527 - Join Us in France Travel Podcast

Table of Contents for this Episode

Discussed in this Episode

Paris Metro
Île-de-France region
Disneyland Paris
Versailles
Fontainebleau
Notre Dame Cathedral
Château de Vincennes
Chartres Cathedral
Musée de Cluny
Musée Grévin
Château de Vincennes
Cité Internationale de la Langue Française
Collection Pinault
La Rochelle
Angers
Rue de Rivoli
Orly Airport
Charles de Gaulle Airport
RATP
Navigo Card
Navigo Easy Card
Navigo Jour (Day Pass)
Navigo Liberté Plus
Paris Visite Pass
Apple Wallet
Bonjour RATP app
IDF Mobilités app
Google Maps
Apple Maps
CityMapper
The Fork (La Fourchette)
SNCF Connect app
Uber
G7 Taxi app
Bolt
Free Mobile
Orange
Bouygues
SFR
Société Générale
TGV
TER trains
OuiGo
inOui
Orly Val
French Ministry of Transport
Paris public transportation authority
Secrets of Paris newsletter
Verizon
AT&T
T-Mobile
WhatsApp
Facebook Messenger
Instagram
Parcours Prévention Santé
National Center of Monuments
French government
Michelin-starred restaurants
Open-air markets in France.

Introduction

[00:00:00] Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 527, cinq cent vingt-sept.

Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.

Today on the podcast

[00:00:31] Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with Mike August about exciting changes which are coming to France in 2025.

You don’t want to be caught off guard, so join me and Mike August as we unpack what visitors need to know, including major updates to Paris metro travels which started on January 1st. From cashless systems to smoother commutes, this episode will ensure you’re prepared to navigate Paris like a pro.

Podcast Supporters

[00:01:01] Annie: This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and services, including my itinerary consult service, my GPS self-guided tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app, or take a day trip with me around the southwest of France in my electric car.

You can browse all of that on my boutique, joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And Patreon supporters get new episodes as soon as they are ready and ad-free.

If that sounds good to you, be like them, follow the link in the show notes.

No Magazine Segment

[00:01:32] Annie: There will not be a magazine part of the podcast today because this recording ran long.

So, Happy New Year everyone! It’s a fresh start, but let’s be real, some things never change, like my need for your support to keep this podcast rolling. If you love learning about France and enjoy my ramblings, why not become a patron? Join me on Patreon, it’s like buying me a croissant, but with fewer calories, and heaven knows, I don’t need any more calories.

To join this wonderful community of Francophiles, go to patreon.com/JoinUs. That’s P A T R E O N, JoinUs, no spaces or dashes. And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/ElysArt. E L Y S A R T. And thank you very much.

Conversation with Mike August BeginsAnnie and Mike

[00:02:29] Annie: Bonjour, Mike August, and welcome back to Join Us in France.

[00:02:33] Mike: Bonjour Annie, thank you for having me.

[00:02:35] Annie: Oh, lovely to see you, this time we’re recording seeing each other. Last time it was so long ago, I didn’t use any video. Nobody did.

[00:02:42] Mike: Yes, it’s been quite a while. And is right around the time of another interesting election.

[00:02:48] Annie: Oh, well, that’s what happens. That’s what happens. Okay.

Mike’s Recent Trip to France

[00:02:51] Annie: So you took a trip to France recently and it had been a while for you as well, right?

[00:02:56] Mike: My husband and I came to France at the end of September. I ended up being there for about two weeks. The previous trip had been two years prior and then I think four years before that. So I like to have a frequency of about every 18 months, so it had slowed down a little bit.

[00:03:12] Annie: Right. Right. And you didn’t just go to Paris this time, right?

[00:03:17] Mike: No, we were in Paris to run a 10 mile race between the Eiffel Tower and Versailles. But I also wanted to visit the town that I lived in when I was a university student and visiting some friends near La Rochelle, so spend a little bit of time out in the countryside.

Planning a Trip to France

[00:03:32] Annie: Wonderful. So today we’re going to talk about the logistics of planning a trip to France, what has changed in the last few years since you were here, and also some big changes for the transportation system, the public transportation system in Paris specifically.

So why don’t you tell us about some of the things that changed overall in France in the time that you hadn’t been here?

