Hi everyone! I'm Antoinette and I'm the author behind FrolicAndCourage.com
it's my lifestyle blog where I talk about travel, food, and of course my life!
One of the things that I really wanted to do in my lifetime - it was my number
one bucket list item - was to go to Paris. I had been thinking about Paris,
I've been dreaming about Paris, I even studied French in high school and in
college, and my name is Antoinette! I have a French name and yet I never actually
had the courage to go to Paris, like it was crazy! So one day I just decided- "you
know... why am I sitting here not living my best life? I need to just get up and
straight do it!" and that's exactly what I did! I did extensive research for my
first solo travel adventure to Paris and I'm here to bring you some of what I
learned. I wanted to figure out how I can navigate the city for the cheapest
amount of money. I wanted to spend six days there and I wanted to have a fabulous
time but I didn't want to do it without breaking the bank.
So I found out how to do it on a budget. Before I discovered the three
cheap ways to save money on Paris public transportation, I first had to understand
how the system worked. Paris is broken up into five different
zones, each like a concentric circle, one within the other from zone one all the
way up to zone five. When people usually say "oh my gosh I want to see the
Eiffel Tower! I need to see all of the museums in Paris!" What they're really
referring to is Zone 1. Zone 2 is where Stade de France is. In Zone 4 you'll find the
Palace of Versailles (the Château de Versailles) and in Zone 5 you'll find
Disneyland as well as Charles de Gaulle Airport. Within the Zone 1, the city
center of Paris, there are 20 "arrondissements", which are kind of like
neighborhoods. They kind of snail out from the center with number one
all the way out to 20. Most of your Paris public transportation, like the
Metro, tram, and bus are within Zone 1 and they reach out to all those 20
different arrondissements. You'll also see a couple of acronyms as you're
trying to navigate the system. First is "RATP", which is the Régie Autonome des
Transports Parisiens. This group runs the tram, metro, and the bus within Zone 1.
You'll also see the acronym "SNCF", and that is the Société nationale des chemins
de fer français. This group runs a lot of the
regional trains that take you from city to city within pairs, and in
different cities in France. You'll also see the acronym "RER". They're numbered
A through E so you'll see our RER-A, RER-B, RER-C, and so forth. This regional
transport will take you all throughout Zones one through five. The Metro buses,
the trams, and the trains run Sunday through Thursday from 5:30 a.m. 'till
about 1:15 a.m. and on the weekends. On the eve of bank holidays they run
until about 2:30 in the morning. The RER train runs daily from about 5:30
a.m. to 1:30 in the morning. After the Metro closes, there's what's known as
the "Noctilien", a night bus, that runs from about 12:30 in the morning to about
5:30 in the morning. So those are the different acronyms you'll see as well as
the operating hours. What worked best for me when I went was
I downloaded an offline version of the Paris city center map on my iPhone so I
can have a copy whether I had internet connection or not. I also
downloaded a couple of the different maps - the RER map and the Metro map - as
well as the bus system map as a PDF on my phone so I could pull it up on iBooks.
I'll put links down below to all those maps so you can have a copy of it
as well. When I arrived at the airport, I picked up this little thing which is a
"Paris Poche" map, or a Paris Pocket map. Essentially, it's just the RER,
the bus, and the metro system, all here for you to navigate. It lists every
single station as well as all of the connecting points. I found
that really, really, helpful so as I was navigating I was always prepared.
