Looking for things to do in Paris that are a bit different? Maybe you’ve already seen some of the main tourist sights, or perhaps you’d just like to experience Paris differently.
If this is you, you’ll find some great ideas and inspirations to make the most of your trip in our guide below.
Unlike guides that claim to show you non touristy things to do in Paris and then list the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, crowded cafes that do the same overpriced dish or even the Eiffel Tower, our guide does none of that!
We’re lucky in that when we lived in London, for a time we were travelling to Paris on a monthly basis and were considering moving there for a while. We got to experience the touristy stuff (which we still recommend you doing) but in visiting so often, we also got into the real heart of the city.
Spending a lot of time somewhere allows you to start finding your favourite places and the true local things to do in Paris that give a real feel for this incredible place are generally overlooked. Now, we visit at least once a year and the places we’ve shared with you below are still some of our favourite things to do when visiting Paris.
Whether you’ve been to Paris before, or this is your first time, we know that if you even just include one of our suggestions below, it’ll help you fall in love with Paris in a different way. So here are the places we keep coming back to and remind us why we love it.
Map of Things to Do in Paris
We’ve included our Paris map of things to do below to give you an idea of the non-touristy things we’ve included. They relate to our sections below, and some are based on specific places like coffee shops, while others are more focused on areas.
Everything we’ve included is either walkable or easily linked from the Metro, RER and tram lines.
Our map is linked up with Google Maps. If you press the little box icon with an arrow at the top left, it’ll allow you to see the different categories we’ve grouped our pins by to make finding everything easy.
You can also open the locations that you want to visit by hitting ‘view in google maps’ when you’ve selected it and bookmark it to your own Google Maps for putting together an itinerary.
The Best Things to Do in Paris (Actually Non-Touristy)
Below, we’ve included some of our favourite things to do in Paris that step away from the most touristy spots. We always feel that when we think about Paris, it’s the smaller moments we’ve observed and taken in that leave the biggest impressions.
We’ve included things that are more experienced based, but they’re all curated around areas and locations that get a mix of that magical feel that Paris has, and some great neighbourhood finds.
Lose Track of Time at Marché Couvert des Enfants Rouges
We discovered upon Marché Couvert des Enfants Rouges a few visits back. When we visit Paris, we generally just walk. It’s such a great city for that, and it guarantees you’ll stumble upon areas that really hit the right spot for you.
We got drawn into some of the side streets of this market by the vintage photo shop (Fringe Photo Gallery, 37 Rue Charlot) that has thousands of prints each telling a story, and it quickly became one of our favourite things to do in Paris.
When you take a further step back, you notice the market’s age and character. It sprawls the area with very typical art nouveau signage (the market even dates back to the 1600s) but combines it all with market sellers making their mark.
Here you’ll find things like wine, cheese and street food. It’s a great place for people watching, taking in the food smells, the conversations and some of the antiques.
But it’s also great for seeing a juxtaposition that Paris does so well. Combining the old, traditional and romantic architecture with makers who are passionate about bringing modern French food into being – think street food with precision and a twist. We think it’s one of the best food markets in Paris.
Given its size and location, you could easily spend a couple of hours wandering around here between other stops (like Le Marais) you may have on your itinerary. The best way to explore is to enter through Rue de Bretagne and wonder down to around Rue Pastourelle.
Explore Around Rue de la Roquette and Charonne
Tucked just a little bit away from the main Bastille area is Rue de la Roquette that leads up to Charonne, and it’s one of the great local things to do in Paris. It always feels really creative around here.
This area, with all its side streets and adjoining roads (like Rue de Lappe, Rue Keller and Av. Ledru Rollin) are great to spend a few hours wandering around and going into some of the small bookshops, antique stores, wine bars, cafes, bakeries, restaurants and independent art spaces like Galerie Arts Factory.
What we love about this area is just exploring, and there’s always something new to see no matter how many times we visit. We’ve spent so much time in this area and genuinely feel like it’s one of the best neighbourhoods in Paris. So much so that we generally choose to stay around here or nearby whenever we visit.
We’d recommend starting at Bastille and working your way up to Charonne. If you have chance, we’d really recommend going for dinner at Septime La Cave. Likewise, The Friendly Kitchen is superb. The ramen at Mori Café is also some of the best we’ve ever had.
