Paris with Kids

Our family had an wonderful first week of our international travel by starting in Paris.  The city has amazing history, sights, food, and people.  However, it can be intimidating to do Paris with kids.  Here are the top 5 recommendations after our week in France for doing Paris with kids:

1. Use Rick Steve’s Audio Guides. 

We used several of these to be able to move at our own pace with our kids through Notre Dame, the Louvre, and both the gardens and the Palace of Versailles.  Plan to pair 2 bluetooth headsets to one phone to eliminate wires and keep in sync. The kids loved doing these tours!  For example, the Louvre could be a difficult place for kids to stay engaged.  However, between following the directions, listening to the jokes, and seeing the highlights in less than 2 hours, this all made it a great day!  These are great bluetooth headphones that we used.

2. Take a Seine River Cruise. 

We took an early evening cruise with Bateaux Parisiens; their location is fantastic as the cruise starts and ends right next to the Eiffel Tower!  Journey down past Notre Dame and then loop back on the one-hour trip.  Bring your phone and your headphones.  They have an audio guide built into the ship’s WiFi to catch all the information along the way.  There’s plenty of walking to be done in Paris, so take this opportunity to lounge back and enjoy seeing sights from the boat!

3.  Fit in and prioritize active adventures.

Balancing historical sightseeing with activities geared more towards kids is an important component to a successful family trip.  Here’s the quick recap of active highlights in Paris with kids: climb the stairs at the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Couer, ride bikes around the canals in the gardens of Versaille, and sneak a trip to Disneyland Paris to break up historical sightseeing.  

4.  Utilize the playgrounds.

We specifically enjoyed the Jardin Nelson-Mandela.  Seeing Paris with kids can be tiring.  The Jardin Nelson-Mandela had a supervised hour-long, young kids (7-11 years old), no adults playground adventure.  We felt a bit odd at first to drop our kids off for an hour but got over it quickly :).  There is seating on the edge of the playground to keep an eye on the kids.  They used the amazing playground, played games, and made friends with kids from around Europe.  We also ate several meals at parks.  Packing our lunches and snacks made Paris with kids both easier and much cheaper!  The food in Parisian grocery stores is not expensive, but the restaurants can be.  We found multiple great spots for our picnics, and our kids didn’t have to be quiet and sit still.  This was a great break from the need to be attentive at all the stops you want to make in Paris with kids.

5.  Decide if a trip to Normandy is right for your family.

This trip is a difficult decision to make when visiting Paris with kids.  Because it is several hours from Paris, It is an incredibly long day if you don’t break it up with an overnight stay in the Normandy area.  We planned to take our kids, but did go back and forth trying to decide the logistics.  In the end, we took our first full day in Paris to drive a rental car to Normandy.  Our stops in order: American Cemetary, Omaha Beach, Pointe de Hoc, Maisy Battery.  You really shouldn’t skip any of these.  The Maisy Battery is especially enjoyable for kids, as they get to go inside the bunkers, tunnels, and climb around the site.  In hindsight, it was a long day, with lots of time in the car, but was definitely worth doing.  If your kids are 7+ plan to take them to Normandy, but maybe do an overnight stay.  If we had more time, we heard great things about the Caen Memorial Museum and would have prioritized that next.

Overall we found that Paris with kids was a great week!  The city is easy to get around using public transportation.  There is a great combination of activities and information, and we balanced learning and fun for a great experience!  For more information on our cost breakdown for Paris with kids, see our post here. Make sure you also check out our other post about the cheapest way to get around Paris.

Paris was one of our first stops during a year-long trip around the world!  To see all our travel adventures, head over to our Instagram page.

Recommendations for education: 

Books: We read so many great books for our homeschool lessons set in France during World War II.  Here were the ones our family really enjoyed: The Journey that Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey, Black Radishes, I Survived the Battle of D-day, Ranger in Time D-day: Battle on the Beach, and Magic Tree House: Danger in the Darkest Hour 

Movies: Saving Private Ryan for the parents is a powerful option.  The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Madeline: Lost in Paris are good for kids.

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If you have questions or tips for traveling to Paris with kids, let us know!