I had my offline map, I had the actual PDF version of the map, and I had this
really cool Paris Poche map in my pocket so I could just go wherever I want to
go and without getting lost. So now that you know about the different forms of
transportation as well as the operating hours and the different acronyms, let's
get into the three cheap Paris public transportation options - explained. The
first cheap Paris public transportation option is through the T+ ticket
system. It's basically a paper fare card with a magnetic strip on the
back that you use for a one-way ride on the bus, Metro, and tram
systems. This little cheap ticket costs €1,90. It's super super cheap
because an uber is gonna easily cost you about €8 to €10 euros just for a
one-way ride... and ain't nobody got time for eight to ten euros! I want to spend
€1,90 on just a single ride, which is valid from the bus about
90 minutes from the first to the second transfer and it's also valid for about
two hours between your first and your last metro turnstile station. They're not
transferable but what you can do is pick up a pack of ten, which is known as a
"Carnet". It is essentially ten of these little bad boys all wrap together in
plastic and you can go about your merry business that way. There are also
discounts for kids under 12 years old as well as groups of ten. Say you're
traveling with a group of ten highschool students with a chaperone, there
discounts for that, as well as large family discounts. You can check that out with
one of the links down below. You can buy a t+ plus ticket pretty much
anywhere. They're at the airport, the metro stations, some are even at
food counters. They're widely available so when you get off the plane at say,
Charles de Gaulle, just pick one up (they're even at a kiosk!) you can grab one and
keep it moving. Also, as a note, with your t+ ticket these
are valid typically within Zones 1 & 2, so you can't get all the way out to Zone
5 with them- keep that in mind. As you're traveling, they are for shorter
distances and they're really quick, very efficient, and very cheap - so remember
these tickets. My 2nd cheap Paris public transportation option is with the Île-de-France
point-to-point and Airport tickets. They look exactly like the t+
tickets except they allow you to travel all the way in between Zones 1 - 5. The
price of these tickets really depend on where you're going. Say I wanted to
travel from Gare du Nord in the city centre of Paris all the way out to Stade
de France for a concert. That's about €2,80. You can also buy a pack of 10
of these tickets as well and if you're trying to get from the airport, say
Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Orly (ORY) to the city center of paris, it's about €10,30
to get from Charles de Gaulle and about €8,30 to take the bus from Orly
Airport. This is a significant savings, everyone, like seriously! You are saving a
ton... a ton of money on these tickets! Easily, an Uber or taxi ride costs a
minimum - hear me out here - a minimum of €30 and all the way up
to €55 just to get from the airport. Why would you pay...why on earth?! I did not
want to pay that much money just to get from the airport to the city center, okay!
Like, no. I was not going to do that so I paid €10,30 to get from the airport,
taking the RER-B train, to the city centre of Paris. It's about a 45-minute to
about 1hr and 15 minute ride on the train just to get to the city center, but
again, that's saving 20 euros at least off the back. You know what I can do with
20 euros?! I can have a delicious steak. I can get a whole bunch of macaroons from
Ladurée, and oh my gosh, you have to get the macaroons from Ladurée!
They are phenomenal and I could do that with the extra €20 euros I was saving.
These tickets are not transferable. The same rules apply with the
t+ tickets so definitely pick one of those up at the same places: at the
airport, a kiosk, the RTP counter at the airport. They are readily available
and for your use so definitely pick one of those tickets up. My third cheap Paris
public transportation option is with the "Navigo Découvert" card (Navigo Decouvert). You know, when I
was doing research I didn't really find a whole lot about this card. I found that
very, very fascinating. I found one of the sites in English but it had just a little
bit of information and I also found a website called ParisByTrain.com - which
you need to really check out. They have pictures, they have photos, they have maps
from the airport all the way throughout the Paris public transportation system.
So you need to check out ParisByTrain.com the link is down below if you're
going to travel you public transportation system. But in terms of
the Navigo Découvert, there's not a whole lot of information about it and I will
tell you why: because you save a ton of money. This pass is essentially a fare
card, a reusable fare card, with a really cool chip in it. All you need is a
passport photo and your signature to pick one of these up. It costs five euros for the
actual card and get this -for a week y'all...an entire week with unlimited
access to the bus, tram, metro, and the RER train..transfers included, for an
entire week, is only €22,80! Yo, €22,80 for an entire week! Oh my
goodness this is this is a significant cost savings and I imagine that's
probably why you don't find a whole lot of information about it. For reference,
the Paris Visite pass, which is publicized like all over the universe,
for a comparable pass in Zones 1 - 5, which you CAN travel in
Zones 1 - 5 with this pass, for five days is about €65,80. €22,80...