[00:03:58] Mike: So, when I was talking to you about my trip, I mentioned a few things that were notable and particularly this stemmed from, you know, in the past few years, occasionally during the magazine segment of the podcast, you’ll talk about this little thing, that little thing, and thought it might be useful to have everything aggregated, because having been a listener for nearly 10 years, if someone’s going back and listening to the back catalog, they’re going to hear things about credit cards that have completely changed. They’re going to hear things about cell phone use that have completely changed.

And what prompted my bringing this up to you is that the fare system for Paris Metro and all public transit in Paris is completely changing. So it might be helpful for someone joining the podcast for the first time, or someone who’s been listening for a long time, but coming back to France that they might want to pick up on some of these things that have changed, so…

[00:04:50] Annie: Absolutely, yes. It’s very, very helpful because it does change and people do talk to me about things I said, you know, 10 years ago. I’m like, Well, that has moved, I mean, okay, if we’re talking about a chateau, the Chateau de Chambord, the history has not changed, but if we’re talking about transportation and hotels and things, yeah, things have changed.

Changes in Payment Methods in France

[00:05:08] Annie: All right, so what’s the first thing that you noticed that you would like to bring up?

[00:05:12] Mike: So the first thing is about how you spend your money in France. You know, obviously, people plan their trips, they have everything laid out, but then when they get to France, they’re going to have to pay for a lot of these things. And I think that the thing that has changed significantly, certainly since I was living there eight years ago, is the balance of how you’re using cash, how you’re using payment cards, and mobile payments.

And so one of the most significant things that I think has happened in France, and I think has happened generally since the pandemic around the world, is that tap-to-pay has become much more prevalent.

And when I lived there previously, or was a visitor to France, I was using our American swipe credit cards, which were uncommon in France and forced the merchants to have to print up a little payment slip that people would have to sign. It sort of really signaled you as being an outsider, as an inconvenience for everyone.

And with the advent of chip cards, that has reduced some of it, but then now pretty much everywhere I went I could just use tap-to-payment whether that was in a restaurant at a merchant. Or if I was using even the public toilets that you used to have to give a euro for, I could just tap my phone to pay there. And so it just made things so much simpler. It removed one of those points of friction that you would often have with a merchant that was uncomfortable.

[00:06:33] Annie: And you even tap-to-pay if you want to buy a candle in a church. There’s a beggar in Paris who takes credit cards. He’s a guy that I’ve seen around for years and he has, every year he changes dog,

[00:06:45] Mike: hmm.

[00:06:46] Annie: …which I don’t like, but he does it because he wants a young looking dog, right?

It works better. And now he takes credit cards.

[00:06:53] Mike: Yep. Yeah, and so, with this prevalence of tap-to-pay, you can use your credit card, and most of the credit cards have the tap implemented within thechip, so you can just do that, but you can also do that through your phone. So whichever way is the best way to do that. I’d recommend that if people don’t already have their cards on their phone, like through Apple Pay or Google Pay, Android Pay, that it’s a good safe way to do things because it actually generates a brand new number for the card that’s being used.

And so if you’re to lose your phone, you still have your cards at the hotel as a backup, or carry one card with you in addition to your mobile payment, and then have your other cards back at the hotel so that you have things in two separate places.

And if you lose one, you don’t lose everything.

[00:07:41] Annie: Exactly, amen, absolutely. I mean, I use Apple Pay. And occasionally, I leave my house or apartment without my phone. And you can still use Apple Pay just with your watch if you have it set up on your Apple Watch correctly.

So, just really, take the few minutes it’s going to take to set it up and it works pretty much the same with Google Pay. Please do that, it will save you a lot of trouble.

[00:08:05] Mike: And I think one of the restrictions with some of the tap-to-pay in the past was that France had very specific restrictions on how much you could spend in a tap transaction. And those seem to have been lifted because I could pay, yeah, a large payment at a restaurant, no problem at all. So there shouldn’t be any restrictions there.

Cash Is Almost Not Needed

[00:08:23] Mike: And then the other piece of the puzzle is about cash, and I know that that’s something that’s often been debated on the forums on Facebook, or people who’ve come and talked on the podcast previously. And cash is almost not needed at all. If you wanted to get 40 or 60 euros from an ATM after arriving, either at the airport or at an ATM near your hotel, sure.

