Paris flights are cheap again
After a brutal summer for budget air travelers, autumn is finally arriving and just in time flights to Paris have come down a lot in price. Not every city in Europe is experiencing affordable flights yet this season, but the fact that Paris itself is seems like reason to celebrate.
Not only is Paris a fantastic city itself, which we’ll discuss below, but it’s also very centrally located so those who are building a multi-city itinerary will not have to travel far to get to a number of other extremely worthwhile cities.
Destination: Paris
If you’ve been to Paris before then you certainly know that it indeed does live up to the hype. It’s the sort of city that is so beloved by so many that many of us experienced travelers would prefer to bash it and tell people that it’s not worth it. It is worth it.
Right now you can get flights from New York to Paris for $660 round-trip, which seems a lot better than the $1100 or so we saw only two months ago. Better yet, you can get to Paris from Miami for only $590 round-trip at the moment, and from Los Angeles for $710. These fares look like what you typically see in late January, at the peak of the off-season for air travel to Europe.
Saving money once in Paris
One of the best things about Paris is that it’s very decentralized. In most large cities there are a few neighborhoods that are highly recommended for first-time visitors, but in Paris you can literally stay anywhere within, say, 5 kilometers of the Arch de Triumphe, and you’ll be fine. The thing is, there are Metro stations every two blocks no matter where you are, so even if you are staying in a cheaper area a bit away from the center, you can be on a Metro in 5 minutes, and at the Eiffel Tower no more than 15 minutes later.
The attractions also tend to be cheaper than you might expect. For example, the Louvre is only €10 (under US$14 at the moment), and most other very famous museums and monuments are around that price or even cheaper. You can also buy a Paris Pass, which is a flat price for like 50 different attractions in a set nummber of days. Reviews of the Paris Pass show that it can be an excellent deal for those who are already intending to see most of the top attractions during a short trip.
Getting elsewhere from Paris
As mentioned at the top, Paris is in the middle of nearly everything in Europe. You can jump on a high-speed train and arrive in Nice along the Cote d’Azur only a few hours later. Speaking of high-speed trains, you’ve also got the Eurostar that connects Paris and London in only 3 hours as well. The same Eurostar trains can also get you to Brussels or Amsterdam in about the same amount of time, so you could literally do a day trip to any of those, but staying for at least a couple days is highly recommended anyway.