Paris Family Travel Guide: A Look at Our Five Day Itinerary for the City of Light
Paris Family Travel Guide for the Perfect Five Day Itinerary
We recently returned from an early Summer trip that started in New York City, before heading over to Paris and London. We spent five nights in Paris, which gave us four full days to explore the city, before taking the Eurostar train over to London.
In this new series titled, "Just Got Back", we go over a quick trip itinerary report on where we stayed, what activities we did, where we ate and our top recommendations on things to consider adding to your own trip to Paris, France.
There is so much information available out there online and on social media on where you should go, stay, things to do and where to eat for every destination imaginable, but with this new series, "Just Got Back", I hope to provide a quick and easy way for you to take a glimpse into our travel style and of our trip we just got back from and show what we did as a traveling family of four.
Where to Stay
There are many great options to consider staying at when visiting Paris that depend on your particular preferences, travel style, hotel location and budget.
One of the things to consider when traveling in Europe with kids is being able to find hotels that accommodate up to 4 people in one room or suite. Most hotels max occupancy at 2 or 3 people per room, even for larger suites sometimes, so it can become very challenging to find a hotel and room category that will work and not break the bank at the same time. And if you can't find a room for at least 4 people, then you may end up having to book two rooms (and not break the travel budget) and hope the hotel offers connecting rooms.
With that in mind and trying to find a suitable location to stay at in Paris, for this trip, we stayed at the Renaissance Paris Arc de Triomphe Hotel, located near the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees in the 17th Arrondissement. The boutique style hotel, which offers family rooms with two beds for up to 4 people, sits just a few minutes away from the Charles de Gaulle Etoile RER and Metro station and is easily distinguishable by its unique glass facade on the Avenue de Wagram.
We stayed here for 5 nights, which I think was perfect for exploring the city and still having enough time in Paris to relax, instead of always feeling like we had to be on the go if we had less days in Paris.
We selected this hotel since we have hotel status (Marriott Bonvoy Titanium) that unlocks extra benefits/amenities like free breakfast (saved us ~$100)+ a day) and since we had lots of Marriott Bonvoy points that could help cover our entire stay. I plan on writing more about this in an upcoming post and how we used a lot of Marriott hotel points to cover a majority of our trips for 2022 and the reasoning behind it.
Things to do
Here are some of the sights we visited and things we experienced on our recent trip to Paris:
- Eiffel Tower and Place du Trocadero for amazing Eiffel Tower views
- Disneyland Paris
- Arc de Triomphe (The views from the top of Paris are amazing and well worth the climb)
- Louvre Museum and Jardin des Tuileries
- Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle
- Musee d'Orsay
- Latin Quarter
- Champs-Elysees for shopping
- Montmartre (an authentic village in the heart of Paris)
- Sacre-Cour
- Pantheon, Jardin des Plantes
Places to Eat & Drink
The city of Paris is very walkable and no matter where you are in the city, it seems like there is a cafe, boulangerie, brasserie, or bistro on every corner.
The places we ate at largely depended on which part of Paris we were in around lunch or dinner time and location mainly dictated the available restaurant options for us. For example, I always like to plan ahead and research food options closest to where we would be in the city, so we don't have to hunt around too long to get a bite to eat. Knowing what options we have near us and where they are located comes in handy when traveling with younger children, but for this trip I didn't make a list of places to eat at and figured there would always be something close by where we were that would work for everyone.
For breakfast each morning, we ate at the hotel (Marriott Bonvoy Titanium breakfast benefit) at Solis Restaurant, which helped us save over $100 a day on breakfast alone, based on their prices.
While exploring Paris, other sit-down restaurants we enjoyed on this trip included:
- Thai Siam
- Solis Bar & Restaurant (at the hotel)
- Bistro des Champs
- La Crème de Paris Notre-Dame
- Le General
- Laduree (for macaroons)
- Le Bonaparte
- La Terrasse de Pomone (conveniently located in Jardin des Tuileries near the Louvre, food and service was okay at best)
- Agrabah Cafe (located inside Disneyland Paris)