KafKaf is also an excellent coffee shop well worth a detour. There are hundreds of places we could recommend in this area, but the main thing is to just go discover with no aim. But we can guarantee you’ll find something that is up your street.
If you head there on a Saturday, you can’t help but notice so many stylish people hanging out and meeting friends for the weekend. Head there in the evening and whilst you won’t have the shops to browse, the area comes alive with bars and restaurants.
Try the Best Coffee in Paris
Coffee in Paris has come a long way from where it was when we first started visiting years ago. What used to be a very traditional coffee culture with mass produced beans at most cafés in Paris has seen a way paved for independent coffee shops doing beautiful things with unique flavours.
Paris’ speciality coffee scene feels like its curating how both local residents and visitors experience the café culture that is so iconic of the city, and it feels exciting and on point.
We’ve included a number of coffee shops in our overall places to visit Google Map earlier on in this guide, but you don’t have to look far to find the best coffee in Paris.
We most recently discovered upon Typica Speciality Coffee on our most recent trip. The guy who runs this shop knows exactly what he’s doing and treats his brews like art. A notable cup from there was a cold brew of the day that had a floral flavour that we’ve not experienced before, so much so it was almost gin like.
If you’re looking for a strong, short cortado or flat white, head straight to Cortado on Rue Charlot. Their espresso is guaranteed to pick you up. They’re always busy and it’s part of the vibe.
One of our favourite places, and more of one if you want to find some of the relaxing things to do in Paris, is to tuck yourself away at Fringe. This place does beautiful, expertly crafted drinks, has interesting beans on offer and has that kind of drawn out, new Parisian café feel that you’re likely looking to experience.
There are plenty more worth a mention, and well worth exploring, so we’ve labelled these all under speciality coffee shops on our map.
Wander the Smaller Art Galleries
Of course, Paris is known for its incredibly important art galleries. If you’ve never been before, we wouldn’t dream of telling you to skip Le Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay!
However, they aren’t the only art focused places to visit, and there are a lot of small art galleries Paris has to offer which are some of the most exciting you’ll visit.
We started to get a real feel for some of the more offbeat museums Paris had to offer when we started visiting the annual Paris photo event. But really, there are so many smaller (and also even smaller, independent galleries) dotted all over the city.
What we really love about some of the smaller art galleries in Paris is the sense of quietness, or interest, that comes from discovering new works in a setting like Paris. For us, it feels like a great antidote to some of the more crowded museums (hello to waiting in line to see the Mona Lisa).
Some of our favourite spaces are locations like Long Story Short Paris which always has an interesting show on. It’s set right in the heart of Le Marais and so often has a tie in with fashion and art.
We also love Galerie Arts Factory in Charonne, which is part art bookstore, part gallery. Their gallery space is usually connected to some of the stock they have in the shop. It’s an amazing place to pick up limited print run illustrators’ work and interesting finds you won’t see anywhere else.
There’s plenty of other smaller galleries which we’ve included in our main map above, but even if you just spend some time exploring with galleries in mind, you’re likely to find things going on that you just stumble on by chance.
One of the slightly larger galleries (but nowhere near as big as places like Le Louvre) is the Jeu de Paume, which is specifically focused on photography. This is one of our favourite photography galleries in the world and we have seen some truly phenomenal exhibitions here.
The Maison Européenne de la Photographie is always worth exploring too. Their focus on contemporary photography sees some big hitter shows, but on a smaller, more manageable scale. Then you’ve got places like the Henri Cartier Bresson Foundation to explore too.
We feel really passionate about the smaller galleries in Paris. While the larger scale galleries in Paris are some of the most iconic in the world for a reason, this filters down to the calibre of smaller spaces you can experience too. Often with some of the most insightful shows you’ll experience.
Taste What Modern Paris Does Best: Patisserie Reimagined
So, we’re going to start this section by saying that it’s pretty much an ode to our favourite patisserie, because in our opinion, it’s the best patisserie in Paris.
There’s no doubt that while you’re in Paris, you’ll want to try patisserie done properly. While some of the older, more traditional places are doing great things, the modern bakeries Paris has to offer are the ones we think you will want to experience to get a feel for where Paris sits with its attention to detail in food.
