5 Days in Paris with Teens
These actions run in your browser. They do not create an account or send your itinerary preferences anywhere.
Budget
€3,200–€6,200 for a family of 4
Mid-Range
Group estimate
Luxury
Varies by resort
Best Months
May, Jun, Sep
Ready to plan
Book the trip pieces
This is the practical next step: check family-room availability, reserve age-friendly activities, and pack the gear this itinerary assumes you have.
Links may earn Tots & Trips a commission at no extra cost to you. Recommendations stay independent.
Make it fit your family
Adjust this Paris, France itinerary
Slower pace
Treat each morning as the anchor and make the afternoon block optional.
Age-group lens
This plan is tuned for teen travelers, so keep the highest-energy activity early and preserve a low-stakes fallback.
Highlights
Day-by-Day Plan
Day 1: Arrival and Settle In
Morning
Arrive and get everyone a transit card immediately. Teenagers who can move around independently have a completely different trip, and the card is the thing that makes it possible.
Afternoon
Walk the Latin Quarter and the riverbank — Shakespeare and Company, the booksellers' green boxes along the quays, Notre-Dame from the outside. It orients everyone without committing to a ticket on the first day.
Evening
Dinner in the 5th or the 6th, away from the tourist streets immediately around Saint-Michel. Let your teenagers order for themselves.
Tip: From age 10 everyone pays full adult transit fare, so buy a Navigo Easy card per person and load a carnet. Under-18s still enter the national museums free, and will need ID or a document showing date of birth.
Day 2: First Full Day
Morning
The Musée d'Orsay before the Louvre — it's smaller, it's in a converted railway station, and the Impressionist floor is the collection that most reliably converts a sceptical sixteen-year-old. Free for under-18s.
Afternoon
The Louvre for a targeted ninety minutes, or Sainte-Chapelle for the stained glass if the day is bright — the upper chapel on a sunny afternoon is the single most photographed interior in Paris for good reason.
Evening
Let the teenagers pick the neighbourhood for dinner and get you there on the Métro. Belleville, the 11th around Oberkampf, and the Marais all work.
Tip: Book museums online with 'free admission' selected for each under-18 and carry ID for them. Sainte-Chapelle has airport-style security and a queue — go early or late.
Day 3: Signature Activity Day
Morning
The Catacombs, booked well in advance — it sells out, and the walk-up queue is punishing. A kilometre and a half of tunnels lined with the bones of six million people, 130 steps down and 112 back up. It is genuinely the thing teenagers talk about afterwards.
Afternoon
Père Lachaise. Give them the cemetery map and let them find their own graves to care about — Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde are the famous ones, but the appeal is really the scale and the strangeness of a walled city of tombs.
Evening
Dinner around Oberkampf or Bastille, which is where Parisians in their twenties eat and feels correspondingly grown-up.
Tip: The Catacombs are not suitable for anyone claustrophobic and there is no exit partway. It's cool underground year-round — bring a layer even in August.
Day 4: Flexible Family Day
Morning
The solo morning. Set a district, a return time and a meeting point, and let them go — the Marais for vintage shops, Montmartre for the view and the street art, or the Canal Saint-Martin. This is the part of the trip most teenagers rate highest, and it costs nothing.
Afternoon
Regroup and do something together that doesn't require concentration: the Seine boat, the Galeries Lafayette rooftop for a free view over the city, or the Pompidou's escalator for the same trick with more of a queue.
Evening
The Eiffel Tower after dark from the Trocadéro terrace, for the light show on the hour. Free, and better from a distance than from underneath.
Tip: Agree what happens if a phone dies before they leave: a fixed meeting point and time beats any plan that depends on being reachable. Make sure they know the nearest Métro station to the apartment by name.
Day 5: Final Morning and Departure
Morning
Versailles on the RER C if you have a full day, or the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Tuileries if you don't. Versailles is enormous and the gardens are the better half — rent bikes or a rowing boat on the Grand Canal rather than queuing for every state room.
Afternoon
Back into Paris, last lunch, then the airport.
Evening
Fly home.
Tip: Versailles is closed on Mondays. The palace is free for under-18s; the gardens charge separately on fountain show days. Go early — by midday the Hall of Mirrors is shoulder to shoulder.
Packing List
- ✓ Navigo Easy card per person — full adult fare applies from age 10
- ✓ Photo ID or a document showing date of birth for free under-18 museum entry
- ✓ Portable battery pack — a solo morning runs a phone flat
- ✓ Comfortable shoes; Versailles and Père Lachaise are long walks on hard ground
- ✓ A layer for the Catacombs, which stay cool year-round
- ✓ Light waterproof jacket regardless of month
- ✓ Agreed cash allowance and a written meeting point for independent time
- ✓ Reusable water bottle for the Wallace fountains
- ✓ Anything they need to feel like themselves in photographs — this is the age it matters
- ✓ Travel first-aid kit with blister plasters
Recommended Gear for This Trip
The travel-with-kids essentials we'd pack for a trip like this — with current prices and ratings.
Welly Human Repair First Aid Kit (70 Count)
Fever reducer, bandages, and a thermometer pre-packed — far from a pharmacy you'll want it.
Anker Prime Power Bank, 20,000mAh 200W TSA-Approved
Best SellerKeeps phones, tablets, and boarding passes alive through a full travel day. TSA-safe.
Puro Sound Labs BT2200 Plus Volume-Limiting Kids Bluetooth Headphones
Amazon's ChoiceVolume-limited audio that makes flights and downtime usable while protecting little ears.
Prices and ratings are approximate and may vary — check the latest on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
Safety Notes
Independent time is the right call at this age and it needs one conversation first, not a running commentary: agree the district, the return time, and a physical meeting point that works when a phone is dead. Pickpocketing targets phones above all — front pockets or zipped bags, and never on a café table. The Métro runs late and is generally fine, but teenagers travelling back alone should stay in populated carriages and avoid empty end cars. Be direct about the scams that specifically target teenagers: the friendship bracelet at Sacré-Cœur, the 'sign my petition' clipboard, and the shell game along the riverbank, which is always rigged. 112 is the emergency number from any phone, including a locked one.
Full Destination Guide
Paris rewards families who plan around three specific frictions rather than fighting them: cobblestones that punish small stroller wheels, a Métro built without lifts, and kitchens that close between lunch and 7:30pm. Get those right and the city is unusually generous to children — every French national museum, the Louvre included, is free for under-18s of any nationality.
Read the Paris, France family guide →