With the 2024 Olympic Games set to kick off in just a few weeks, all eyes are on Paris. We’ve been getting so many questions from readers on what to do and where to stay that it’s hard to keep up with them all, so we’re putting together a weekly series of articles to supplement our Paris Black Book with useful tips to ensure your trip goes as smoothly as possible, even in the busy summer months.
Keep in mind the below are generally true statements, but Olympic security considerations will likely result in severe restrictions and closures of entire neighborhoods to out of town guests. For example, our hairstylist received a QR code for access to his own neighborhood a few weeks ago and will need it all summer. So if you’re visiting with specific plans and you don’t have a legal right to be in a neighborhood that is closed off for security reasons, your complaints will fall on deaf ears. To make matters worse, we’ve observed that the police in the Île-de-France region have had enough with the problems of the past few years, especially the rioting in 2023, so they are really not messing around. Be polite and do what they say.
Without further ado, here’s our top ten common costly/dangerous/embarrassing mistakes to avoid in Paris.
- Taking the train from Charles de Gaulle. This traverses some of the worst neighborhoods in the Paris metro area and is ill-advised.
- Accepting a ride from the airport outside the official cab lines. There are set fares from CDG and ORY and anyone offering to take you outside the official cab lines is guaranteed to be taking you for a ride.
- Relying on Uber for transit in the city center. Just don’t do it. Rideshare apps are notoriously unreliable in Paris and 90% of the time result in cancelled trips. For more reliable service, download the G7 app, which is the taxi service locals use, or ask your hotel/restaurant to call you a taxi.
- Relying on cars for transit in the city center. Worse than the performance of the rideshare apps is the Parisian traffic and you can almost invariably walk or take the metro faster than taking a car anywhere. Stop being an entitled fashion victim, put on some comfortable walking shoes, grab an umbrella, and take the Metro like a real Parisian.
- Buying paper Metro tickets. Yes its cute that they sell a “carnet” of 10. Not cute that they end up all over the sidewalks. You can also load a Navigo card with 10 rides at any machine in any station and not destroy the planet with thumb-size paper tickets that you’re likely to lose in any case.
- Wearing a beret. Literally anywhere. Do not do it.
- Wearing a backpack. Literally anywhere. Do not do it. The US Department of State recently issued a travel warning for Americans abroad as especially prone to attacks. We asked ourselves “but how would they know you’re American?” The answer: your backpacks and your talking five times louder than necessary. Why are you shouting? For additional security and better treatment in stores and restaurants, don’t wear shorts.
- Picking up your burger to eat it. Parisian bistros serve some of our favorite burgers, but in Paris, they are eaten with a knife and fork.
- Taking up two seats side-by-side in a sidewalk cafe when you can sit face-to-face, unless the seats are set up only side-by-side. We recently witnessed a cringy moment where a British couple was politely asked by the server at a cafe to please sit face-to-face so as to only take up one table unless they were waiting on another guest. Annoyed, they got up and left. The server, and we, were glad to see them go.
- Ordering a steak well-done. This is guaranteed to be offensive in any restaurant setting. If you don’t like steak medium-rare, why not try the chicken, or a salad?