But I think that I probably didn’t spend more than a few euros in cash during the entire time that I was in France for two weeks. So that’s one thing that has really significantly changed.

[00:08:59] Annie: Absolutely, even if you want to buy things at an open air market, for example, they take credit cards for the most part. It’s easier for them and it’s very unusual to have a place that doesn’t take credit cards anymore. So, yeah, be prepared like that.

Using American Credit Cards at Tolls and Gas Stations

[00:09:15] Mike: And then the final thing to bring up is that there have often been issues over the years, particularly before American Cards had payment chips, is people would have issues at toll booths on the autoroute, they would have issues at gas stations. And I was able to use my US cards fine on the toll roads. And then at a gas station, I did have an issue, but I pulled out every single card that I had, including my French bank account because I still have a French bank account. I pulled out my Société Générale card, and it didn’t work for tap.

Ultimately, I ended up taking an American card and inserting it into the chip reader, and then it worked. So I think that there is an issue with the tap-to-pay on that specific device. But ultimately, inserting the card worked fine. So I think that the issues that people have had in the past, are largely gone.

[00:10:02] Annie: It’s pretty much gone. And if you’re very worried about it, this is one case where you could have if you have some coins. You know, a coin, you need a euro coin to unlock the carts in a lot of places where you go shopping. But that’s the only coin that you must have, is a euro coin for shopping. And you get it back by the way.

But sometimes if you’re not sure your credit card is going to work, if you have some cash, you can usually insert a 10 or a 20 and it will give you some change back. But credit cards work on these toll roads almost all of the time.And now we’re going to toll roads without payments where I’m not sure how it’s going to work, but as soon as they implement that a little more, I will go try one and see what happens. Because I have one of these little boxes that just pays by itself. I’ll hide it and see how I have to pay at the end, because I’m going to have to figure out how to pay.

[00:10:57] Mike: Yep. So that’s what I had on the payments front.

eSims and Mobile Phone Tips for Travelers

[00:10:59] Mike: I think maybe the next thing we could discuss is mobile phones, because that ends up being a very important part of people’s experience in navigating their time in France. You had asked me what some of the updated tips would be, and about using French eSIMs or whether visitors should use their home plans.

So I did a little bit of research. When I was traveling in France, I’ve kept my Bouygues French phone number from when I lived there previously. It’s an inexpensive thing, so I haven’t had the experience of purchasing an eSIM myself.

But if you are looking at getting an eSIM when traveling to France, what you do is, in your phone settings, in the cellular settings, you can go and search for adding a plan. And you can do this through the four main operators in France or you could do it through an international provider that offers service in France.

But if you’re largely going to be traveling in France, I’d recommend using one of the French providers because you’ll be able to get the highest speeds.

If you’re using an international plan you may be throttled to a slower speed.

[00:12:02] Annie: Right, right. So Orange would be a good one. Free is another one, and we say frr, frr, frr, and it’s not free, you have to pay for it, but it’s the name of the company, F. R. E. E.You have Bouygues, like you mentioned, and who else, S. F. R., S. F. R., yeah.

[00:12:18] Mike: Right. Right. So I looked at all of them and almost all of their eSIM options for travelers, run from 15 to 50 euros for a period of 15 to 30 days, giving you different amounts of data. Almost all of them let you roam into other countries, so if you were pairing France with a trip to Germany or the UK, for example, you would be able to continue using your data while traveling to those other countries.

There’s some variability, like which plan you choose may give you 5G speeds, they may give you 4G speeds, which aren’t going to be optimal, because some places don’t have quite as good throughput for the lower, for the old networks. So there’s a little bit of variety there, but basically you can go to the Bouigues, SFR, Orange or Free websites looking for their eSIM packages for tourists. And for all of them except for Free, you can just sign up online, they’ll give you a QR code, and then in your phone’s cellular settings, you just flash that QR code, it will load it into your phone, and then when you arrive in France, it will activate the eSIM immediately. And then you can just begin using all that data, you can make calls as if you were at home without incurring the fees for your home phone plan as long as you’ve turned off the little toggle for your home phone plan.

