Package deals versus booking separate

Hi, Sarah. If you are on a tight budget, you will get more bang for your buck if you do the arrangements yourself rather than book a tour. The tours usually about double the cost of your trip (unless you are traveling alone and then you might consider it.)

We were enticed by a tour of Italy a couple years ago and we don’t usually do tours. It looked great so we went ahead and signed up. Then I started doing my research on the Internet and discovered we could go for about half and see exactly the same things if I made the arrangements myself. My husband called the tour guy and explained and they actually released us from the tour, bless their hearts! (It was a college alumni tour, not a commercial tour or they probably wouldn’t have been so nice.)

Set your dates (flexibly if possible) and start the airline search. When you find the cheapest flight, book it. (You can click on the blue and red France.com at the top of this page and then scroll to the right side of the screen and click on Airfares to do a fare search. Be sure to check that, the major travel web sites and then the individual airlines. We usually book on visitfrance.travel or on Air France because they tend to be the cheapest but when sales hit, it can vary wildly.)

Now start looking for rooms. Again, click on the blue and red visitfrance.travel at the top of this page and do a hotel search. If nothing fits your budget, scroll to the right side of your screen again and this time click on Hostels. These are hostels and incredibly cheap hotels in Paris. Paris is one of the more reasonable places to get a hotel room so you’re in luck on the room part of your budget.

BTW, we’ve switched to the Hotel de la Sorbonne (booked through the visitfrance.travel web site) and it is only 60 euros a night double with private bath. It is friendly, clean, quiet and best of all, it is right in the center of everything! There are two RER stations and two or three Metro stations within an easy walk. You can walk all over the Latin Quarter, to Notre Dame, the Marais, the Louvre, the d’Orsay, the Tuileries and the Luxembourg Gardens. In short, it’s a great location.

On the visitfrance.travel home page, scroll right to Hotel Search and scroll down to the Latin Quarter. Type in your dates and hit "Go" to get a list of hotels. The first one I pulled up was the Sorbonne. You can also type Sorbonne into the search window at the top left side of your screen.

Okay, you have flight and a room. That’s the tough part. Now figure out what you want to see. If the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay are on your list, you want a Carte Musees and Monuments (Paris Museum Pass). Not only will it save you money, you will NOT have to stand in long lines to get into the museums. The pass covers 70 Paris museums and monuments. You can buy the pass at the major Metro stations so get it when you get your Metro tickets.

Transportation: You will undoubtedly want to use the Paris subway system which is really good. There are several options and you can read through them at http://www.ratp.fr You’ll find info in English if you look for the little British flag or a place to click on English. This will not, however, give you all the information. You have to struggle through the French to get all your options.

If you don’t read French, you may want to (a) get help or (b) use the English option and limit your Metro choices to the Paris Viste pass. It’s a pretty good deal and makes using the Metro easy. We don’t get it any more; we use a carnet of 10 Metro tickets. If you have someone going with you and decide for the Paris Viste pass, you each have to have one. If you get a carnet of 10 tickets, you can share them. The Paris Viste pass must be used on consecutive days and only for the dates of purchase. The carnet of 10 tickets can be used any time and even saved for your next trip to Paris . . . then you have to come back! You will also find yourself doing a lot more walking than you would expect. Paris is soooooooooo pretty that you want to see it rather than ride a subway and miss what is going on upstairs!

Whatever you get, pass or carnet, only purchase for the inner zones, i.e. 1 and 2 or 1 through 3. You will only use the outer zones a couple times . . . getting to and from the airport and if you visit Versailles. Simply purchase those as separate tickets. In other words, don’t pay for zones you won’t use regularly.

Day trips: You said Belgium and maybe the south of France. You will want to take the train for this. The train web site is: http://www.sncf.com and I don’t know if it has an English version or not because we always drive. There is also a Rail Travel button on the France.com Home Page and you may want to check that for bargains.

You may want to take a day trip to either Giverny, home of Monet or to Versailles. We drove to Giverny so I’m not sure about it but I suspect there are train connections. We took the RER to Versailles and you get off at the Versailles Rive Gauche stop and it’s about a 10 minutes walk max.

For the south of France you can take the SNCF TGV train (high speed bullet train) from Paris to Avignon, spend a day in Avignon which is fabulous and then train back to Paris that night. I wouldn’t do it, but nearly everyone else in the world would. (We’re slow travelers and usually spend a week to a month in one place.) I know it’s done and certainly encourage you to do it if you want to see something of the south of France. The train is great because you can see the countryside on the way. You can probably go cheaper and faster by low-cost airline but you won’t see anything on the way . . . or have the bullet train experience!

That’s probably too much information but feel free to ask if you want further help. Hopefully, others will sign on and give their opinions too.

Happy travels.

Thanks so much for all the great advice, I’ve booked the flights now onward to the accomodations! Versailles is on my list, possible somewhere in the southern france for wine/castles etc. Any advice on good places that aren’t too far? One nice thing about just having the tickets is that it will allow for more flexability for where we want to travel to, if we decide to travel more outside of Paris and want to spend the night.
I decided on sept. 29th thru oct. 10th for the dates, I can’t believe how fast this will come up!! Another nice thing I realized is that this will fall during the 1st sunday of the month and there are free admissions to museums, so that’s cool.
Anyways, thanks for the advice and info, I’ll definitely print it out and use it in the upcoming month of preparation and planning!
Sarah

Sarah, Congratulations! You took the first big step. You’re right. Sept. 29 will be here before you know it. We’re leaving on Sept. 21 so will be there a week ahead of you. Exciting, isn’t it?!

You want to visit the south of France and you mention wine/castles. May I make a suggestion? The Loire isn’t exactly the south of France but it’s famous for both wine and castles. Why don’t you save the south of France for a future trip and spend a few days exploring the Loire Valley, the Valley of Kings! An added benefit is that it is close to Paris so you wouldn’t lose time traveling. The Loire is south of Paris . . .

You could rent a car or easier still, you could book a Loire Valley tour right out of Paris. If you decide to rent a car, be sure you make the arrangements before you leave the US because it’s much cheaper if you do it ahead of time. The countryside is hilly but the roads are excellent and well marked. It may be one of the easiest places in France to drive.

If you decide to do the tour, you will want to check before you go to be sure your tour includes both castles (chateaux) and wine tastings. Many of the tours are just chateau tours and others are just wine tasting. You want both so be sure you get what you want.

I did a France.com search on Loire and here is a neat link for the Loire. Try it. http://www.amboise-valdeloire.com/index.php?id_site=2

It’s supposed to be in English but if not, find the British flag and click on it.

Have fun!

Thanks for the link, it looks so beautiful, castles, valleys, gardens, wine…so hard to even imagine living in America where all the buildings are so ‘new’ in comparision.
Thanks for all your advice, I wish you a wonderful trip as well, it will be coming up fast for both of us!!! I think I will definitely put the Loire valley on my list and Giverny as well.
I’d love to hear how your trip was after you go-maybe we can swap stories or pics later on-
e-mail me sometime, sarahkyllo@hotmail.com

Bon Voyage–

Sarah