Rick Steves Paris 2019

Even after I saw the negative reviews, I still purchased this guide and I am glad I did. The pages are no thinner than any other guidebook that has been made. My advice is to disregard the negative reviews below. Guides have always been made with lighter paper because they contain an assortment of valuable information, and this guide is meant to be carried with you on your travels with minimal weight. The information, paper and materials of this book are great and very clear to read. The font on the other side of the page does not bleed through, unless your intentially trying to get it too (just like any book). This book is a valuable resource to have and highly recommend. It even includes a fold out map, a must for any true traveler. I even picked up the French phrasebook also my Rick Steve's, that one is amazing as well.

I studied this book before my trip to Paris this summer and then used it with my travel companion as we made plans. It went with me to Paris and was SO helpful! I don't think the trip would have been as big a success if I didn't have it. Rick Steves gives so much great information and tips. I especially appreciated the small map that was included. It stayed in my purse the entire trip and was a huge help when navigating the Metro. I would have been lost without it. We called the map "Rick" as we used it. "Lets see what Rick says." or "Check Rick to see where we need to go." I know I will be purchasing more of his books before my next trip overseas.

Unlike other "encyclopedic" guides, this one is very practical and easy to read. It's far more likely to finish reading this guide before your trip than any other, its entertaining value certainly helps to motivate you. By being more pleasant to read than most guides, it ends up being also more useful because you get more motivated to use it. And most important, after the trip to Paris I can tell that what it said was very accurate and all the recommendations I followed were good. Maybe the best recommendation (especially for Americans) from this guide was not just trying to start conversations in French (no matter how broken), but to be polite. If you start conversations with a greeting (usually "Bonjour"), the French people will almost always be friendly, polite and helpful.

First of all I like Rick Steves books. I successfully used is tour books for Germany Austria and England. But I'm not as excited about the Paris book. If you really like art museums, this is the book for you. However if you were like me and you don't really go to Art Museums at home I'm certainly not going to waste a lot of time going to Art Museums elsewhere just because they're famous. It does not provide a lot of information on Alternate tourist activities. For example there's virtually nothing on the sewr tour or catacombs. The Pantheon is suppose to have great views but is virtually overlooked. It does however provide valuable information on sleeping accommodations. You have to understand that Rick Steves philosophy is not to spend your entire savings on a fancy hotel. Save money on your hotel and enjoy your vacation by having great meals and doing fantastic things. And it's about time. Rick Steves consider some color in his tour books after all these years. So because I did get a very good hotel very close to the Eiffel Tower at a really good price I'm giving 4-stars.

We just returned from a trip where we spent 5 days in Paris. We used this book extensively. It has a very usable organization into chapters on museums, attractions and neighborhoods. We appreciated Rick's conversational tone. We used this in conjunction with Rick Steve's Audio Europe. We downloaded the blogs we wanted to use. We visited Notre Dame Cathedral with Rick as our audio tour guide. We walked around the exterior as he suggested and felt we got as good an explanation as we would have from an expert tour guide. Unfortunately the line to get into the cathedral were too long so we skipped that. We planned to do that the next day when the church opened. Sadly, the fire at Notre Dame broke out two hours after we had visited it. We will now have to wait several years until we can view the interior.

Our trip to Paris would not have been nearly as enjoyable without this book! It enabled us to plan our time there, saving us money and frustration along the way. We read ahead and knew pretty much what we wanted to do, so we planned out each day the night before and brought the book along in case we should need it. Best tips from the book if you stay for a week: Purchase a Navigo pass at the airport. It makes getting around a breeze. Also purchase a Museum Pass if you want to see a lot of sites. If you want to go up in the Eiffel Tower, book way in advance. We waited too long and it was already booked up. Ignore this tip from the book: Taking the Roissy Bus from the airport in the middle of a hot day. You will nearly die of a heat stroke as there is no ac or window to open and you are crawling through traffic. Not the best way to kick off your trip. Train or Uber is the way to go. Trust me on this one. Tips we learned on our own: Download the app “Paris Metro Map and Routes”. You enter your Points A and B and it shows you the Metro stations to use, including connections. Another good app to use is Trip Advisor. We used this app every time we were looking for the best cafe/restaurant in the exact area we wanted to be in. You can read quick reviews and even look at the menu before you go. It never steered us wrong. That’s about as helpful as I can be. Get the book. It’s worth your time and money!

Rick Steves has been my go-to guy for guide books since I was back-packing Europe after college. I used to cross-reference him against Lonely Planet or Let's Go in order to get a good idea of what is a "must do" but this time, I decided to just rely on Rick. I wasn't disappointed. I love that he broke down itineraries for what to do based on how many days you're there. "If you're there 3 days, do this. 5 days, do this." Really helped me figure out my plan. Additionally, his maps are wonderful, current, and accurate and he gives really fantastic tips and suggestions. He will remain my go-to guy!

This book was so unbelievably helpful. I used it to plan ten days in Paris and learned a lot about what to do to avoid lines and save money. The "when to visit" information helped us to make reservations and limit waiting in lines as much as possible. I've had friends who missed out on attractions in Paris because they didn't realize that they could purchase tickets in advance. As a result, they ended up missing The Louvre or The Eiffel Tower, which was a bummer. This guide was an easy to use, enjoyable to read, and I would recommend to anyone planning a trip.