Plan your trip to France: currency, transport, tipping, the best time to visit, curated traveler tips, and how to stay connected with an eSIM.
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France is the world's most visited country for good reason: Paris alone could fill a week with museums, cafes and neighborhood wandering, and beyond the capital you have the lavender fields of Provence, the D-Day beaches of Normandy, Alpine ski resorts and the vineyards of Bordeaux and Burgundy.
The country rewards slowing down. Take the TGV between regions instead of flying, linger over long lunches, and learn a handful of French phrases; even a simple bonjour before any interaction noticeably changes how you are received.
Then there is the food, which is not a sideshow here so much as the operating system. Morning markets, a still-warm baguette, a glass of something local at lunch, and a bakery on every other corner will do more for your trip than another museum ticket. Eat regionally: butter and cider in Normandy, pistou and rosé in Provence, cassoulet in the southwest, and whatever the chalkboard says in a village you cannot pronounce.
A first trip works best as Paris plus one region, not a greatest-hits sprint. Give the capital four nights, then take the TGV somewhere slower — Lyon, Bordeaux, the Loire, or the Côte d'Azur — and let a single landscape sink in. France is not a checklist. It is a country that gets better the moment you stop rushing it.
Essentials
Traveler tips
Real advice from people who have been to France, curated by our team with links to the original sources.
Walking into a shop or approaching anyone without saying bonjour is considered rude and explains most stories about unfriendly service. Greet first, then ask your question, and the whole interaction changes.
Skip-the-line tickets for the Louvre, Orsay and the Eiffel Tower sell out days ahead in summer. Book directly on the official sites and you will walk past queues that are hours long.
Restaurants near major sights with photos and ten-page menus are tourist traps. Walk two streets away and look for a chalkboard menu with a few dishes; that is where the kitchen actually cooks.
Half of Paris still leaves in August, and many neighborhood restaurants close for the month. Sundays are quiet year-round: bakeries open in the morning, almost everything else does not. Plan museum days and picnic supplies around that rhythm instead of fighting it.
Street hawkers selling 'skip the queue' tickets are a scam. Book the Louvre, Orsay, Versailles and the Eiffel Tower on their official sites, screenshot the QR codes, and ignore anyone with a lanyard outside the gates.
Rick Steves Travel Forum
Ouigo uses the same high-speed tracks as TGV InOui, then charges airline-style extras: tight luggage sizes, no café car, mobile-only tickets that SNCF machines will not print, and a suburban departure (Marne-la-Vallée or CDG) on some routes. Read the station name before you pay. InOui is the ordinary reserved TGV with a bag you can actually carry.
View sourceRick Steves Travel Forum
Some Ouigo departures use Marne-la-Vallée Chessy or Charles de Gaulle, not Gare de Lyon or Montparnasse. The journey time looks the same; the taxi to Disneyland station is not. Confirm the origin before you lock a non-refundable fare, and give yourself the earlier RER if the ticket says Chessy.
View sourceTripAdvisor Forums
Medicines in France sit behind a pharmacie counter, not on a supermarket shelf. Look for the neon green cross, name the active ingredient, and the pharmacist will hand you the local equivalent.
View sourceTripAdvisor Forums
Paris parks are not automatically picnic lawns. A pelouse au repos sign means the grass is resting; use the marked corner of the Jardin du Luxembourg or a park that actually allows sitting.
View sourceFAQ
A little helps more than people admit. Say bonjour first, then switch — most stations and museums have English, village bakeries do not. Translation on mobile data covers menus; unlocked iPhone XS / Pixel 3 / Galaxy S20 and newer can run that on an eSIM without buying a kiosk SIM.
Most travelers use 1-2 GB per day for maps, translation, social apps and ride booking, so a 10 GB plan comfortably covers a week. If you plan to stream video or share a hotspot with a laptop, size up to 20 GB or an unlimited plan.
Airport SIM kiosks charge a premium and often have queues after long-haul arrivals. An eSIM installs on your phone before you fly and activates automatically when you land, so you are online at the gate without stopping anywhere.
Yes - France has fast 4G and growing 5G coverage across virtually the whole country, including small towns and along TGV lines. Only deep mountain valleys in the Alps and Pyrenees see occasional dead spots.
That depends on the plan: single-country France plans stop working at the border, while regional Europe plans cover dozens of countries on one eSIM. If your trip includes several countries, a Europe-wide plan is usually the better buy.
eSIM plans
Between booking TGV tickets, navigating the Paris metro and pulling up museum reservations, you will lean on mobile data constantly in France. A prepaid eSIM gets you online the moment you land at Charles de Gaulle, with no roaming surprises and no hunting for a SIM card kiosk.
Translation, last-minute TGV seats and restaurant bookings all live on your phone. Install the eSIM before you fly and you walk out of CDG already able to find the RER, message your hotel and pull up tonight's reservation — the unglamorous stuff that makes a trip feel easy.