Are 3 Days in Paris Enough?

Deciding what to prioritize in Paris can be daunting when you only have a few days to spend in the City of Light. To make your trip unforgettable and stress-free, we’ve curated an exciting itinerary packed with all the must-see attractions.

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Pro Tips:

• Bookmark this post for easy access during your visit
• Check out our guide to Paris for more planning resources
• Look at our top Paris tours for a memorable trip 
• Make sure you’re staying in the right area of Paris.

3-Day Itinerary in Paris

Not ready to book a tour? Check out our best Paris tours to take and why.

Is it Worth it to Go to Paris for 3 Days? 

You have a long weekend coming up and think, ‘What the hell, let’s do Paris!‘ – Can you really do the city justice in just three days?

Short answer: Sure you can! And you can guarantee yourself some unforgettable memories.

Of course, you won’t have time to visit all the classic sites, but it’s enough just to wake up and realize, “Hey, I’m brushing my teeth in Paris!” There’s no such thing as a perfect three-day Paris itinerary; we all have different tastes and preferences, but here are some suggestions to point you in the right direction.

How Much Money will You Need for 3 Days in Paris?

The cost of a 3-day trip to Paris can vary greatly depending on your travel style, preferences, and activities. Here’s a breakdown of the approximate costs for 3 different budgets ranges:

• Budget: €400-€600
• Mid-range: €700-€1,100
• Luxury: €1,200+

When is the Best Time of the Year to Visit Paris?

If, like me, you dislike being either super cold or super hot, I highly recommend visiting Paris in the spring or autumn to avoid extreme temperatures. April, May, September, and early October offer a great balance of pleasant weather and manageable crowds.

Although I must confess, Paris can sprinkle a bit of extra magic in December, twinkling with all its festive Christmas lights, adding an extra dash of romance to the air!

See the Best of Paris in 3 Days

Of the four key attractions that warrant a little extra time – the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, Montmartre and Versailles – our in-city experts suggest you select just three of those, possibly squeezing a couple into one day.

Our inclination is to leave out Versailles, because it’s a large area to cover and could take up most of the day, whereas if you stay in central Paris you can rack up a greater diversity of experiences in one day.

Day 1

Eiffel Tower | River Cruise | Musée d’Orsay

By scheduling the Eiffel Tower and a river cruise for Day 1 you kill several birds with one stone. You get to know the layout of the city from above, and the river cruise guides will tell you helpful details about the historic sites along the banks of the River Seine.

The Eiffel Tower is where buying online tickets in advance makes the most difference – the queue for the ticket office is notorious. However, you will still have to queue for the lift. Here’s everything you need to know about visiting the Eiffel Tower.

The Seine River cruises start quite close to the Eiffel Tower and take you on an out-and-return journey alongside sights like Place de la Concorde (with its distinctive obelisk), the Louvre Museum and Notre Dame cathedral. You get to see both sides of Notre Dame because it’s on an island, Île de la Cité, and the cruise boats follow a circuit up one side and down the other.

Having organized this day around sites close to the river, the logical ideas for filling spare time in the afternoon are museums on the Left Bank. These include:

• The Army Museum and Napoleon’s tomb at Invalides.
• Musée d’Orsay – A collection of impressionist and post-impressionist works by masters such as Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir and Degas.
• The Rodin Museum – Home of Auguste Rodin’s most famous sculptures, such as The Thinker and The Kiss, and also popular for the museum gardens.

Day 2

The Louvre | Montmartre

It’s a relatively easy decision to limit your Louvre visit to just the main attractions – the museum is so big that even with a long visit you’ll only see a fraction of the items displayed. Even if there are queues at hotspots inside the museum, you should be able to see the classic works – the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, for example – in two or three hours.

Then, in the afternoon, a refreshing change from the formality of the Louvre would be a walk around the more Bohemian Montmartre district, sampling the best of France’s café culture.

The centerpiece of Montmartre is the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, which affords an incredible view of the city center and Eiffel Tower, and off to the side is Place du Tertre, where street artists and buskers help to revive the atmosphere that made Montmartre so popular with Europe’s creative elite two centuries ago.

You can use standard Metro tickets to take the funicular up to Sacré-Coeur, but be sure to return to the center via one of the many stairways that descend from this high area, complete with the ornate lamp-posts that will take you right back to the Belle Epoque.

The difference between this district and the rest of central Paris perhaps comes to a head with the Clos Montmartre hidden vineyard, which even offers wine tours. However, some of the more standard sights to catch when you’re against the clock would be the Salvador Dalí museum and Place Émile Goudeau, where Pablo Picasso once lived.

Not ready to book a tour? Find out if a Louvre Museums tour is worth it.

Day 3

Arc de Triomphe | Notre Dame | Pompidou | Le Marais

Probably the second-most iconic Paris landmark after the Eiffel Tower is the Arc de Triomphe, which offers yet another series of views – particularly along the length of the famed Champs-Élysées avenue – if you’re willing to tackle more stairs.

You’ve had a taste of Parisian art and culture, now you can check out what makes its inhabitants so stylish. The Champs-Élysées is a major shopping area, with high-fashion areas adjoining it, such as Rue Faubourg Saint Honoré, Place Vendôme and Avenue Montaigne.

You may be tempted to just keep walking along Champs-Élysées until you get to Place de la Concorde and the Tuilerie gardens, but you already saw that area when you visited the Louvre on Day 2. Instead, we suggest you take the Metro and head over to Île de la Cité to check out Notre Dame Cathedral.

This leaves you well-placed to explore the Le Marais district, but don’t miss Sainte-Chapelle church before you leave the island. Being somewhat smaller than Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle allows a closer view of its stained glass windows, which date back to the 13th century.

Just as Day 2 took you from the genteel formality of the Louvre to the rustic charm of Montmartre, the Marais district will take you from the whacky modernity of the Pompidou Center to the 17th Century decorum of Place des Vosges.

The Pompidou has an outstanding permanent collection of modern art, but often also houses adventurous temporary exhibitions based on things like comic book culture, photography and multimedia installations.

On the way to Place des Vosges from the Pompidou, you may wish to visit Saint-Gervais et Saint-Protais, the oldest church in Paris, with a particularly fine organ, and once at the Place des Vosges itself, a point of interest is the house where author Victor Hugo worked.

Not Set in Stone

This itinerary offers a mix of must-see landmarks and activities coupled with those that give an authentic taste of the French capital. Feel free to adapt based on your preferences and where you stay.