The Way to Go Guide to Paris with Kids

Jeralyn here. There’s so much to say about Paris. The place holds such meaning and promise for visitors. It feels so cosmopolitan to even casually mention you’re going or have just returned from there. It elicits breathy responses from everyone. So romantic! So inspiring! So cool.

The mere idea of PARIS may bring up a whole lifetime of cinematic moments and superlative desserts. It does in my family. We’ve all built the place up in our heads, long before we’ve taken a flight. So when we finally board the plane with our kids in tow, the expectations are very high. We want the trip to mean something and we want our kids to feel it, too, and remember it fondly.

In the spirit of parenting solidarity, I would like to affirm that traveling with kids is not always easy — and not always fun. Adults can fantasize and try to live up to the best version of themselves on vacation. Kids don’t do that. They are creatures of the present moment, with all their feelings (joy, hanger, etc.) riiiiight on the surface.

One thing I have learned traveling with mine (ages 5, 7, 10) is that they respond best to a rhythm they can understand and keep pace with. Everyone has different desires and different needs, but we all want to have fun, be free, and be well fed.

Think of the following mini Paris itineraries as winning combos to keep in your back pocket — plans with just enough structure and breathing room to keep a day from going completely off the rails.

A few notes about Paris before you go:

Parisians have gotten nicer. Something shifted — pandemic, Olympics, who knows — but the warm vibes towards visitors are real. Drivers, servers, bakers, bartenders: The majority of them were friendly and totally game with kids, everywhere we went. Be bold: Smile!

Dinner’s late. Just go with it. Don’t fight to get kids on Paris time right away. Later nights, later mornings. Jet lag is the one time this logic actually works on a kid. (You know it usually doesn’t.)

Choose your home base wisely. Think about how you want to spend your days and evenings (more time inside or out and about?), how close you need to be to your must-do activities, how your family will get around (Métro, in cabs, by walking), and whether you need a hotel (see our report on the new Paris boutique hotel scene) or apartment rental (we’ll have a full guide to Paris Airbnbs later this year).

Little legs can handle all that walking — when it’s game-fied. Merci beaucoup for Invader, the legendary street artist who’s been secretly plastering street corners in Paris with 8-bit-style tile mosaics since the 1990s. Hunting them down and logging our finds in the free FlashInvaders photo app turned our kids into tireless scouts. And that allowed us grownups to do our favorite thing in Paris: walk around and be in it.

Now, on with your vacation planner.

1st Arrondissement
The Tuileries Garden does a lot of work in this one stop: gravel paths for running, a pond for sailing rented toy boats, and trampolines set up in the garden. Let kids bounce it out before you ask them to look at anything on a wall. When appetites turn, walk to Loulou in the courtyard of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. As for art, start small. The low-key Musée de l’Orangerie, built under Napoleon III to house citrus trees, is home to eight of Monet’s Water Lilies murals, along with works by Matisse and Cézanne. (Book in advance.) It’s the rare museum you can do from start to finish before anyone hits their indoor voices limit. Musée en Herbe, a children’s art museum tucked close to the Tuileries, is built for little hands and short attention spans. (Currently on display: a Pokémon exhibition. Let’s just say they know their audience.)

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1st Arrondissement
The Louvre and Eiffel Tower are the two spots everyone back home will interrogate your kids about. So just do them. Even if you’re convinced your kids can’t handle Le Louvre, any amount of time inside counts. (Think of it as exposure therapy, not an intensive museum visit.) The museum is open until 9:45 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, which is basically a gift to jet-lagged families who are wide awake at bedtime with nowhere to be.

After the museum, stroll over to Palais Royal for a few laps through Daniel Buren’s black-and-white striped columns. We set a timer on our phone and challenged the kids to a footrace. We laughed a lot, got winded, and worked up a late-night appetite.

From the Palais Royal courtyard, it’s a six-minute walk to À L’Épi d’Or — a cozy bistro from chef Jean-François Piège that costs roughly half of his more famous La Poule au Pot nearby. This place delivers everything you want to show your kids about Paris. Great setting (big mirrors, warm globe lights, cracked tile floors, a curved zinc bar), a lively atmosphere, and charming service. The menu offers delicious renditions of the classics (croque monsieur) along with in-season veggie specialties. Chat with the chefs behind the bar, and they may just surprise the kids with ice cream sundaes.

3rd/4th Arrondissement, The Marais
The Marais neighborhood is for wandering, so give the morning over to it. Duck into either Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature for astonishing taxidermy, gorgeous rooms to move through, and a tiny chamber of unicorns that kids will love or Musée des Arts et Métiers, an engineering museum stacked with real airplanes, automatons, and early bicycles. Nearby Breizh Café offers savory and sweet items that should satisfy even the pickiest of eaters. Alternatively, pick up a little something on the falafel stand-lined Rue des Rosiers. L’As du Fallafel at #34 is our longtime favorite, and everyone else’s too, for good reason. (Their harissa makes an amazing souvenir.) A few doors down, slip into the secluded Rosiers–Joseph Migneret Garden, a quiet pocket park where you can eat in peace, the kids can do a few handstands, and the neighborhood dogs do their rounds. Let the kids pick out some baguette pens and stickers while you peruse the very classic French homewares at Merci. The Bonton shop around the corner is a well-merchandised shop with Frenchy kids clothes, tiny toys, and souvenirs. Invader is prolific on these streets. Keep your eyes up.

Behind the paywall you’ll find more great adventures with the kids:

• Winning Croissant + Church Spire + Zippy Boat Ride

• Jewel-Box Museum + Garden Play + Pony Rides + Grocery Mecca

• Apartment in the Sky + Macarons + Art Supplies

• Mouse Ears + Floating Islands