Paris is frequently ranked among the world's most expensive cities. It is also a city where you can spend a week of extraordinary experiences without paying for most of them. Here are ten things you can do that are free or nearly free.
1. Walk the Seine at Dusk (Free)
The most beautiful free activity in Paris is also the simplest: walk the quais (embankments) of the Seine between the Pont de l'Alma and the Île Saint-Louis. The stone quais are lower than street level, are shielded from the traffic noise, and are lined with bookstalls (bouquinistes that have traded here since the 16th century), and offers views of Notre-Dame's east facade, the Pont Neuf, and the Conciergerie. The walk takes about 40 minutes, and it costs nothing.
2. Permanent Collections at National Museums are Free on the First Sunday
France waives admission to the permanent collections of all national state museums on the first Sunday of every month. This includes the Louvre (normally €22), the Musée d'Orsay (normally €16), the Centre Pompidou (normally €15), and the Musée de Cluny. The crowds are heavier than on a paid weekday, but the collections don't change. If you arrive at the opening time (9am for the Louvre), go directly to what you want to see rather than attempting a comprehensive visit, and leave by noon before the school groups get there.
3. The Musée Carnavalet or the Paris History Museum (Always Free)
The Musée Carnavalet in the Marais traces the history of Paris from pre-Roman settlements to the 20th century across two Renaissance hôtels particuliers connected by a courtyard. It is permanently free, rarely crowded, and contains Marcel Proust's reconstructed bedroom, revolutionary-era artifacts from the Bastille, and period shop fronts preserved in their entirety. It is one of Paris's most undervisited museums and a better introduction to the city than the Louvre.
4. Père Lachaise Cemetery (Free)
Père Lachaise is both a functioning cemetery and one of the most extraordinary landscape gardens in Paris with cobblestone lanes, ancient trees, and 19th-century funerary architecture built into a hillside. Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, Frédéric Chopin, Jim Morrison, Honoré de Balzac, and Molière are all buried here. You can pick up a map at the entrance gates, and you should budget about two hours.
5. Sainte-Chapelle for €13 (The Best Value Paid Attraction in Paris)
Not technically free, but at €13 the Sainte-Chapelle is the best value admission in the city. Originally built in 1248 to house Louis IX's crown of thorns, it contains the most extraordinary ensemble of 13th-century stained glass in the world: 1,113 scenes in 15 windows covering 6,400 square feet or 600 square meters of glass. It is overlooked because it sits inside the Palais de Justice complex and requires a security screening. You will want to go first thing in the morning with the sun on the east windows.
6. The Canal Saint-Martin Neighborhood (Free Exploring)
The Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement is tree-lined, with iron footbridges, iron lock gates, and the streetscapes that Paris films have always been set in and it is the neighborhood Paris actually lives in. The canal itself is surrounded by cafés, concept bookshops, independent clothing designers, and cheap ethnic restaurants.
7. Marché d'Aligre is The Best Cheap Market in Paris (Free to Browse)
Marché d'Aligre in the 12th arrondissement (open Tuesday–Sunday mornings) is the most authentic food market in Paris. It is working-class, slightly chaotic, but offers the best prices on produce, cheese, and olives in the city. The covered Marché Beauvau adjacent to it sells fresh fish, meat, and regional charcuterie. A breakfast consisting of a café crème and a fresh baguette with a slab of market butter costs under €5.
8. The Promenade Plantée is Paris's Original Elevated Park (Free)
New York's High Line was modeled on the Promenade Plantée, Paris's converted 19th-century railway viaduct in the 12th arrondissement, which has been a public park since 1993 (18 years before the High Line opened). It runs 2.7 miles or 4.5 kilometers through the city, passing over streets and through the backs of Haussmann buildings on garden paths lined with roses, lavender, and wisteria. And, below the viaduct arches, the Viaduc des Arts houses ateliers of craftspeople including furniture restorers, violin makers, and theatre costumiers, whose work is visible through plate-glass windows.
9. Point Zero and the Kilometer Markers (Free)
In the square in front of Notre-Dame, a small bronze octagonal marker in the cobblestones marks Point Zéro des Routes de France and it is the point from which all distances in France are officially measured. There's a superstition that standing on it and making a wish brings you back to Paris.
10. Evening at a Neighborhood Wine Bar (€8–14)
Paris has a category of wine bar called the cave à vins or bar à vins that doesn't exist in the same form anywhere else. A good one serves wine by the glass from a rotating list of interesting natural and regional producers, a small plate of cheese or charcuterie, and in a room with bare stone walls, candles in bottles, and music you didn't arrive knowing but will leave wanting to Spotify. In the 11th (Oberkampf, Bastille area), Marais, and Belleville neighborhoods, these places charge €5–8 per glass and €6–12 for a shared plate. This is an authentic evening in Paris and it costs less than a tourist restaurant main course.