Paris, France

Central Paris rewards walking: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Notre-Dame's rebuilt cathedral all sit within a few metro stops of each other along the Seine, and the city's numbered arrondissements spiral outward in a way that makes a paper map genuinely usable with kids. The Metro itself is simple enough that most families manage it without a data plan.

The Louvre alone holds enough art for a week; we route most family visits to a highlights-only itinerary — the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, the Egyptian wing — booked as a timed-entry ticket rather than attempting the full collection in one exhausted afternoon. The Musée d'Orsay's Impressionist collection is a manageable half-day alternative for a second museum visit.

One quirk worth planning around: many smaller restaurants, bakeries, and shops close for some or all of August, when Parisians take their own summer holiday. April through June and September through October both bring milder weather, fuller storefronts, and noticeably shorter lines at the major sights.

Paris rewards choosing a neighborhood rather than trying to cover the whole city — the Marais for historic streets and boutiques, Saint-Germain for cafés and the Luxembourg Gardens, Montmartre for the hilltop views and a village feel unusual for a capital city. The Metro network is dense enough that most sights are a short walk from a station, and museum passes covering the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay and others are worth pricing out for a multi-day stay to skip ticket lines.

Four to five nights is a comfortable first visit, enough to cover the major sights and settle into at least one neighborhood beyond tourist pace. It suits nearly any traveler profile — the city's range of museums, food and architecture gives it unusually broad appeal for a single European capital.

Getting there: About 7h to 7h 30m nonstop from most East Coast gateways. We compare that routing against the alternatives before booking, and help plan the trip's dates around April to June, or September to October.

Paris's street plan as it exists today is largely the work of one man: Baron Haussmann, commissioned by Napoleon III in the 1850s to demolish the medieval city's cramped, disease-prone quarters and replace them with the wide boulevards, uniform cream-stone facades and wrought-iron balconies still recognizable as 'Paris' worldwide. That renovation also created the modern café terrace culture — wider sidewalks meant room for outdoor seating, and the café became the city's default social institution rather than a novelty. French dining etiquette still carries real structure: bread is eaten with the meal, not before it as a snack, and asking for a well-done steak or ketchup with a proper dish can draw a raised eyebrow from an old-school waiter. The city's arrondissements spiral outward from the Louvre in a clockwise pattern, a numbering system dating to 1860, and locals identify neighborhoods by number as much as by name. Beyond the Eiffel Tower and Louvre, the covered passages — 19th-century glass-roofed shopping arcades like Passage des Panoramas — are one of the city's least-visited genuine originals, largely unchanged since gaslight days and a useful escape from both weather and crowds.