserved Access
The most reviewed Louvre option here, nearly 1,500 of them at 9.0, from $114 with reserved access. Two and a half hours with a guide who decides for you which forty works to see, which is the difference between a good morning and four wasted hours.
Louvre Museum Must-Sees Skip-The-Line Guided Tour
Ninety minutes at $84, the cheapest guided entry in this set and the only realistic version with children. You are back outside before museum fatigue lands, which leaves the Tuileries and a bakery lunch as the rest of the morning rather than a recovery.
Closing Time at the Louvre: From Mona Lisa to Venus de Milo
The late slot, three hours from $115. The Louvre runs a nocturne on Friday evenings and the Mona Lisa room in the last hour is a different room entirely. If you only do one thing from this whole page, make it a museum after dark.
Notre-Dame Island Walking Tour with Sainte-Chapelle Ticket
Forty-one dollars, and it includes Sainte-Chapelle, whose fifteen metres of thirteenth-century glass is the least overrated ticket in Paris. Go on a bright afternoon when the west rose is lit. Notre-Dame itself is free but needs a slot booked the evening before.
Arc de Triomphe Rooftop Tickets
Sixty-four dollars for the better skyline, because this one has the Eiffel Tower in it. Take the last slot before sunset, watch the twelve avenues switch on, and skip the tower’s own lift queue entirely. The underpass entrance is the only safe way across.
Paris Museum Pass: 2, 4 or 6 Days
From $128, and it breaks even at roughly four national museums. It is a queue tool as much as a price tool, but it does not include a timed slot at the Louvre, so book that separately. For a two-museum trip it costs more than the tickets.
Versailles Palace Skip-the-Line Tour with Gardens Access
Ninety-eight dollars for the door and a guide. Versailles without a booked slot in April means two hours in an open courtyard with no shade. Six hours including the gardens, which are the half most day-trippers run out of time for.
Tootbus Versailles Half-Day Tour from Paris
Ninety-two dollars, six hours, transport from central Paris included. Half a day rather than a whole one, which leaves you an afternoon back in the city for the Marais or a late museum opening. Rated 8.8, though on only thirteen reviews.
Giverny's Monet Home & Versailles Palace Day Trip
Two hundred and three dollars and eleven and a half hours, which is a lot of coach. Worth it from late April, when the water-lily pond at Giverny is actually in flower. Both stops sit west of Paris, so the routing is less brutal than the clock suggests.
Loire Valley Castles & Wine Tasting Day Trip
Chambord and Chenonceau with the tasting included, $161, and the best-rated long day out of Paris at 9.2. Thirteen hours door to door. Take it on a day the forecast is poor in the city, because chateaux read well in flat light.
Common questions
What is the cheapest month to visit Paris?
August, at a median of about $184 a night, which is $118 below October. The city half-empties, plenty of family-run bistros close for the month, and the queues at the big museums are the shortest of the year outside February. November is a close second at $186, and February is the cheapest month with normal restaurant opening at $199.
How many days do you need in Paris?
Five is the honest answer for a first trip. Four full days covers the city without a forced march, and the fifth absorbs Versailles, which is a whole day and not a morning. Add a sixth if you want the Loire or Giverny, and a seventh if you want one day with nothing booked, which is the day most people remember.
Which arrondissement should I stay in?
The 2e, 3e and 4e put you inside the walkable centre, and you pay about $100 a night for that. The 5e and 6e are prettier and dearer again. The 12e, 15e, 17e and 18e are where the value sits: $102 to $156 a night in this data, all inside twenty minutes of the centre on one Metro line.
Which nights are the Paris museums open late?
The Louvre runs a Friday evening nocturne, the Musee d’Orsay opens late on Thursday to about 21:45, and the Centre Pompidou runs late on Thursday. The Musee du Quai Branly stays open into the evening later in the week. Those hours are the single best queue-avoidance tool in the city, and the last two hours are quieter than any morning.
Is Paris safe and walkable?
Yes to both, with the usual caveats. Central Paris is flat, dense and covered end to end in under two hours on foot, and the Metro runs until roughly 01:15 and later at weekends. Pickpocketing is the real risk, concentrated on Line 1, the RER B from the airport and the steps below Sacre-Coeur. Ignore clipboard petitions and bracelet sellers and you have removed most of it.
What is the weather like in Paris in the popular months?
April runs 12C to 17C, roughly 54F to 63F, with real showers. May and June sit at 16C to 25C, 61F to 77F, with daylight until ten in June. September and October are 14C to 24C, 57F to 75F, with the best light of the year and sharp showers. Pack a layer and something waterproof in every one of them.
How do you get from the airport into Paris?
From Charles de Gaulle, the RER B runs to Gare du Nord and Chatelet in about 35 minutes and is the fastest option at rush hour. From Orly, Metro 14 takes about 30 minutes with no change. Beauvais is not really Paris: budget 75 minutes on a coach each way. A taxi from CDG is a fixed fare and costs many times the train.
Is the Paris Museum Pass worth buying?
It breaks even at about four national museums, from $128 for the two-day version. If your trip includes the Louvre, the Orsay, Versailles and one more, buy it. For two sights it costs more than the tickets. Note that it does not include a timed entry slot at the Louvre, so you still book that separately or arrive with a guide.
How do you eat well in Paris without overpaying?
Take lunch as the main meal, on a prix fixe, away from any monument. A bakery breakfast is under EUR 3, a jambon-beurre is around EUR 6, and a market plate at Marche d’Aligre or Marche des Enfants Rouges is under $12. Avoid any restaurant with photographs on the menu or a person outside inviting you in, and drink coffee standing at the bar where it costs half.
Do you need to book Notre-Dame, and is it free?
Entry is free and it reopened in December 2024, but you need a timed slot. Slots are released the evening before and are usually gone within hours, so book at around eight the night before. Without one you queue, and that queue regularly runs past an hour. The booking takes two minutes and there is no charge.