Can you do Paris in 3 days?
Is 3 days in Paris enough? The chance to visit Paris, even if just for a 3 day getaway, would be difficult to turn down, and there is no need to. If your goal is to fit as many travel experiences as possible into this time frame, the best way to plan a trip to Paris is to research ahead of time, plan for the places and activities you have to see and create a timeline so you can tackle the city one day at a time. This itinerary lays out 3 full days spent in Paris. You and your travel companions can use this as a guide or for inspiration, as it suggests activities for you to do in Paris throughout each day as well as tips and strategies for planning a short getaway to Paris.
Before booking your 3 day Paris trip
To ensure you are giving yourself enough time to explore the city, you will want to choose your flights to Paris and accommodations strategically. Before you even book your trip, it’s worth considering the following factors:
- Arrival and departure dates and times: your plan will be impacted by the time of year, day of the week and time of day you’re traveling to and from Paris. It’s best to ensure the weather will be tolerable and that key locations you want to visit will be open during your trip.
- Your budget: flights and hotels will cost more during peak travel seasons, such as from June to August and September to October. From November to March would be considered the off-season, with the exception of the winter holidays, and booking during this less in-demand time could save you some money.
- Weather: you’ll find the most temperate and reliable weather during the most popular seasons of the year, with the drawback of prices being high. On the other hand, bad weather can definitely disrupt your plans. Although you may be looking far ahead in the future, check out the projected forecast for your proposed trip dates. It will be less accurate, but may give you an idea of which dates to avoid.
- Location: you’ll want accommodations with transportation available to and from the airport you’ll use, but which also aren’t too far from the areas in the city that you plan on visiting. There are lots of transportation options available.
Your 3 day Paris itinerary
. A well-balanced 3 day itinerary for Paris should not only allow you to see all the main attractions, but also allow you to fully appreciate and experience them to your satisfaction. It is also important to factor in time for breaks, meals and rest, as well as giving yourself time for activities you and the people you’re traveling with can fully enjoy. This 3 day timeline for your visit in Paris does just that. There is a sightseeing plan, but the route is manageable and leaves time for you to spend more or less time at your favorite points of interest or for detours and spontaneous adventures. Each mealtime gives you the chance to experience French cuisine and the Paris food scene in various forms. You’ll have time to participate in activities that will expose you to Parisian life and culture, take in the beauty your surroundings and relax and treat yourself.
Travel to Paris and the city center
If you travel to Paris by plane, you can choose from its two international airports. The Charles de Gaulle Airport on the northeast end of the city is the most well-known and busiest. You’ll find more transportation lines that can take you to the heart of the city at this airport. The Orly Airport in the south is less crowded, easier to navigate with only two terminals and is situated closest to the city center. You can take a train or , which run daily from around 6 a.m. until shortly after midnight, or take a taxi. Besides air travel, Paris can also be reached by train or bus, whether travelling internationally or domestically. If arriving by train, you will most likely arrive at the Gare du Nord station, which has access to buses as well as Paris’s metro to get to the city center. Paris’s main bus station is the Paris-Gallieni station and can also be accessed by metro or connecting buses. If you want to make your way towards the city center from Paris-Gallieni, head for the Châtelet metro station or the Pyramides bus station.
Paris city transportation
Paris’s public transportation operator, RATP, provides various modes of public transport, such as buses, metro subway lines and tramways for shorter trips within the city. Paris is also a very walkable city for tourists. The metro will be the easiest way to get around Paris using public transportation, as well as being the fastest and cheapest option, but buses provide the benefit of being able to take in more of your surroundings. Visitors can either purchase individual tickets or pay for a Paris Visite travel pass, which includes unlimited travel on all networks for a set number of consecutive days. Depending on the areas you plan to visit, these Visite passes can be bought for travel within Paris’s city limits, zones 1-3, or the Greater Paris area, zones 1-5, and are available for purchase at ticket counters or self-service ticket machines at any RATP station. The RATP website allows you to purchase passes online as well.
The city’s layout
The city of Paris is broken up into 20 arrondissements, or administrative districts. Each neighborhood is known for its own particular atmosphere. As you are researching locations of places to visit, remember that the lower the district number, the more centralized the location. The first four arrondissements form the city’s center, where you’ll find such attractions as the Louvre in the first and the Notre Dame Cathedral in the fourth. The other districts form a clockwise spiral pattern outward. The Seine River runs across Paris and borders many of these districts and divides the third and fourth arrondissements on its northern bank and the fifth through seventh on its southern bank at the heart of the city.
Tips for short-term travelers in Paris
- Decide what you most want to see: research what Paris has to offer and be honest with yourself about your own priorities as a traveler. There is more than one way to experience even the must-see attractions, and if you’d be just as happy to view something like the Eiffel Tower from the outside, don’t feel pressure to spend more time or money on it just because of its fame.
