A Letter to Anyone Booking Their First Trip to France

A letter to anyone about to book their first trip to France

Dear future traveler,

You're going to want to see everything — Paris, the Riviera, the Loire Valley, maybe a lavender field in Provence for the photo. I get it. I wanted all of it too. Here's the version I'd actually recommend: fall in love with Paris properly, then let the trains take you somewhere new for a day or two. That's it. That's the whole trip.

Base yourself in Paris for five or six nights. Not because you need that long to see the Eiffel Tower (you don't, it takes an afternoon), but because Paris is a city you settle into, not check off. Pick one neighborhood and actually live in it for a few days — get your coffee from the same place twice, learn which bakery has the better croissant, walk instead of taking the metro when you can. The Louvre and Musée d'Orsay deserve their reputations, but so does an unplanned two hours in the Marais with no destination.

Then, take the train somewhere. This is the part people skip, and it's the part I'd fight for. France's rail network means you can day-trip to genuinely different worlds without repacking a bag.

• Versailles, if you want the grandeur — go early, the gardens alone are worth half a day.
• Giverny, if you want quiet and Monet's actual water lilies.
• The Loire Valley, if castles are your thing — Chambord and Chenonceau are both reachable as a long day trip from Paris, or worth an overnight if you can spare it.

If you have more than a week, this is where I'd branch further south — Lyon for food, Provence for lavender season (June and July, timing matters), or the Riviera for a proper slow beach stretch. But that's a second trip, not a rushed add-on to your first.

A few things I wish someone had told me before my first trip:

Restaurants really do close between lunch and dinner service — don't wander around at 3pm expecting a sit-down meal. Sundays, a lot of smaller shops close entirely. And nobody's actually rude to tourists who at least attempt "bonjour" before switching to English; it goes further than you'd think.

One more practical thing: get your eSIM sorted before you land, not after. I activated mine before boarding and it kicked in the second we touched down at Charles de Gaulle — meant I could pull up the RER route into the city instead of standing in an arrivals hall trying to find wifi. Travoyer's France plans start around US$1.90, no roaming fees, and it runs alongside your regular SIM so your own number still works. Coverage is strong in Paris and along the TGV lines; it gets patchier out in the smaller villages, so grab offline maps for the countryside legs.

Go slow. Eat the long lunch. Miss a museum on purpose. You'll come back anyway.

— Travoyer