Paris has a lot to offer and that does not only apply to hotels of course. There is certainly an enormously wide range of Paris hotels available to choose from and its best to take your time in order to do some into depth research. Apart from hotels there is also hostels, bed and breakfast and short terms holiday apartments which have become increasingly popular amongst holidaymakers in recent years. I think typical for big and famous cities there is a myth about Paris and how expensive accommodation is. Paris hotels don’t have to be expensive it is much down to the patience of the traveller and the right timing. Those of you with a low budget will not have to worry as long as they are clever enough not to arrive on the same day as they start looking for a free room in one of the cheap hotels in Paris. Hostels are just as often fully booked as budget hotels especially during spring time and towards the end of the summer.

Hostels Paris

Not much has changed in terms of budget accommodation since the first time I stayed in a hostel in Paris in 1996. Hostels are still as packed especially over the weekends. If you are a backpacker and arrive on a Saturday afternoon in Paris without a hostel reservation it might impossible to find a free bed in the city centre. If you arrive on any of the railway stations of Paris such as Gare de Lyon or Gare du Nord the most efficient way to still find a bed for the same day is to straight to one of the Tourism Offices at the train station. Each major railway station in Paris has one. At the Tourism Office (L’office de Tourism) you will find more or minder friendly personal helping you to phone up a list of hostels that still might have accommodation available. If you are lucky and depending on how polite you are the Tourism Office personal will help you phoning those hostels up and find quickly a free bed for you speaking in fluent French. If you are less lucky and you have to deal with a stress out consultant you will have to make these phone calls by yourself. I remember this one time I arrived in Paris on Saturday afternoon and phoned up a hostel on the outskirts of Paris at the last stop of Metro line 3. They asked me to arrive within 20 minutes or else they would be able to reserve me the free room. How crazy is that, I was at the Gare de Lyon and didn’t even know the way.