- Plan and book ahead to save yourself wait time: in addition to transportation passes, tickets and entry to many attractions and museums can often be bought online. You can register for guided tours or book reservations in popular restaurants ahead of time as well. Skip-the-line tickets are worth the extra expense for the tourist sites in Paris that are most crowded or that you want to make sure you see no matter what. They give you priority access to top tourist destinations and the time saved enables you to see even more in less time.
- Be adaptable: no matter how prepared you are, your plans could change while you’re travelling, so have some backup activities planned or be flexible enough to alter your itinerary on the fly. Make sure that you are familiar with cancellation and rescheduling policies of everything you have booked in advanced and be prepared to bring any passes or confirmations that you may need to print out to use.
- Take care of your health: with little time to waste, it is important to be mindful of anything that could slow you down, such as your sleep schedule. It may be tempting to power through jet lag, stay up late or otherwise overdo it in an effort to make every moment count, but it is not worth feeling less than your best during the once-of-a-lifetime experiences you’ll have in Paris. You should also take care not to overdo it on alcohol, both for safety reasons and so that you’re not dealing with a hangover on what should be a fun excursion. In an unfamiliar city, we would even recommend paying close attention to any food you sample, as it would be a shame to have your itinerary interrupted by an allergic reaction or food sickness.
DAY 1: Places to be, sites to see
On your first day in the city, we recommend getting an early start and hitting some of the top visitor attractions in Paris on foot. It will be difficult to avoid crowds even during off-peak hours, but the most well-known tourist spots are notoriously crowded in the afternoons, so you will likely have better luck earlier in the day. You might consider a guided walking or bike tour, especially if you are interested in trivia and information that a guide would be able to provide, but you can also explore on your own and hit several of the city’s highlights in a matter of a few hours. If you go the do-it-yourself route for sightseeing, we have outlined a possible route you could take, the full length of which can be walked in as little as two hours. Or, you can decide how much time you feel like spending at each location and take as many detours along the way as you like, such as stopping at a Parisian café or patisserie for a light breakfast.
We suggest starting with the Sainte-Chapelle Chapel within the 1st arrondissement. If taking a metro to this starting point, the closest stations are Cité Palais de Justice and Saint-Michel Saint-Germain. After you’ve gotten a good look at this Gothic cathedral, you can move on the short way to the more famous Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, or Notre Dame Cathedral. You’ll cross part of the Seine on the Pont de l’Archevêché bridge if you choose to stop at the Panthéon in the 5th arrondissement, about a 15-minute walk southwest from Notre-Dame, with plenty of beautiful surroundings to take in along the way.
You can then take the Ponte de Sully across the Seine again towards Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris, and from there you’ll keep heading westward parallel to the river. The next big-ticket Paris must-see we’ll highlight is back in the 1st arrondissement, the Jardin des Tuileries, or Tuileries Gardens, right outside of the Louvre Museum. We have time set aside for dedicated museum visits on day 2 of this 3 day Paris itinerary, but as mentioned, you can make your sightseeing plan your own if you are itching to visit the Louvre right away.
You’ll then want to walk along the iconic Champs-Élysées Avenue and snap some photos of what is thought to be the most beautiful avenue in the world. Though you’ve probably been noticing it from a long way away, you will finish off your tour with a closer look at L’Arc de Triomphe, an imposing monument dedicated to those who fought in France’s Revolutionary and Napoleanic wars.
View from above of must-see monument, L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Source:Shutterstock
After so much sight-seeing, you should replenish your energy and get something to eat, perhaps by dipping in to a Café-Brasserie. We have left one the main visitor attractions in Paris for later in the afternoon: the Eiffel Tower. You can get to the Charles de Gaulle Etoile station near the Eiffel tower by taking metro line 6 from Bir-Hakeim station, which is close to the Arc de Triomphe. Champ de Mars, the expansive public park at the base of the Eiffel Tower, will provide plenty of photogenic views of the feat of engineering that is so emblematic of Paris, as well as a place to relax and enjoy the outdoors for a moment.
By design, on your first day in Paris, we have included opportunities to see most of the city’s essential landmarks and monuments in hopes that with these “out of the way”, you can enjoy the rest of your trip with less urgency. There is wiggle room in this itinerary if you have any special activities in mind that aren’t included on the itinerary, but we urge you to take it easy for your first evening in Paris. Paris is home to several different types of restaurants, in a wide variety of cuisines, at different price points and with different levels of formality, so our recommendation would be to dine at your choice of sit-down restaurants and to rest up for another full day of getting to know Paris.
DAY 2: Experience Paris
On the first day you had the chance to take in the sights of the city as well as get the lay of the land, so perhaps by your second day you’ll feel more confident navigating the heart of the city. We wanted your day 2 itinerary to include more cultural experiences and thought it fitting to start the day at an outdoor food market, which is a great way to see Parisian life as locals do, as well as to grab some unique items as souvenirs, or snacks for later. Most of the popular open-air markets in Paris are only open on certain days of the week, so which one you visit will depend on your own visiting dates.
