The real cost of one foodie’s week in Paris

Paris! After almost two years (too long) away, Chad and I decided that this summer it was time to hop on a train and head back to the world’s best foodie city a five-day vacation. 

And, of course, as usual, I tracked my spending meticulously.

So, what does it cost to go wild in foodie paradise? The answer is less than I thought:

Notes on my spending

This is still very much high season, which means our budget is probably a bit more than it would be if we’d come in the fall or spring. Keep in mind that the above numbers are my portion of the trip and do not include Chad’s spending.

As usual, our accommodations were through Airbnb. Sadly, our place was very dirty and cluttered, so I wouldn’t recommend it. The good news is that it was in one of our favorite neighborhoods (Montmartre), with very easy access to the rest of the city. 

International transportation is the cost of my train ticket from Basel, Switzerland, to Paris.

Local transportation is the cost of metro tickets. Most of the places we visited on this trip were too far to walk to, so I took the metro more than usual. 

As I mentioned in the intro, this trip was about FOOD. Which means dining out was definitely our biggest expense (and we very much expected it to be). That said, less than $300 to eat out as much as we wanted to in Paris? That seems like a steal.

In all, the spending above accounts for dinner at my favorite wine bar, 4+ mornings of croissants, dinner at a cool new cafeteria, two sadly mediocre lunches at restaurants that had been recommended to us, one very bad night of Indian takeout, an incredible food tour, and dessert at Mariage Freres. 

Grocery expenses mostly included fancy jams (some of which we ate while there, some of which we took home).

Finally, it’s worth noting again that the above budgets are my half of things. Chad and I split meals out 50-50, groceries 60-40 (he eats more), and accommodations 50-50. I also spent some time on this trip shopping for new jeans and did not include that purchase above, since it’s likely not relevant to anyone else’s Parisian foodie adventures. 

Want to see more nomad budgets? Check out this extensive piece with links to all my published budgets from the last seven-ish years.

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