[00:13:41] Annie: Right, and so it will ring, so if somebody calls your US number, it will still ring, right? You still have both.

[00:13:51] Mike: You could do that, but your home plan from your home country may charge you a daily rate for having that access, so that’s the tricky thing.

[00:13:59] Annie: Aha, aha, okay, so if you’re traveling, tell your friends and family to contact you through WhatsApp, which is what Europeans do all the time, because that’s totally free, it goes through WiFi anywhere you are. And if you get used to talking to your friends and family through WhatsApp, they can always reach you no matter where you are in the world. All they need to do is know that new number, or if I don’t know if you use Facebook, Facebook messaging, or, Instagram messaging, or yeah.

[00:14:27] Mike: The one caveat I would have about getting an eSIM through a French operator is that Free has very generous plan of 350 gigabytes for a month, for only 20 euros, which sounds amazing. But Free requires you to go into a store to subscribe to that plan. So you would have to arrive in France, get to your hotel, figure out where there’s a Free store, go in and it adds an extra step that’s very inconvenient. For the other French operators, they let you just purchase a subscription online, you get that QR code by email, you flash it from your phone settings and you’re ready to go once you arrive in France.

[00:15:03] Annie: That would be better, I think, because going to a Free mobile store, and there’s going to be a line, because there’s always a line in those stores, so yeah, don’t do that.

[00:15:11] Mike: The other option is that you could just travel in France using your home internet plan through your mobile phone. And that’s often what we’ve done in the past. There’s a US bias here because I’m from the US. I’m not sure, you know, what the experience is with other countries, but for example, I’m on Verizon in the US and for many of their plans, you just get charged $10 a day for your usage, and you get a nice amount of usage for every single day.

I just moved to a new plan with them and I get 10 gigabytes a month now outside of the US, which you have to be very careful with how much internet you’re using, but that works out okay.

AT&T has a plan that’s a little bit more expensive, T-Mobile has a plan that’s less expensive but also has less data, so it’s one of those things of just researching in advance.

I see the expense of internet of, even if it’s $10 a day from your home provider to roam in Europe, that’s a minimal, minimal expense for when you’re traveling that goes towards something that’s incredibly valuable for you, because you need access to information, to maps, all these different things when you’re traveling around, and 10 dollars, 10 euros, whatever it might be per day is, you know, a small price to pay for convenience.

[00:16:26] Annie: I totally agree. You should not travel without data anymore. Like, done. Like, we’re done with this. Everybody expects you to have access, you know. You’ll need to book tickets. You’ll need to download, perhaps, information. Yeah, you need data.

Use Offline Maps to Conserve Data

[00:16:43] Mike: Yeah, so if you’re on your home plan and you’re trying to conserve your data, you just make sure that you use your WiFi in your hotel or your Airbnb, maybe at a public hotspot in order to do some of those larger downloads. Or because you’re going to be using mapping a lot on your mobile device, you can do offline maps on both Google Maps and Apple Maps, where you go into the settings where your little picture is in Apple Maps or in Google Maps, and there will be an option for offline maps, and you can define an area, so you could, for example, search for Paris, choose the greater Paris area, and will download all the streets, all the different buildings, monuments onto your phone so that you’re not pulling that information from your cell phone data plan. So that’s one way to help try to conserve things, and that’s really where you’re going to be using a lot of data.

Phone Security

[00:17:32] Annie: Yeah. And also for people are worried about security, you know, phone security, which is always a good thing to worry about, as long as you’re browsing to an HTTPS website, they can’t spoof your data. So it’s safe, like if you need to browse, I mean, I try to avoid browsing to my bank and things like that when I’m on a trip, but if you must, it’s HTTPS.

You know, the odds are infinitesimal that anybody’s going to spoof your data.

[00:18:03] Mike: So that’s what I have on phone use, do you have any other things that maybe some of your previous guests have come across or… ?

[00:18:08] Annie: No, I think that was pretty thorough, it’s just that you need it, just don’t try to go cheap. I’ve had people say, Oh, but I’ve traveled to France plenty, just use a map. No, not anymore.

[00:18:20] Mike: Right, and even something that I’ll discuss a little bit later is, plans change, and things unexpectedly happen, and even if you may be using a paper map, you may get to a destination and find that some of the things on the ground are different, and you need to pivot. And so having that phone access is invaluable.