It was a few years ago that we first tried our favourite patisserie, Land & Monkeys, which at the time (we think) only had one store on Bd Beaumarchais (and still the one we prefer to visit). Now, they have around nine locations and growing.
Paris has an exceptionally high standard when it comes to patisserie, and what makes Land & Monkeys stand out is it’s play on French classics. For example, they take things like a flan nature, which is a thing of beauty, and add delicate pistachio to the mix, topped with candied nuts.
Their hazelnut and chocolate cake is one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever taste, and the experience of eating it is sensory. Crisp, elegant biscuit on the base, with layers of crème diplomat and sophisticated and complex hazelnut and chocolate flavours.
It isn’t just the finesse to which they produce their goods that has us at a choke hold, it’s also the quality of the ingredients they use. They focus on organic produce as well as working seasonally, and use well sourced, quality flour for their creations.
Even more interestingly, everything they create is just naturally plant based, and you will be amazed by the flavours (and it certainly isn’t obvious in the slightest).
Of course, there are other patisseries in Paris doing interesting, modern things, but this example holds a lot of memories for us. In general, we love how this kind of patisserie shows the level of creativity that lives on so passionately in the city.
Paris has always been key to defining taste, and the new and interesting patisseries in the city keep this legacy moving forward.
Drift Through Le Marais on a Sunny Saturday
We love Le Marais, and spending a sunny Saturday just wandering around is one of the best things to do in Paris.
Not only is Le Marais stunning, with its medieval feel to the streets, it’s also full of creative shops, big and small designer boutiques (some of which you won’t see anywhere else in the city) and a never-ending list of impossibly good coffee shops, restaurants, cafes and bars.
If you are looking for one of the best neighbourhoods Paris has to offer, Le Marais is where you should head. It’s usually where we stay when we visit Paris as we love the feel of the people, the creativity and the beautiful streets.
There’s always something to explore and because there are so many things to do in Le Marais, we’d recommend giving yourself at least half a day to explore. Moreso if you have more than a weekend.
You can just get lost exploring this area, and people watching the impossibly stylish people exploring the designer boutiques and stunning unique shops like Ofr. Editions, or even Merci (we could live in their upstairs homeware section).
We have bought some of our favourite homewares while shopping in Le Marais. One of our favourites is Maison Sato Paris, which is a Japanese Artisan tableware shop. Their prices vary from extremely affordable to much more considered, and every piece if beautiful and unique.
If you catch Le Marais on a sunny day, we would also recommend heading to Place des Vosges to hang out in the park or sit at one of the cafes around the square.
Some of the best coffee shops in Paris are in Le Marais too (read more on this in our coffee section further up). However, we would really recommend Fringe and Cortado as essential must visits.
Follow the Backstreets from Pigalle to Sacré-Cœur
If this is your first time in Paris, you’ll likely visit the Sacré-Cœur, and we’d recommend that you add a little time in to explore off the beaten path Paris between Pigalle and this iconic location.
The hidden gems in Paris are often just off some of the main streets and a short distance from some of the iconic locations. We first discovered around streets like Rue des Martyrs and Rue Houdon when trying to find a particular spot for dinner.
In the end, we weren’t actually able to find that location (it had closed down) but we stayed and explored anyway, and absolutely loved the cocktail bars, cafes, patisseries and the many street corners that feel like they’re straight out of a film.
If you’re looking for some unusual finds, you’ll get it along here. For every small bar, there’s weird and wonderful curiosities shop or ‘antique’ shop with plenty of things on offer that you never knew you needed.
What we love is this area has a completely different feel to some of the other suggestions we’ve made (especially areas in the East). Everything feels more classically Paris around here with just the right mix of seedy that you get a feel for around Pigalle.
Find Colour in Unexpected Places: Street Art Across Paris
We’ve always been drawn to some of the incredible street art you’ll see in Paris. If you’re looking for unique things to do in Paris, and love original art, then the city is awash with colour.
You will generally see a lot of interesting pieces of street art anywhere you head to in the East, and this can range from sprayed work through to collages. They’re always really interesting and some of the really cool pieces integrate incredibly well into the surroundings.
