Paris with Kids on a Budget: 10 Free and Low-Cost Days Out

Where the savings come from

Paris has some of the best free family days in Europe: royal gardens, city parks with puppet shows and carousels, and big museums where children go free. Every fact below comes from the place’s own page on JuniorTravelClub. Small extras such as carousel or pony rides are paid.

Free to enter

1. Tuileries Garden

The Tuileries Garden costs nothing to get in. Children remember the simple things: pushing a sailboat across the pond with a stick, the carousel and a few minutes on a trampoline.

2. Jardin du Luxembourg

The Jardin du Luxembourg has free sandboxes, a children’s treasure hunt and free toilets, alongside the classic paid rides, ponies, sailboats and puppets.

3. Jardin des Plantes

The Jardin des Plantes is free, so you can build a day around a picnic and add just the one paid venue your children want most, such as the zoo or the children’s gallery in the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution.

4. Champ de Mars

Below the Eiffel Tower, the Champ de Mars has a puppet show, a pony ride and a sandpit within the same park.

5. Trocadéro gardens

The Trocadéro gardens are free and always open, full of small paths, pools and bridges around a large fountain.

6. Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

Buttes-Chaumont puts sandpits, swings, carousels and a live Guignol puppet show into one outing, with toilets, baby changing and food on site.

7. Bois de Boulogne

The Bois de Boulogne gives children a forest to explore without leaving Paris, with playgrounds along the way and a pony ride to look forward to.

8. Palais-Royal

The Palais-Royal is a royal palace from the 1600s that costs nothing to enter, where families can wander at their own pace.

Children go free

9. Louvre

Children get into the Louvre free, and the Studio is a family space inside the museum.

10. Musée d’Orsay

Under-18s visit the Musée d’Orsay free, and a family guided tour gives younger visitors a way in. You cannot come back in on the same ticket, so plan lunch inside.