Right about now, people are descending on Paris for the 2024 Olympics. Athletes, attendees and just your everyday tourists are visiting the city, making their own judgements. Some of them will walk away from their trip completely smitten with the dazzling city that’s captured the hearts of artists, romantics and regular joes throughout decades. They’ll love Paris.
Others will walk away going, “Paris…kind of sucks.”
Really, both opinions are okay and valid. And that is precisely why you shouldn’t necessarily listen to people who tell you any place is a must-see or a must-skip.
There was a time when I would have gotten offended by the “Paris sucks” sentiment. Because when I visited Paris, I really fell in love.
Let me tell you how much I love Paris.
As a little kid, I dreamed of going to Paris. I wanted to eat baguettes and climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower and say “oui.” At night, I’d ask my mom to teach me French words.
When I was around 10 or 11, I remember going through my aunt’s photos and finding a picture of the Eiffel Tower. My heart skipped a beat – how had I not known my aunt went to Paris? I had to know everything.
“When did you visit Paris?!” I excitedly asked.
“That’s Vegas,” she replied.
Indeed, Paris seemed far away. I didn’t have travel role models growing up, and my family didn’t really travel much. Travel was for rich people – or at least middle class – especially in the 90s-00s.
As I learned more about the world, my bucket list grew, but Paris and the Eiffel Tower were always at the top of it. I studied French through middle school, high school and my first semester of college (not that useful in Florida where most people took Spanish). I was vice president of my French club.
The more I learned about this mystical city filled with so much art, history and glamor, the more I felt I had to see it.
That dream seemed out of reach to me for many years – until I was living across the country from my hometown, a couple of years out of college and into a full-time job. One day, I decided it was finally time for me to go to Europe.
So, I saved up for my dream trip. When the opportunity arose, I took off to Europe for several weeks. My third planned stop was the dream: Paris.
At this point, Paris had become bigger than itself in my mind. It had become this epic pie-in-the-sky dream that I knew it could never live up to.
And yet – it did.
Have you heard of Paris Syndrome?
Simply put, it’s the phenomenon where people build something up in their minds so much that the reality of it is disappointing. So-named for the city that has been so strongly romanticized throughout history that people would visit it and be so let down that they’d leave thinking it was awful.
Before visiting Paris, I was fully prepared to experience Paris Syndrome. I knew how badly I’d wanted to visit for so long that I was sure the reality wouldn’t match expectations. They were just way too high.
Besides, everyone around me seemed to just hate Paris.
“Paris is trash,” a friend would say.
“Honestly, you can just cut Paris out of your itinerary,” I’d read online.
“Two or three days – MAX,” they’d caution.
Still, I decided to book a week in Paris. Even if it totally let me down, I would at least be able to check off all the things on my Paris bucket list – Versailles, Arch de Triomphe, Centre Pompidou, etc., etc. And of course the Eiffel Tower.
I was vice president of my French Club, for goodness sake. Surely I could find something I liked about the city.
I arrived in Paris around 6 a.m. off an overnight bus from Marseilles. Groggy, but excited to be in my dream city. As I navigated the metro from Charles de Gaulle where the bus ended, I couldn’t help but to feel a little thrill.
“Remember,” I warned myself, “keep your expectations low.”
I loved it as soon as I stepped out onto the street.
Despite the early hour, the streets were bustling, and the energy was electric. I passed bakeries, ogling at the treats in the window. As I rested by the Seine waiting for my Airbnb to let me check in, I couldn’t help but think, “I’ve made it. I’m here.”
Over the next week, I fell more in love with Paris every day.
I visited all the museums and historical sites I’d dreamed of seeing. The Louvre was massive and elegant. The Mona Lisa was as small as I’d heard, but the chaos surrounding it was amusing. Centre Pompidou was quirky and fun. Musée d’Orsay was beautiful. Versailles was grand. Notre Dame was a wonder. The Catacombs were eerie and fascinating. My only disappointment was Les Jardins de Luxembourg. And maybe I just caught them at a bad time.
I spoke to locals in poor French that had gone unpracticed for years. They patiently listened and sometimes helpfully corrected me and tried to converse back.
On my second day in Paris, I strolled through Le Quartier Latin, soaking up the energy. When I got to the Le Panthéon, I sat on its steps and got my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. I cried.
Two days later, my partner would meet up with me in Paris. I made him take a picture of us kissing underneath it.
By the time my week in Paris was up, I was elated and wanted more.
It had been even better than my dreams – how was that possible?
I loved it then, and I love it now. I even returned to Paris two years later and got (lightly) robbed on the steps of Sacré-Coeur. But I still love Paris.
For years after first falling in love with Paris, I couldn’t help but feel offended on its behalf when I heard people dissing it. I felt like I had to defend its honor.
“Paris is actually great and deserves at least a week,” I’d reply to people claiming the French capital wasn’t worth anyone’s time. “You probably just didn’t do it right.”
But obviously, people have plenty of reasons to hate Paris that are valid for them.
After all, Paris is a huge metropolitan city, and comes with the same issues of any other big city. Its streets are not pristine – you may see trash or graffiti or smell urine. There’s crime. There are usually crowds and long queues for popular sites. It’s expensive.
Maybe the person claiming Paris is skippable doesn’t like big cities and their baggage. Maybe they got mugged on the Paris metro. Perhaps they just visited at a bad time (for themselves or for the city), and it just wasn’t meant to be. They could have suffered from Paris Syndrome.
Whatever the reason – some people just don’t like Paris. I bet a lot of those people are in Paris right now.
And that’s okay.
Something important I’ve learned while traveling is that you have to take people’s opinions on destinations with a huge grain of salt.
Everyone has different travel styles and priorities, likes and dislikes. There are popular cities people praise as their favorite that I’ve disliked (ahem, Amsterdam).
When taking advice on what places are worth visiting, you really need context on the person giving the advice. Why did they like/dislike this place? What is their travel style? What are they typically looking for when they travel?
Trying to look for context clues and reading between the lines a bit has really helped guide my decisions when traveling. For example, a lot of people hate big cities simply because they’re big cities. I do, and so I often end up liking these big cities people say to skip. I think it becomes a skill you can hone over time while traveling.
So, when the hordes of tourists visiting the city for the Olympics this year leave, I’m sure many will come out saying, “Paris is trash.” Probably more than average because the city will be even more overcrowded and overpriced than usual.
But I hope that when they go and share this sentiment with their friends and family and potentially even strangers on the internet, that they will also share why.
Because I loved Paris and Athens and Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles – all of these cities people will tell you is not worth your time. But I did not like Amsterdam. I thought Berlin was only okay. I’ve never fallen in love with New York.
Context is crucial. And don’t let anyone shame you for liking or disliking any place you visit. Everything in life is objective anyway.
Have you ever loved visiting a place that everyone seems to hate? Or vice versa? Let me know!
Pin this post to save it for later.
One thought on “A Love Letter to Paris…Or Why You Shouldn’t Take Travel Recommendations at Face Value”