[00:18:39] Annie: Definitely, yeah.

Must-Have Mobile Apps

[00:18:40] Mike: Right, staying on the phone theme, you and I had also discussed about mobile apps that travelers should have on their phones, and this is for a variety of different things, so be it for transit, travel, mapping, reservations, and so forth. So I thought that we could just discuss things that we found helpful and that maybe some of your previous guests have brought up.

So as I just mentioned before, Google Maps and Apple Maps. People may have their preferences for one or the other. Apple Maps has gotten a lot better over the years. It has a lot more transit stuff in it, but I still fall back to Google Maps for most things.

[00:19:12] Annie: It’s whatever you’re used to. Like, if you prefer one over the other, use whatever you prefer. In Paris, I like CityMapper, you know, it just depends on your habits.

[00:19:22] Mike: And I think that the one that you’re most familiar with is probably going to be the most valuable, because being in a different location and having to use something that’s unfamiliar is going to be another stumbling block for you. So, as you said, what is easiest for you?

Another couple of apps that you can actually choose one or the other. For Paris Transit, there’s the Bonjour RATP, R A T P, or the IDF Mobilité app. You can choose one or the other. They, I think, largely work the same and that’s where your virtual Navigo card can be stored. So that’s something that you should have on your phone, and it also will help for some of the mapping within the transit network in Paris, because they can provide some different optimized routings for you.

[00:20:07] Annie: Yeah, this is personal preference, you know, I’ve used them both, they’re fine.

A couple days ago, I was talking to someone at the RATP and I said, Oh, so we should use the Bonjour RATP app instead of IDF Mobilité? And she’s like, well, I work for the RATP, so obviously I’m going to tell you to use the RATP app.

I was like, yeah, you’re right. I should have thought of that. But yeah, you know, it’s whatever you’re happy with. Try them both. I don’t know.

Apps for Traveling Outside of Paris

[00:20:32] Mike: Right.And then going outside of Paris, another important app to have for travel would be the SNCF Connect app. And that’s the one that has all the national trains, so things outside of the city networks, to get you in between cities.

And so you can search train fares on there, but you can also book and then use that when your ticket is being validated on the train.

[00:20:53] Annie: So, you know, I used to go through, buy everything in advance on my computer, print up the printout with the barcode for them to scan. You don’t need any of that anymore. Everything can just be done on your phone. They make it easy to exchange if you need to, so… It’s actually much easier if you just buy your train tickets from the app directly. Then it’s on the app, you have the QR code on the app. You will get notifications if there’s any delays or anything happening. You will get links to cancel, change, blah, blah, blah. It’s all on the app. So just use the app instead of trying to navigate, buying everything on the computer and then transferring it to the app, etc.

Getting Around by Taxi

[00:21:32] Mike: Another one for getting around and some of our discussion today is probably a little bit more Paris based, just because so many more people do make it to Paris on their trip, is getting around Paris, sometimes public transit isn’t the best option for you and you might want to take a taxi on Uber.

So Uber is good for crosstown trips when public transit isn’t feasible. So having that, if you already use that in your home country, is easy to have. And then for taxi rides, I’d recommend the G7 taxi app. And for instance TG7, but G7 Taxi is the name of the app. And this is a good one, particularly if you want to go to the airport, because taxis can take special lanes through the city and getting out to the airport and will make it much faster.

They’re terrific for booking ahead, so if I’m leaving for the airport at 5:45 the following morning, I can go into the app, pre-schedule my taxi, they show up early, let you know that they’re there, and it’s seamless. It’s very, very easy to use.

[00:22:30] Annie: Yeah, an excellent app. G7 is an excellent app. And you could also use Uber, but like you said, they can’t use the bus lanes. And for the airport, I avoid Uber because there’s too many fights between taxis and Uber. And I just like, Uber for me is to go cross town, it’s not. Or Bolt, there’s a lot of Bolts as well in Paris and in France in general. So you could use that app as well.

Apps for Restaurant Reservations

[00:22:57] Mike: And I know that another app that you often recommend on the podcast is The Fork, or Fourchette in French. And that’s a spinoff of TripAdvisor, it’s sort of one of their sub-brands. And they manage restaurant reservations for various restaurants in France. So I don’t use it all that often, but it sounds like it’s something that you use more frequently?