€65,80? This card will save you so, so, so much money! It's valid until
Sunday 11:59 p.m. and the card resets on Monday. You can buy the current
week's pass up until Thursday night and Friday morning the next week's pass
becomes available, so keep that in mind if you're traveling any time between
Wednesday night I'd say and Thursday, Friday, and over the weekend. That's what
happened to me when I travelled but I was prepared because I did my research
and I'll tell you exactly what I did. When I arrived at the airport I picked
up a Carnet of 10 t+ tickets as well as an RER-B Île-de-France Point-to-Point (Airport) ticket
to the city centre of Paris. I spent my €14,90 for t+ plus (carnet) tickets and my
€10,30 for an RER-B ticket. When I got to a metro station
because the airport somehow ran out of these little things, so keep that in mind
as you're traveling, but you can pick them up at the metro stations as well as
the RATP Airport counters. So when I got to the city center I went to a metro
station and I ordered my pass. The guy was so nice; he wanted to make sure
that I understood fully that the pass was going to be valid on Monday since I
arrived on a Thursday [correction: Friday] I said "no problem, I completely understand, I would like to
purchase one of these Navigo Découvert passes" and he gave me one and it was
great. For that Friday, Saturday, Sunday I was using my t+
tickets, left and right. I was going everywhere. Y'all -
this was my bucket list trip so I did not want to miss a single thing! So I used my
carnet to go here, to go there, to go everywhere, to go wherever I wanted to go
and see whatever it is I wanted to see. It worked out great so when Monday hit,
boom! All I did was tap this purple pass on the card reader and it let me through
the turnstiles and I was going about my merry business, happy as I can be, living
my best life for the cheapest amount possible, and it was phenomenal! So you
guys- if you lose this card you cannot get it replaced;
but, it's valid for ten years if you don't lose it, which I don't think you
will because it'll save you so, so much money. It's valid for ten years so if
you want to come back to Paris at any point in time you can do that with this
Navigo card. For bonus measures, I want to throw in a fourth cheap Paris
public transportation option which is something that seems kind of obvious but
you really need to hear it again. It is to just walk. All you have to do is just
walk around Paris. Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk; but, wait... that's...it's not work?
It's work, not walk. Still walk around Paris. Paris is such a beautiful,
beautiful city and it would be really sad for you to miss that just by not
walking. You know, you'll see a lot of beautiful, beautiful streets a lot of
gorgeous shops, you'll run into great street musicians and artists and the
only way you'll find that is if you walk around the city, y'all. It's great
exercise and you can take some amazing photos to bring back with you, y'all, so
just walk around the city. And watch out for the Paris drivers, though, they can
get a little crazy down there. I don't know how they don't get into accidents
more often but I guess that's just how the system works.
Watch out for the drivers; but, other than other than the drivers, you'll have a
great time walking around enjoying the atmosphere. Grab some coffee, grab a
croissant, grab one of those delicious macaroons from Ladurée, and just walk
around. You'll have an amazing, amazing time.
So, everyone, those are my three - actually four - cheap Paris public transportation
options explained. Once again, when you get there pick up: either a t+ ticket or
carnet of ten; an Île-de-France Point-to-Point [or Airport] ticket; or Navigo
Découvert pass. If you have any other cheap Paris public transportation
options that I didn't mention, oh my gosh, please- if you wrote a blog about it, or
you found another site ,or you just know because you live there, or you know
because you go, please put your links down below and put your comments down below.
We're community of travelers so let's share with one another. Let's share this
information. If you miss anything I've said in this video, I wrote a very
very detailed blog for you to read, peruse, and take in at your own
leisure. I also included the links to my blog- they're all down below so
definitely check those links out. If you like this video please give it a thumbs
up and also subscribe to my channel. If you have any other questions or
comments, again, put it down below and I'll get back to you. So now that you
know all about how the Paris public transportation system works with the
different zones and arrondissements; you also know about the operating hours;
t+ tickets; the Île-de-France Point-to-Point [and Airport] tickets; as well as the
Navigo Découvert card; and to just walk. So now that you know all this
information it's time for you to Frolic, have Courage, and just Go! Alright, y'all,
I'll catch you next time, bye!