Paris for families
Notre-Dame de Paris is the cathedral on the Île de la Cité that anchors the whole city's map. Eiffel Tower is the iron silhouette every Paris skyline is measured against.
Paris for families with kids, in numbers
- Score for families
- 7.5 out of 10
- Picks on this page
- 36 places across 3 lists, led by Notre-Dame de Paris, Eiffel Tower, Père Lachaise Cemetery
Questions families with kids ask about Paris
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Family-friendly
Paris scores an 8/10 for families: parks are superb, national museums are free for under-18s, and kid menus show up at most brasseries without asking. The catch: Métro stations rarely have elevators, cobblestone streets punish lightweight strollers, and Parisian apartments labeled 'family-friendly' often mean a pullout sofa in the living room. Bring a carrier for kids under 3.
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Is it safe?
Paris is reasonably safe for a solo visitor, though not without its hazards, and we score its solo-traveler safety at 6.5/10 (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index). Violent crime against tourists in central Paris is rare. The real risks are pickpocket teams working Metro Line 1, the RER B, and Gare du Nord, plus bracelet and petition scams at Sacré-Coeur and the Louvre. Dial 112 in any emergency.
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What to pack
Layers and broken-in walking shoes: that's the core of a Paris packing list. Mornings near the Seine run 5–8°C even in April, warming to 16°C by afternoon. Pack a compact rain jacket, a crossbody bag with zip closure for Métro pickpocket zones, and a light scarf for church dress codes and windy bridge crossings.
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Getting around
The Métro does the heavy lifting. Sixteen lines reach every neighborhood worth visiting, and a Navigo Easy card loaded with t+ tickets at €2.15 each keeps you moving without fumbling for cash. Walk between sights in the same arrondissement: Paris is only about 10 km across. Uber works but costs four times the fare.
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Best time to visit
Go in late May, June, or September, when Paris gives you long, mild afternoons for the Seine quays and the Jardin du Luxembourg, café terraces staying full well into the evening. Skip August for the heat and summer closures, and skip January and February for the grey. For a first trip, June edges out September because its evening light lasts longest.
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Curated for families with kids
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Must-see attractions
Paris does not do small must-sees. This list runs from a cathedral whose history begins in 1163 to a cabaret that has traded on spectacle since 1889, taking in a palace with UNESCO World Heritage Site status, a tower that forms part of another, and a mausoleum for the most distinguished French people. Most of these places are famous enough that visiting them badly is easy: wrong hour, wrong day, half an hour of queueing for a photograph. The point of this list is timing and judgement as much as selection. Several keep late hours worth planning around, a few close on days you might not expect, and one sits outside the city in Versailles. We've written it for a first or second visit, for travellers who want the landmarks without the dutiful box-ticking. Read the hours before you build the day, and give each place the slot it deserves.
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Best free attractions
Paris hands its best hours out for free. Not the queue-at-dawn free of the big museums on their first-Sunday morning, but the older, sturdier kind: the squares, gardens, and public greens that the city itself keeps open, most of them administered by the Ville de Paris or the Sénat and mapped on every visitor's phone. This list is 12 of them, ranked by how much of Paris each one delivers for the price of walking in. Some are formal parterres you photograph from a bench; others are working parks with joggers, playgrounds, and rowing lakes that locals treat as their back garden. A few are squares whose importance is political and architectural rather than green. What they share is that they cost nothing, they are accessible without a ticket window, and they reward a slow hour more than a fast one. Bring a book, a coffee, or a hunger, and let the city do the rest.
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Best museums
Paris does not have museums so much as it has arguments made in stone, canvas, and cast iron, arranged across the city so that a single day can move from a royal palace to a national contemporary art centre without ever quite leaving the same conversation. The list below is 12 collections that reward a visitor who has more than one afternoon and more than one interest: the encyclopaedic giants on the Rive Droite, the science and natural-history houses that Paris runs with the same seriousness it brings to painting, a royal seat outside the city walls, and a handful of smaller houses where a single artist or a single idea is treated with the depth it deserves. Skip the impulse to hit only the marquee two; the city rewards a wider net. Wear shoes you can walk 08:00 to 18:00 in, book the entry slots that let you, and let the addresses do the routing. Every claim below traces to the venue's own record; the opinions are the editor's.
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