[00:23:18] Annie: I use it because it makes my life easy, but if I know exactly where I want to go, I’m going to call and I’m going to find the phone number, call them, reserve.

But if I don’t know exactly where I want to go, if I’m just looking, I will often look on Google for the reviews, just to see, because I don’t know these places anymore. I mean, it’s just that because I’m French, I don’t have, you know… And if I’m not there to look at it, I don’t have any idea.

[00:23:42] Mike: So I just look on Google for a few reviews and then if I want to book, I might go do it on The Fork or sometimes you can book directly from Google as well. Right, that’s something that I experienced a lot during this visit was searching for a restaurant on Google, and then they already had the button there to say Reserve, and it made it very, very

[00:24:00] Annie: Yeah,yeah. And what’s good about these is that you can also cancel your reservation very easily if you need to. Which, you know, is nice to do. Don’t make a booking that you don’t show up at.

Translation Apps

[00:24:11] Mike: Right. Depending on visitor’s language abilities, a translation app such as Google Translate would be quite invaluable. It’s very good at, you can take pictures of things and then it can translate the signs for you. Looking at menus, that can be helpful sometimes for decoding various things.

And some people have their preferred translation apps where they can just pass the phone back and forth and have a conversation with someone. I haven’t used that for France, but I’m sure that, you know, that is something that wouldn’t be unheard of for certain tourist destinations.

[00:24:41] Annie: You know, I experienced this when I go to Spain because I can’t really speak Spanish as well as I would like to yet. But I’ve never gone to quite the app thing. I just try it, you know, I just try to tell them what I want to tell them, like.

[00:24:55] Mike: I think with certain language pairings, that works better. Like, I was traveling in Japan several years ago, and they just handed the phone back and forth, and he would speak into it, and we would speak into it, and it would provide, like, a little transcript back and forth, so.

[00:25:08] Annie: Yeah, yeah. With Japanese, I can see that. Yes. I would be in the same situation.

[00:25:12] Mike:(Mid-roll Ad spot)

Annie’s VoiceMap App Tours

[00:25:12] Mike: Giving a plug for you, the VoiceMap app with Annie’s tours would be something to have on your phone.

Yep, so.

[00:25:20] Annie: They work well but they work best if you download the tours that you want before you get there, or even before you get to your hotel, because hotels sometimes have wimpy WiFi, depending on the hotel, really. So if you know which ones you want to do, just download them before you get there.

Mobile Apps for Attractions

[00:25:36] Mike: And then the final mobile apps that would be useful for visitors would be, certain tourist attractions have time ticketing available only through their apps. So, looking ahead, having an idea of what you might want to visit and seeing if there are any special apps that you should download. So just this week was the announcement of the app for booking Notre Dame tickets now that Notre Dame is reopening.

So, you have to go through the app, choose everything through there, make your reservation, and that’s going to be very much site specific as to where you want to go, but something that you should also consider having on your phone.

[00:26:10] Annie: Yeah. So every major site will try to get you to download an app. They really like that. But I can’t, I don’t want to have a million apps on my phone. But for Notre Dame, anymore, you don’t have a choice. The app is called Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris in French. It’s a white and blue app. It exists on both Android and iPhone. I downloaded it yesterday, which was the first day that it was available. We’re recording this in December. All tickets for December are gone already, but I knew that. Not for all of December, it’s for the first half of December, they’re gone. After the 15th, maybe people will be able to book a few spots, but you do need the app or you won’t get in.

[00:26:51] Mike: I subscribed to the newsletter from this American expat who lives in Paris. She has a newsletter called Secrets of Paris. She’s lived in Paris for nearly 30 years and she does really good recap of, like, what’s going on in Paris this month, here are the things that are changing, here are the things to see and do. She does meetups for expats who live in Paris.

Notre Dame Booking Tips

[00:27:10] Mike: One of the things that she said about the Notre Dame, Bookings is that they’re only allowing reservations a few days in advance, they will always be free, no group tours are going to be permitted for the first six months. So there’s no way that a tour operator can get you tickets. You know, particularly those listening in early 2025, don’t try to fall for any schemes of people promising you special tours of Notre Dame because there’s no way that anyone can set it up until the second half of 2025.

