I have been to Paris four times. The first time I was twenty-three and I had a guidebook with every museum and monument highlighted. I saw everything and experienced almost nothing. The second time I was with my family and we spent half of every day negotiating what to do next. The third time I had a work commitment and barely left the 8th arrondissement.
The fourth time — this time — I had no plan. I had a neighborhood I wanted to stay in (Montmartre), a list of three restaurants I genuinely wanted to try, and the rest was open. Five days. No itinerary. No obligations. Just the city.
It was the best trip I have ever taken to Paris. Possibly the best trip I have ever taken anywhere.
Paris rewards wandering in a way that almost no other city does. Its neighborhoods are distinct enough to feel like different worlds, its streets are beautiful enough that getting lost is never a punishment, and its cafés are so perfectly designed for sitting and watching that you can spend an entire afternoon doing nothing and feel like you have done everything.
Why Montmartre
Montmartre sits on a hill in the 18th arrondissement, north of the city center, crowned by the white domes of Sacré-Cœur. It is touristy — there is no pretending otherwise — but it is touristy in the way that beautiful things inevitably become, and if you stay long enough, the tourists thin out and the neighborhood reveals itself.
The streets are narrow and cobbled and steep. The buildings are low. There are still working artists here, still small galleries, still the sense that this is a place where people actually live rather than just visit. In the mornings, before the tour groups arrive, you can walk to the top of the hill and look out over the city in something close to silence.
I stayed in a small hotel on Rue Lepic — the street where Amélie bought her vegetables, if you have seen the film — and I walked out every morning with no destination and came back every evening having seen something I could not have planned.
The Art of the Café
The French café is not a coffee shop. It is not a place to work on your laptop or take a meeting. It is a place to sit, to watch, to think, to be. The chairs face outward, toward the street, because the point is to observe the world passing by. You are not expected to leave quickly. You are expected to stay.
I had a café crème every morning at the same place — a small brasserie on a corner near my hotel where the owner knew my order by day two. I sat outside when the weather allowed and inside when it didn't, and I watched Paris wake up. Delivery trucks. School children. Women walking dogs. Men in suits. Tourists with maps. The ordinary, beautiful machinery of a city going about its day.
I wrote more in those morning café hours than I had written in months. Something about the combination of good coffee, unhurried time, and the absence of any obligation to be productive made the words come easily.
What I Ate (The Real Reason We Go to France)
Croissant from Du Pain et des Idées
This bakery in the 10th is worth the métro ride. The croissants are laminated to an almost architectural perfection — shatteringly crisp outside, soft and buttery within. I ate one standing on the sidewalk and then went back for another.
Steak frites at a proper brasserie
Ordered medium-rare, which in France means something closer to what Americans call rare. The frites were thin and crisp and came in a paper cone. The steak was from a cow that had clearly been well cared for. I ate every bite.
Cheese at the market on Rue Lepic
A Saturday market with a cheese vendor who let me taste everything and was genuinely delighted when I asked questions. I bought a small Époisses and a wedge of Comté and ate them in my room with a baguette and a glass of Burgundy. This was one of the best meals of the trip.
Soupe à l'oignon at a late-night bistro
After a long evening walk, cold and hungry, I ducked into a small bistro near the Opéra and ordered the onion soup. It arrived in a crock, the cheese browned and bubbling, the broth deep and sweet from hours of caramelized onions. I ate it slowly and felt restored.
The Moment That Made the Trip
On the third afternoon I got genuinely lost. Not lost in the romantic sense — lost in the sense that I had no idea where I was and my phone battery was at 8%. I was somewhere in the 11th arrondissement, in a neighborhood I didn't recognize, and I made a decision: I would not panic. I would just walk.
I walked for two hours. I found a small square with a fountain and old men playing pétanque. I found a bookshop that sold only art books and had a cat sleeping on the counter. I found a wine bar where a woman was playing guitar and the owner poured me a glass of something orange and natural and told me it was made by his cousin in the Loire Valley.
None of this was in any guidebook. None of it could have been planned. All of it was Paris — the real Paris, the one that exists beneath the tourist infrastructure, the one you only find when you stop trying to find it.
The best travel experiences I have ever had were unplanned. Not because planning is bad, but because the plan is a scaffold — useful for getting you there, but not the building itself. The building is what happens when you put the map away.
How to Do Paris Without a Plan
Stay in a neighborhood, not a hotel district
The 1st and 8th are convenient and soulless. Stay in Montmartre, the Marais, Oberkampf, or Belleville. You want to be somewhere that feels like a place people actually live.
Walk everywhere you can
Paris is a walking city. The métro is excellent but it takes you underground and you miss everything in between. If it is under 30 minutes on foot, walk.
Eat where there is no English menu in the window
This is not a hard rule but it is a useful heuristic. The places that have translated their menus for tourists are, with some exceptions, not the places where the food is best.
Give yourself one unscheduled afternoon
Even if you have a full itinerary, leave one afternoon completely open. No plans, no reservations, no obligations. Just walk and see what happens.
Learn to say "je voudrais" and use it
"I would like" — the polite form of ordering or requesting anything. French people respond warmly to the attempt at courtesy. It costs nothing and changes everything.
Paris is always a good idea. Go without a plan. Trust the city.
Mareya Ibrahim
Mareya is the founder of The Real Dish, a certified nutrition coach, and wellness advocate known as The Fit Foodie. She is the host of The Real Dish podcast and the author of Eat Like You Give a Fork.
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