Soak up Paris!

The City of Lights is on many travelers’ wish lists, but it isn’t cheap by any means. If you dream of visiting Paris, but need to do so for less, there are plenty of ways to make it less expensive. Careful planning can help you do more on your trip without spending your whole life savings. In fact, you can do many touristy things on your list and still have money left over for souvenirs and macarons on your Paris vacation.

Purchase a Paris Pass and save big on over 60 attractions, the Metro and more. You can buy a two-, four- or six-day pass and see as much of Paris as you can, by skipping ticket queues and heading straight into attractions like the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. Your pass comes with a guidebook that explains all the participating attractions, includes directions to each one, a Metro Travelcard and a 2-day pass for the hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus.

Everywhere you turn in Paris there are food stalls. Eat affordably by visiting them wherever you roam and enjoy delicious foods like crepes and baguettes full of a variety of fillings. Some of the best meals you’ll have can be found on the street.

Take a free walking tour with a local guide. Six one-hour tours to choose from and a tip is your only cost. No matter what you want to see and learn about in the city, there are daily tours for you to take advantage of and each one is in English. If you want to splurge a bit, you can shell out some Euros for a more extensive tour that explores more and different parts of the city.

Love to shop? Paris is full of shops that sell the latest fashions and gourmet food and expensive accessories, but if you are on a budget, you might be likely to skip even window shopping at these places. By all means, go snap a photo of yourself standing outside Dior or Chanel and then head over to any of the Paris markets to find one-offs that are funky, fun and more affordable. You’ll also find antiques and local foods. Some of the best to visit are Porte de Vanves, Batignolles market and Marché Aligre. They are not as crowded and the prices are more reasonable than those at the bigger and more well-known markets.

If you’re looking for a unique travel experience, then make your way to the Philippe Auguste Metro stop and pay a visit to Père Lachaise Cemetery. Here you can find many famous graves and many more tombs of those that you have never heard of, but had the money to make use of their money after their deaths. The cemetery is full of some of the most elaborate crypts and vaults. The cemetery is free to enter – a donation is suggested – and includes a map. The grounds cover over 100 acres and you could spend a whole day searching out headstones of unknowns and celebrities, such as Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

When you take the time to research your travel destination, you can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your trip and see things that many tourists never get to. While they are busy waiting in line for hours to see the Mona Lisa and paying outrageous prices for a coffee in a café on the Champs-Élysées, you’ll be strolling along the Seine with a delicious meal in hand and finding uncommon treasures to bring home as souvenirs.

My name is Shereen Rayle and I like to call myself a budget travel enthusiast. I’m not a travel professional, getting paid to travel the world and sleep in the swankiest hotels, so saving money is seriously important when I plan my vacations. My husband and I like to get the most for our money, but still be comfortable and do as much as possible. With this in mind, I am constantly looking for ways to save on every aspect of a trip. Finding that so many others around me were also on a budget and didn’t even know where to start when planning an affordable vacation, I set out to write a book, with a corresponding blog, to help friends, family and all the other budget travelers out there take better vacations with the money they had. Readers can see some of the great current tips, as well as ask me questions via my page on Facebook or my Twitter feed.
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