Paris street art feels pretty iconic to us because of the contrast between the vivid colours often used, or the different styles of art mixed with the older stone. They also pretty much always have a highly creative feel and sense of community, often telling stories of the area you’re in.
If you want to find some of the best street art and enjoy one of the great alternative things to do in Paris, we’d recommend heading to places like Oberkampf, Belleville and around the 13th arrondissement. There are also some really interesting pieces around Rosa Parks too.
We’ve included some of our favourite places to explore on our main map, but you’ll absolutely love the creativity for something different to add to your Paris itinerary.
Drink Well: Natural Wines and Neighbourhood Bars
There is such a great café and bar culture in Paris, and there are many incredibly iconic places to get a drink when you visit the city. Having spent a lot of time exploring beyond the touristy places, we’ve found that some of the best places to drink in Paris are just around the corner from them.
Of course, Paris, and France in general, is well known for its incredible wine scene, and in particular reds. So, it isn’t hard to get a good glass and watch the world go by.
However, in recent years, there has been an incredible growth of natural wine on offer in Paris from smaller cafes and specific bars offering incredible artisanal products from smaller suppliers throughout the country (and further afield).
Natural wine presents a really interesting option in that it can be more experimental, made with minimal intervention and little or no added sulphites compared to traditional wines. What we love about natural wine is it opens up whole different flavour profiles that are often toned down in more classical wines.
The other thing that a lot of the more modern wine bars Paris has to offer get right is the ambience. Many of these smaller places also offer small plates or interesting food options. Some just offer an incredible vibe of people engrossed in conversation.
What they all do really well is give a feeling like your evening is never going to end (something that Paris does very well). There’s a sort of sense of commitment to the location once you sit down with time to really taste and savour your choice of glass.
Some of our favourite locations are places like Septime La Cave just up from Bastille, which serves food and incredibly paired wine. Aux Deux Amis, La Buvette and Le Verre Volé.
We’ve also included a number of other locations we love for natural wine and interesting wine selections in Paris in our map above.
Spend Time Along Canal Saint-Martin and Bassin de la Villette
If you plan on visiting Paris in the summer, there is no better place to spend some time taking in the atmosphere along Bassin de la Villette and Canal Saint-Martin.
In fact, if you want to experience non touristy Paris at it’s finest, we’d say that spending a sunny summers evening around here is a must. Along the canal from where the basin meets Rue de Crimée down to 20 Rue Léon Jouhaux are never ending stretches of cool breweries, bars, places to eat, street art and pop-up exhibitions.
We’re lucky in that a friend who lives in Paris took us to explore along the canal one day, showing us some of the best non touristy spots where you’re experiencing Paris life like a local.
We love Paname Brewing Company, which is at the top of the basin near Riquet Metro Station. Their outdoor seating with a craft beer is about the most perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon people watching.
Likewise, a little further down is Bassin de la Villette, which is a public swimming pool on the side of the basin open in summer (around June to September) and is always busy during these times.
If you love wine and small plates, you’ll also want to stop in at Péniche La Bougeotte, which is well known for its small but excellent wine list. Their food is simply exceptional and well worth the journey for the interesting, intimate setting it offers.
It’s well worth stopping by at Point Éphémère too, which is a kind of art space, concert hall and music venue. There has always been something interesting going on there when we’ve visited, and it always has a great feel.
The basin and canal offer a really different experience of Paris to the one you will often get in guidebooks. It’s all about enjoyment along here, and in summer, it’s one of the best places you could spend your time.
Planning Your Trip to Paris: Adding Our Suggestions to Balance Your Bucket List
Obviously, this guide isn’t a full and complete city guide like many of our others, this guide to Paris is to help you find the actually non touristy things to do to balance out your trip.
So our planning sections below are more focused on helping you experience a more authentic Paris alongside the classic sights you’ll of course want to see too.
Where to Stay in Paris for the Best Experience
If you’re planning to make the most of some of the less touristy suggestions for Paris we’ve made above, then staying in the right location can help you use your time wisely while in the city.
We generally prefer to stay in areas like Oberkampf, Republique, Le Marais, Bastille or anywhere up to and around Voltaire or Charonne Metro Stations. In our opinion, these are some of the best areas to stay in Paris.
