Paris Guidebook

In Rick Steves Paris you'll find in-depth Rick-tested information on:

• Practicalities
  • Easy-to-follow maps (including color maps of East Paris, West Paris, Paris' Métro/suburban-train network, and a regional map of Paris, Normandy & the Loire
  • ​Trip planning: When to go, pretrip checklist, festivals and holidays, recommended books and movies
  • Getting around Paris by Métro, train, bus, bike, and taxi
  • Advice on planning your time and avoiding lines
  • Detailed advice on managing money, communicating, reserving rooms, handling emergencies, and other helpful hints
• Recommended sights and activities
• Recommended hotels and restaurants
• Self-guided walks and rides
  • Historic Paris
  • Bus #69 Sightseeing Tour
  • Champs-Elysées
  • Rue Cler
  • Left Bank
  • Marais
  • Montmartre
• Self-guided tours
  • Louvre
  • Orsay Museum
  • Orangerie Museum
  • Eiffel Tower
  • Rodin Museum
  • Army Museum & Napoleon's Tomb
  • Marmottan Museum
  • Cluny Museum
  • Pompidou Center
  • Père Lachaise Cemetery
• Day trips
  • Versailles and three more grand châteaux near Paris
  • Chartres
  • Impressionist excursions to Giverny and Auvers-sur-Oise
• And more
  • Parisian history, culture, and cuisine
  • Paris with children, including Disneyland Paris
  • Paris' shopping and entertainment, plus wintertime activities
  • Recommendations for cooking courses, food tours, and French lessons
  • Handy French survival phrases

Also included: a 10¾" x 19½" full-color foldout Planning Map with a big overview of the city (with major sights), plus detailed close-ups of Montmartre and the area around Ile de la Cité (outlying the route of our self-guided Historic Paris Walk), a full Métro map, and zoomed-out schematics showing Paris' neighborhoods and day-trip destinations.

Should I get this Paris book in addition to either Rick's complete France guidebook or his Best of France guidebook?

Probably not. If you're only spending a few days in Paris, as part of a longer trip in France, the Paris chapter of either France guidebook is all you're likely to need.

If, however, you're spending four days or more in Paris, the extra information in Rick Steves Paris can be worthwhile. It offers more in-depth sightseeing information, several additional self-guided city walks and museum/sight tours, and more specifics on shopping and entertainment, plus suggestions for kids. Other information is generally the same, especially compared to the complete Rick Steves France guidebook, which includes all the hotels, restaurants, and nitty-gritty practical advice for Paris that you'll find in the city guidebook, and nearly as much on its day trips. (But compared to Rick Steves Best of France, the Paris guidebook does have substantially more hotel and restaurant listings, as well as more comprehensive coverage of day-trip options.)

What's the difference between this Paris guidebook and Rick's Pocket Paris guide?

Rick Steves Pocket Paris works best for people taking a short trip, or perhaps a return trip, to Paris. Like our other Pocket guides, Pocket Paris is smaller than the complete guidebook and in full color (but still offers our best sightseeing advice and a handful of self-guided city walks and museum tours, plus a foldout map).

For travelers who want to delve deep into Paris, the full-size guidebook is a better option. It offers more substantial (and more frequently updated) advice on every front: practicalities, sightseeing, self-guided tours, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, shopping, kids' activities, winter fun, and the city's history and culture, plus chapters on the best day trips.

Latest updates: When we learn of critical changes to the information in our guidebooks on France, we post them. (Of course, it's still smart to reconfirm critical transportation and sightseeing details locally.) Armed with a Rick Steves guidebook and these late-breaking updates, you're set for a great trip!

Submit feedback: Once you've used this book in Europe, we'd love to hear your feedback — good or bad — about our advice on sights, hotels, restaurants, and travel tips. We're also interested in any tips or discoveries you made while in Europe. Your comments help us improve our guidebooks for future travelers.