I love travel planning almost as much as the travel itself; in fact, I’ve made a career out of planning other people’s trips! So, multi-day bus tours are not my thing. I like the independence of traveling solo and setting my own schedule. (ie not being up and on a bus every day by 7 am!) That said, I love joining local tours during my travels and on a recent trip to Paris, I joined several Paris guided tours that were the perfect middle ground between guided multi-day bus tours and independent travel. Local tours are a great way to learn about your destination, but also to meet fellow travelers and get insider tips from local guides. I’ve had some amazing tour guides over the years, and I still follow many of them on social media.

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If there’s one thing I learned when I spent four days in Rome, it’s imperative to choose “skip the line” tours or “no wait” tours for major sights in Europe. Places like Versailles Palace or the Vatican have insane lines to buy tickets, and then you have to get in another line once you have your ticket. This could easily save you hours of your day! Read the fine print and opt for “no wait” if you can!

Versailles Gardens & Palace

The Palace of Versailles is one of the most popular day trips from Paris; however, we decided to actually stay in the town of Versailles. I have a friend who works for Hilton so I got a great rate at the Waldorf Astoria Versailles – Trianon Palace, and we couldn’t resist staying at a palace hotel next door to THE Versailles Palace. It was a beautiful hotel in a great location, and a charming town.

I was traveling with my aunt on this trip, and she is obsessed with Versailles! I don’t even know how many times she’s visited, but she picked out our Versailles tour, which was the Royal Palace & Gardens Golf Cart Tour. I made a big mistake when planning this trip, as I booked the Waldorf for Sunday and Monday nights…not realizing that Versailles is closed on Monday! So, we did this tour after landing in Paris on our first day. It worked out ok, but we didn’t get to see some of the other parts of Versailles, like the hamlet or the lighted fountain show, because we were a bit limited on time.

If you only splurge on one Paris guided tour, splurge on skip-the-line at Versailles. Even in the off-season, the lines were incredibly long. Not to mention, the sheer size of the estate makes it impossible to see everything in one day. Having a golf cart zip us around was huge, because we covered a lot more ground, including some of the 15 groves, or grottos, that make up the gardens of Versailles. With more than 400 statues, the gardens of Versailles are said to be the largest open-air sculpture museum in the world!

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Paris Foodie Tour

I started doing food tours when I visited Southeast Asia because I was scared of what to order. Now, food tours are my favorite travel experience, and I have joined food tours around the world. In Europe, I always see what Eating Europe has to offer, and they have been kind enough to host me on several tours, including their Trastevere restaurant tour in Rome and the Prague Walking Food Tour. Trimm Travels had also recommended Eating Europe’s Paris Food Tours to me.

When I reached out to Eating Europe before my Paris trip, they recommended In The Footsteps of The French Chef Food Tour. Oddly enough, I had just finished reading My Life in France, by Julia Child. The food tour was the perfect follow-up to the book. It looks like they may have discontinued this tour, but there are plenty of other Eating Europe tours in Paris to choose from!

Not only did we get to sample some quintessential French foods, like quiche, crepes, pastries, macarons, cheese, bread, and wine, but we also got an amazing walking tour of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood of Paris. We returned to this neighborhood a few times to walk around, and I would definitely recommend staying here as it seems like a really fun area.

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There are some great vegan restaurants in Paris, too!

Catacomb Paris Tours

After visiting the Catacombs of Rome, I knew this was something I wanted to do in Paris. Of course, the Paris Catacombs are the most famous, at least the only ones I had ever heard of. As a concierge, I should know better, but I almost waited too long to book my Paris Catacombs tour! Many days were already sold out during my trip, so I had to take what I could get and build the rest of my Paris tours around this one.

I chose the “Skip the Line Restricted Access Catacombs Tour” and it was well worth the extra cost. We met our guide, Marion, outside the Catacombs entrance and quickly descended a 20-meter spiral staircase to reach the actual entrance of the catacombs. All told, there are 300 km of quarries or tunnels under Paris; the official Catacombs museum is only 1.5 km of those, so you can imagine what has not been opened to the public! The ossuaries, as they are called, were created in the late 1700s when the cemeteries began filling up, and they continued to add to them until 1850. Six million people are buried here, but you’ll only see femurs and skulls on the tour.

