My Sister In Law and I are taking our daughters to Paris this summer. There will be 5 of us in our travel party, 2 adults and 3 kids. We are super excited. I have been keeping an eye out for the opportunity to make this trip for years. Due to airfare costs it just has not been in the cards for us, until now. Thanks to a new to us airline called WowAir, flying from the states to Europe has become very affordable.
I am located in between two hub cities for them: Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. About once a week when I have a minute I do some searches for good airline fares. There are certain places that we travel to frequently, and then there are my wish list destinations. When I first heard about WowAir coming to our nearest airports I started looking up flights and definitely found great prices but never during the time of year that I could travel, mostly due to school. A few months ago whilst doing my search I found great prices... in JUNE! It was late in the evening when I saw these prices and I booked three tickets immediately without hesitation. Our flights are less than $400 USD. Keep in mind that I haven't seen prices less than $1000 for probably 10 years, and during this time of year, not even close. We will be flying from Cleveland to Paris by way of Reykjavík, Iceland.
So I booked these flights with no other plans and I sat on it for a few months, knowing my next step was to find somewhere for us to stay. I really wanted to take some time to consider where the best location for us would be. We will be staying for a week which immediately made me consider Airbnb. With three kids in tow, I really like the idea of having some of the comforts of home. I want to be able to do a little grocery shopping when we get there for things like breakfast, snacks, and wine. I also want to go out for coffee and crepes and dinners too. I really like the idea of having more room than an average "large international city" hotel room which are typically very small since we will have two families. This way we can all have enough of our own space.
Requirements for location went completely out of the window when we found an Airbnb with a view of the Eiffel Tower. We wanted a great location that would be central to the museums, and The Seine, and gardens so we were looking at the 1st arrondissement. We then started to notice that some of the flats had views of the Eiffel Tower and we just through all caution to the wind and booked a place with the most spectacular view. Just thinking about sitting outside and having my morning coffee with the Eiffel Tower serving as the backdrop was all I could think about. Considering our daughters and what they would be interested in also brought me back to the same conclusion. Falling asleep to the tower all lit up at night, what could be better?
The Airbnb process was super easy. We found the place we wanted online after scouring the listings. We entered our dates and number of guests and hit the "Request to Book" button. In our particular instance, we also sent the owner a note about us, describing where we were from and how many were in our party, and ages of the kids. Less than a few hours later the owner accepted our request and at that point we filled in our payment information. Everything for our booking has to be paid up front. Many of the listings have very strict cancellation policies so my advice would be to really pay attention to those and make sure you can afford to lose the money should something come up. At this point, we can exchange messages with the owner whenever we want if we have questions. The owner also told us that they would be in touch with us closer to the date to give us more information about how to get in to the flat, etc.
*For privacy's sake this is actually not our view but an image I took from a similar Airbnb listing.
So the logistics of getting there and where we are going to stay are settled. The next thing to start thinking about are all of the things we are going to do. I have been to Paris twice, and my Sister In Law lived there for a summer, but it's definitely been a while for both of us. I have been busy doing some research and some of the top things on our list are definitely going to be some of the most well known attractions:
The Eiffel Tower
The Louvre
Notre-Dame
Jardin De Luxembourg
Arc De Triomphe
Champs-Élysées
Catacombs
Musée d'Orsay
Day trips will likely include Versailles and Disneyland Paris (which I might secretly be the most super pumped!)
I don't want to spend the days just trying to cover every single thing, which would be a total mistake with kids. I'm thinking we pick out one big thing per day and then try to do something like have a picnic or sit by the river. I'm also looking into different events that will be taking place when we will be there.
And the best part about this trip so far is that we surprised the kids on Christmas morning by hanging little Eiffel Tower ornaments on the tree for them to find (first picture above). I also gave them each a beret and Micky Mouse sweatshirts from Uniqlo that said Paris.
I'm looking forward to sharing with you some of the research I have been doing on what we will be doing when we are there and more importantly where we will eat!!!!! So keep an eye out for more posts. Also, I would absolutely love to hear your advice on where to eat, shop, drink, socialize, view art, and hang out, especially things that are off the beaten path.
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