Each of these areas has a slightly different feel, and depending on exactly where you stay will determine how quiet or not it is. However, each of these areas is well positioned for exploring a lot of the places above.
They’re also all pretty local feeling too, and all have a range of different places to stay ranging from budget to high end. We pretty much always use Booking.com to make hotel reservations as we like the map search function.
We’d also recommend reading reviews before booking anywhere, as this can give a lot away! Some locations we’ve stayed in and loved over the years are Le Petit Oberkampf Hotel & Spa, Les Jardins Du Marais, Renaissance Paris Republique Hotel & Spa and New Hotel Le Voltaire.
Each one of these is well located in terms of Metro options, and ae very walkable locations too. This means you could often start with some of the less touristy ideas we’ve given above before jumping on the metro to go see some of the other things that are likely on your list.
If you’re also looking for where to stay in Paris on more of a budget, we’ve stayed at the UCPA Sport Station Hostel once and actually found the double, private room with bathroom really comfortable. It’s well connected with public transport on the RER and in a great position for exploring the canal.
How to Get the Best of Both
We think the best way to experience some of the non-touristy things to do in Paris is to look at the other locations you want to visit and compare their locations to some of the areas we’ve listed on our map.
You can very easily add in a diversion or two on your way to one of the big hitter locations that allows you to get the best of both worlds.
If this is your first time visiting, you may want to focus more on a couple of key areas that you can easily make work with other plans, but if this is not your first time, then there’s plenty of scope to be a bit more experimental with where you visit.
Getting Around Paris
We’ve always found that the best way to get around Paris is to use public transport and to walk. The great thing about Paris is that many of the areas you’ll want to visit are pretty close together, so it makes getting around easy.
The Metro is one of the best ways to get around, and it gives a really good way to fit in the non touristy things to do in Paris that we’ve suggested above with the big hitters. Likewise, the RER and tram lines connect some other areas that are a little bit further out, but well worth visiting.
We think the Metro is just about as safe as any other underground transport system in another city, but just keep your wits about you. There are pickpockets around just like any other city.
When you arrive in Paris, you’ll need to get a Navigo Pass, which you pay for at a ticket machine the first time and then you pay for a set number of journeys. You can then top this up at any machines in the stations before you run out of fare on your car.
You can also walk pretty easily. Sometimes, if your locations are relatively close together, it may actually be easier to walk, but that’s of course based on your energy levels.
Why Trust Our Non-Touristy Paris Travel Guide?
It’s really important to us that every guide we publish on the site is based on real experiences. We love travel, and we love experiencing places first hand.
We’re passionate about helping you to have the best experiences in the places we write guides on, and we try to include as much detail as is possible to help that happen.
It simply makes no sense for us to make recommendations to you just for the sake of it. As we said at the start of this article, we’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Paris over the years and this has allowed us to get to the heart of non-touristy Paris.
We can’t think of anything better than you visiting one of the places we’ve recommended, having a really unique experience and taking away a slightly different feel about a place that you wouldn’t have otherwise. For us, that’s the exact reason we do this.
Your trust is really important to us, and it’s the basis of everything we do here.
Enjoy Exploring Paris Differently
Every single time we visit Paris, we’re still surprised with this gorgeous city. Once we’d got through the heart of the main touristy things, exploring what else the city had to offer was where it really came alive for us.
That must mean something, when you’ve seen everything there is ‘to do’ and keep finding new things that have you coming back time and time again. This city just has a hold.
What we love is that exploring a few of the slightly less obvious things gives you a real sense of the city. So many people idolise Paris and want to feel what it has to offer but it’s easy to miss what makes it have that feel you’re looking for if your days are filled with just the top ten stops.
But real life is all around in Paris. It’s in the small restaurants offering exquisite but modern plates, it’s in the small fashion designers shop windows, it’s in the speciality coffee shops that dot around vibrant areas. It’s in the people who make the city what it is, going about their everyday.
Even if you only get to do one or two things from the suggestions we’ve made above, we’re confident that you’ll see a glimmer of Paris that will stay with you.
We also have plenty of other city guides on our destinations page. If you’re visiting Paris, you may also enjoy our guides to places like Split, Dubrovnik and Bergen.
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