Is there any way of doing Paris on a budget?

[Dressinggownchats]

We really want to go to Paris this year but want to do so as cheaply as possible.

So for example, everyone says London is expensive but we’ve done it very cheaply by staying in a Premier Inn outside of central London and easily travelling to the touristy places on the tube. Making the most of free activities/site-seeing but incorporating some paid for stuff.

Can anyone recommend any budget hotels in Paris that are still clean and safe and easy to travel from?

Would 2 nights be enough if we chose let’s say 4 activities/things to see?

Is it always cheaper to go on the Eurostar? We’d have to incorporate getting to London and staying overnight. Love holidays we’re doing flights and hotel package for from £300 per person during the second week of the Easter holidays.

Are there any times to avoid?

If anyone has managed it on a budget then please give any advice/tips. Tia.

knowing your budget would be helpful

I’d like to do two nights for under £1500-£2000.

That would be for 2 adults and a child.

And yet Love holidays we’re doing flights and hotel package for from £300 per person during the second week of the Easter holidays. I would have spent a bit more on a weeks holiday tbh because that is going to be very budget for that price!

It was only for two at the time, but we managed to do Paris, and Bruges, for less by driving over and staying in the Ibis Styles just outside the centre. As a bonus for driving we were able to bring lots of wine home too

I don’t understand what you mean?

Where in the UK are you because depending on the answer I would have thought budget flights would be cheaper than Eurostar.

You have spent £900 on a weeks holiday in school holidays including flights and hotel for 3 people

You refer to staying in an out of town premier inn and then frying public transport in to London

and yet you’re hoping to do 2 nights in Paris for £2k

just seems a bit odd to me

I did it last summer cheaply, instead of Eurostar or flying we took FlixBus London - Paris, it was around £70 return for the both of us, that right there saved us around £300 as it was the middle of summer. We then stayed in Hotel Jardin Le Brea for 2 nights it was £180. Their metro which is like our tube is so easy, actually easier than the tube go onto your google maps, type where you want to go and click the transport button instead of driving and it will show you the nearest metro and which one to take, get a card from the metro station and top up it’s cheap and you can get everywhere.

You can easily do it for less than that, that isn’t cheap. Cheapest transport is driving and staying in suburbs, but assuming you don’t fancy that flying tends to be cheaper, very much so if you aren’t London based. Being flexible with dates help and winter is not only cheaper but quieter.

i book via booking.com or similar, holiday inn doesn’t charge for kids, but any chain is ok, ibis styles includes breakfast.

We’re close to Birmingham airport.

I think we have crossed wires, I may not have explained well.

Love holidays have package deals to Paris for two nights from £300pp. But I’m not sure if it’s too good to be true. I’m going to look into it a bit more in terms of exactly where the hotels are located.

I was giving the example of London because everyone always says it’s expensive to go to London but it can be done very cheaply if you’re happy to stay in a premier inn and do a lot of the free activities.

Ah “were” doing not “we’re” doing!

Ahh sorry 😔

DS stayed in Bercy for a week in one of the many reasonably priced hotels built in that area when the Olympics were on. He mostly didn't spend money on sightseeing, just walked around and enjoyed the scenery.

The cheapest hotel I've found is the F1 St- Ouen, near Porte de Clignancourt/ St Ouen metros. It does decent enough family rooms from as low as about £50, but that's with a shared bathroom- and sometimes you can end up quite a long way from the bathrooms. It's right next to the St- Ouen flea market, if you're there of a weekend. There is a bit of scuzziness under the adjacent Peripherique bridges, but I've been there with the DC late at night and not felt really threatened. You can find it on booking.com.

2x adult 4 day Interrail passes will come to around £440 (less if you buy them in one of the regular sales- there should be one coming up soon) and if your child is under 12 they get a free pass!

This includes your travel from Brum to London, but you have to pay a supplement for Eurostar- £30 pp each way, bringing the price up to about £620 for the 3 of you. You may well be able to find a cheaper way to get there and back, but there's always that if not, and it's a fixed price.

We’re doing Paris on the cheap this year but rather than staying in a hotel, we’re staying on a holiday park, as we’re taking teenage nephew and niece and it works out so much cheaper than 2 hotels rooms for three nights. It’s just on the outskirts of Paris. There’s a train station in the village and it’s 12-15 minutes into the centre of Paris. The mobile home was £250 for 3 nights.

www.sandaya.fr/nos-campings/paris-maisons-laffitte?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=FR_Brand_PML&utm_id=834071457&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=834071457&gbraid=0AAAAADfGthuD5Jce_QGjoAEI2CWXS7lfp&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZqOgcqTkwMV2ZNQBh10AgK1EAAYASAAEgLKqvD_BwE

Are you bound by the schools hols? I live in Paris outskirts, and went back to London last week for a visit. It was the French school hols, and the tickets cost me £35 one way. So perfectly feasible to get cheap Eurostar deals, but obviously you need to add on train to London.

You don’t need to stay anywhere dodgy; look along the western RER line into Paris. My house to Arc de Triomphe is just 17 minutes.

Want to visit museums? Aim to be there on the 1st Sunday of each month, and you can visit places like Versailles, Musée Orsay and Rodin for free (first two need to be booked well ahead).

Cheap eats: look for the lunchtime formules. There’s a place on the pricey Ile Saint Louis that offers 3 courses for €16. The bouillons are also reasonably priced.

Paris is small, and very walkable. Gardens are free, and beautiful. Plenty of free things to do; Notre Dame, for one!

You could price up flights from Manchester too if youre midlands based. We paid around 300 each for 3 nights on the outskirts and bought a weekend rail ticket to get about. I can't remember the hotel name but try trip advisor?

I'm trying to think of all the nicest free places:
Jardin des Plantes (beautiful park and botanical garden)
Sacre Coeur (take the funicular to get there)
Arenes de Lutece (Roman amphitheatre, now a vineyard and boules piste!) in the heart of the Left Bank.
Buying a picnic on the Rue Mouffetard and eating it in Place de Contrescarpe- has to be the prettiest square in Paris.
Viewing the Eiffel Tower from the terrace at Trocadero- better than paying to go up honest! 😉 There are also fountains there that are full of kids jumping around on a hot day.
Shakespeare and Co bookshop (can get really crowded nowadays though)
Free swimming as part of the Paris- Plage initiative in the summer, including in the Seine. We went to the outdoor pool in the canal at Bassin de Villette- a good one for kids.
Is Pere- Lachaise cemetery still free? 🤔

Oh, and all the big state museums like the Louvre, Musee d' Orsay etc are free to under 18s, so that's something.

I went to the Musee Rodin with the 2 DC last summer and only had to pay for me, so it turned out to be quite a bargain. They had some fun kids' activities too- make your own little sculpture with modelling clay, that kind of thing.

We did Paris last year between the Olympics, we stayed at Novotel Suites Paris Montreuil Vincennes, which felt a bit like staying in Southall to visit London, it was quite a way out, but a couple of minutes walk from the metro, we got into the centre in about 25 minutes. We had a great time. We did Eurostar, but we are quite near London which helped.

I suspect your cheap package will have either very early or very late flights, whenever I’ve looked at them because the deal looks great it’s been crazy flight times.

Plus bear in mind the cost of getting to and from airport; it might be cheaper getting a cab. €13ish one way from airports to the centre; kids >11 pay full price.

Bouillon restaurants

I was volunteering at the Paralympics in 2024 and stayed at the Ibis Styles in La Defense which was really reasonable. The hotel was a 10 minute walk to the metro then quickly into the centre. Nice and clean and quiet too.
I flew from Birmingham as it was cheaper than the train to London then Eurostar