This was a fantastic tour, lasting two hours, and we really did have access to restricted areas. At a few points throughout the tour, our guide had to get a docent to unlock certain gates in the tunnels, and every time, we had people try to follow us only to be turned around. If you are looking for unique souvenirs from Paris, the Catacombs gift shop has a lot of interesting items, from little skull-shaped breath mints to a pretty large book selection.

My Aunt was not interested in spooky bones, so she visited the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum.

Loire Valley Tour

This is a long day, but totally worth it. It would be even better to stay overnight in the Loire Valley and enjoy the castles at a more leisurely pace, but you can absolutely visit Loire Valley on a day trip from Paris. I took this tour in high school and it was top of my list of Paris guided tours when we planned this trip. The Loire Valley Castles & Wine Tasting Day Trip from Paris is a 12-hour tour and you’re pretty rushed at the stops, but if you want to see several castles on a day trip from Paris, this is the best option. The Loire River is the longest river in France, and there are an estimated 1000 chateaux along the river. Although we had some rain, the fall color really added to the beauty of the Loire Valley.

On this tour, I realized I’m more interested in the exterior and the gardens than the interior. My aunt was the opposite and loved the lavish tapestries, art, and furnishings, which are not found in every castle. The first stop is Château de Chambord, which is almost 500 years old and one of the most famous Loire Valley castles.

After a self-guided tour of Chambord, we headed to the cute little town of Blois for lunch and a short time to walk around town. Then our final stop of the day is Chateau de Chenonceau, a castle built over a river. This castle is even older than Chambord, and the surrounding gardens are a really beautiful place to take photos. We even skipped the wine tasting at this stop for more time in the gardens and the gift shop! From Chenonceau, it’s another 3 hours back to Paris.

Perfume Class & Museum Tour

One of the Paris tours that my aunt suggested was a perfume-making class. I would have never thought to do this, but it was so much fun! We signed up for the Perfume Making Class and Guided Visit of Fragonard Perfume Museum. You can visit the Fragonard Museum for free, but the guided tour was so informative, and we learned a ton about the history of perfume.

The tour started with a lesson in perfume; we learned about top notes, middle notes, and base notes, as well as the history of the Fragonard family perfumery. We learned the difference between Parfum (this is 26% oil and hard to find outside of Paris) and Eau de Parum which is typically the next strongest scent at 15% oil. Followed by eau de toilette, which is 10% oil, and eau de cologne, which at 5% oil is not long-lasting and typically used after a bath. Next, we got to create our own scent. This wasn’t as creative as I had hoped, as we were given three scents to combine for a “custom scent.” After a short tour of the museum, which has some beautiful historic perfume bottles, we were left to sample and shop in the downstairs boutique. (Fun fact: don’t sniff coffee beans to cleanse your palate, sniff your own skin!)

Seine River Cruise

The Seine River cuts through Paris, dividing the Left Bank from the Right Bank. Naturally, river cruises are one of the most popular tours in Paris because you get a unique vantage point of the best landmarks of Paris. We chose to take a dinner cruise on our first night in Paris. We figured the Bateaux Parisiens Seine River Gourmet Dinner & Sightseeing Cruise was a great way to kick off our Paris visit! This is a very popular Paris tour and probably super romantic if you’re on a date. In hindsight, I wish we had chosen a sightseeing cruise and had dinner elsewhere. As you might expect, the prix fixe dinner wasn’t super amazing, and it was so dark inside the boat (to allow you to see out) that it was hard to see what we were eating!

The boat launch is just next to the Eiffel Tower, so after the cruise, we had a chance to get some fun nighttime photos. We then had a really hard time getting a cab or Uber back to our hotel. Apparently, everyone in Paris had the same idea at the same time!

Big Bus Tour

I always do these tours when traveling, and if my hometown has one, I’ll take that too! We made it to our last day in Paris, and we had planned a day trip to Strasbourg, but it was supposed to rain all day. We decided to stay in Paris and grabbed tickets for the Paris Tootbus Discovery Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour. Half of the top deck is covered, so even on a rainy day, you get fantastic views of the most famous Paris monuments.

Normally, I would recommend taking this Paris bus tour at the beginning of your trip, but I’m glad we fit it into our schedules before leaving. We got to see the progress on the Notre Dame Cathedral renovation, and seeing Paris draped in fall color was really beautiful.