If you happen to be in Paris on a Thursday or Sunday, Marché Bastille is one the biggest Parisian markets and it is located near the historic Place de la Bastille, site of the storming of the Bastille. You can arrive by way of the nearby metro station, Chemin Vert. The market opens as early as 7 a.m. if you prefer to get an early start. The market has over 100 vendors with stalls offering everything from produce and specialty meats and cheeses to artisan-crafted goods. You can pick up some breakfast, whether it’s a pastry, delicious bread and cheese or some other freshly-prepared delicacy, and picnic at the Place de Bastille or the Place des Vosges, or any of the smaller gardens and outdoor areas nearby.
We wanted to set aside some time for visiting some of Paris’s many museums. The city has plenty of options that cater to a variety of interests, many of which are free and open to the public. The Louvre Museum and Musée d’Orsay are just two examples of essential museums to visit. Ideally, you would have two to three hours to spend at each, so you could plan to visit one in the morning after the market and one in the afternoon.
Exterior of Louvre Museum. Source:Unsplash
In order to break up indoor museum visits, this would be the perfect day to combine lunch with some kind of outdoor activity, such as a lunch cruise on the Seine River or a walking food-tasting tour. If you’d rather not spend the time or money on those activities, you could opt to eat at a restaurant or find another market and enjoy a picnic lunch somewhere else, and a shorter lunch would also give you more time to visit museums.
For a unique dining experience, this would be a great evening for dinner and a show, especially after all the walking you’ve been doing around the city. You’ll want to book tickets ahead of time if you would like to attend a dinner show such as cabaret at the Moulin Rouge. If you didn’t go at lunch, there are also dinner cruises on the Seine. Plenty of less expensive restaurants in Paris have in-house entertainment as well. Le Double Fond considers itself a café-theater which hosts magic shows, or you can find live music at many local bars.
DAY 3: Time to relax and enjoy the city
We wanted day 3 to feel more relaxed, have plenty of wiggle room for last minute activities during the day and a chance to indulge on your last night in town. We suggest a late-morning brunch, which gives you the opportunity to sneak in some sightseeing beforehand or simply to sleep in. Paris definitely has dedicated brunch restaurants that put a Parisian spin on the mid-morning meal, but you can also eat typical breakfast food off a simple menu at a regular café until late morning.
After brunch, this would be a perfect day to take a day trip, such as to Monet’s Gardens or a vineyard, or to take a specialized tour if you have your eye on a certain experience that you’d really enjoy. Paris has a lot of unique experiences to offer, such as food and wine tastings, cooking classes, walking and biking tours and skip-the-line tours of the most popular attractions.
We have not covered the Catacombs yet in this itinerary, so if that attraction appeals to you, this is a great day to make your way to the Montparnasse neighborhood to see them, although a skip-the-line tour would be advisable unless you’re going very early in the morning to try and beat the crowds.
Your last evening in the city definitely calls for a celebration of what we hope were 3 perfect days spent in Paris. If you want to experience Parisian nightlife, this would be the best night to head to bars or clubs, provided you won’t be at risk of missing your … the next morning. Alternatively, you can let loose by signing up for a wine-tasting, a bar crawl, or simply enjoy a nice dinner.
Make this trip count by making it your own
Throughout the itinerary, there is room for every type of traveler to pick and choose their preferred activities that are right for their interests, travel priorities or budget. You can do the activities highlighted above and more, in any order or at pace you want. In a city that is sought out by so many travelers, here are some other unique ways to make your trip more memorable and meaningful:
- Consider opting for vintage or hand-made souvenirs: if you have the chance to visit a second-hand store, you might find some one-of-a-kind items that spark joy which make great souvenirs and conversation pieces to remind you of your trip to Paris, such as old postcards, art pieces, t-shirts, jewelry or coffee table books. You’re also likely to encounter many talented artisans throughout the city selling handcrafted items on the street or in storefronts. Just make sure your souvenirs will be something you actually want to look at and use once you arrive home.
- Live in the moment, but don’t be shy about taking some photos. Yes, you don’t want to be glued to your device, but you won’t regret taking pictures not only of Paris’s famous monuments, but also of whatever inspires you throughout your travels. Make sure you also take pictures with you actually in them, either by asking your travel companions to take them or with a classic selfie stick (always beware of handing your phone or camera to strangers in tourist-heavy areas). Even if pictures of yourself are not important to you now, your loved ones will definitely appreciate being able to look back on them.
- Think outside the box: find some off-the-beaten-track attraction or activity in Paris that particularly appeals to you or your traveling group, such as a small niche museum, an underrated historic site or participating in one of your hobbies. It will be a great memory, and the more non-touristy things you do, the more likely you’ll meet and get the chance to chat with locals.
View of Eiffel Tower from Champ de Mars. Source:Unsplash
We hope that this 3-day itinerary gave you some ideas for your own experience in Paris, and that you can look back on your Paris getaway fondly, knowing that you enjoyed each day to the fullest. When the trip is done, we can’t promise that you won’t want to return to Paris someday, but we can wish you safe travels and many more adventures to come.