[00:27:35] Annie: No skip the lines. Don’t go for that. You’re not really skipping the line in France. Doesn’t work. I mean, you’ll skip the ticket line. The end. You’ll have to go through the other lines.

[00:27:46] Mike: All right, so I think on the mobile phone front, we’re all covered.

Paris Public Transit Fare Changes

[00:27:50] Annie: I think we’re good. Yep.

[00:27:51] Mike: What really kicked off my proposal about having this discussion today was in September, the Authority for Public Transit and the Parisian area announced that they were going to be changing the fare system for all the transport throughout Paris and the suburbs. And since so many people coming to Paris are relying upon public transit for getting around, this is a rather significant change, so I thought it would be useful to provide an update so that it’s not a surprise when people show up.

[00:28:25] Annie: Definitely.

[00:28:26] Mike: One of the changes that’s happened in Paris in the past few years is they’ve moved away from having paper tickets to contactless payment through the Navigo cards. And in the past six months, the Navigo cards have been extended to all mobile phones, except for a couple exceptions with a couple of Androids.

So you can now have your Navigo card on your iPhone or on your Android phone, and you can just tap that at the fare gates to get through.

So providing a little guide for people who’ve not done this before. For iPhone users, You can go into the wallet app on your iPhone and in the upper right corner there’s a plus sign. And you’ll be given different options of things that you can add to your wallet.

You can click on transit card. And then scroll down to France, Paris, Navigo. And when you click on the Navigo, it will provide you different types of tickets that you can load onto your phone. So we’ll discuss what those different ticket types are in a moment and how you would choose which type of tickets you would like to add to your phone.

This works great if everyone in your party has their individual iPhones. You can just go, everyone has their. Navigo cards on their separate phones. Every person can just tap themselves in with whatever fares they’ve purchased.

However, there are the weird situations that you might be traveling with a nine year old who doesn’t have a phone, or with a senior citizen who may not want to load things on their phone.

Using the Bonjour RATP App for Groups

[00:29:51] Mike: So, if you have multiple people in your group, what you can use is the Bonjour RATP app. And in there, the app lets you create multiple virtual Navigo cards, so you could have three or four or five, however many cards you want in there. You can add the fares to each of those individual cards, and then when you’re at the fare gates, you can tap one person in, they go through, change to the other virtual card, tap the next person in. So it’s a way to have multiple cards on your phone for those situations.

Because most of the time you’re going to be able to get by with each person having their own phone, but this would be a way to get if you had other people. The other option would be that you can get a Navigo Easy Card and Metro Stations. Costs you 2 euros, and then you can load fares onto a physical card that’s being tapped at the gate.

[00:30:42] Annie: Right. I have several of those because that’s what you had to do up until now. So I assume several listeners will have some Navigo Easy cards or other Navigo cards. I’m not sure what all of them will do, but I know that the Navigo Easy cards that you already have, you can use them, and you can actually use the tickets that you have because I have a bunch of tickets left on mine.

You can use them all the way through 2025 at least. The lady wasn’t sure. She was like, I’m not sure if it’ll extend after that.

[00:31:13] Mike: Yeah, I had heard through December 31st, 2025.

Any pre-existing fares that you have on your card, you can use up through 2025, but then that’s it.

And then for Android users, I’m not an Android user, so just speaking from what I could read online, is you can either use the Bonjour RATP app or the IDF Mobilité app, which largely work the same, and you can load tickets on there, and then you tap your phone at the gates, it loads the fares onto your phone. And you don’t even have to open the app, it’s just stored in your wallet, and you can just tap through that way.

There are a couple of Android phones, including Google Pixel and Huawei phones, that aren’t compatible with the ticketing. And so, in this case, you would have to just get your Navigo Easy card and a metro station to load the fares onto that.

[00:31:58] Annie: Yes, and my husband’s a nerd and he really wanted it to work on his Google phone and fail.

[00:32:06] Mike: Yeah.

[00:32:07] Annie: I was like, well, don’t get a Google phone, you fool.

[00:32:10] Mike: Alright, so now the important thing, now that you have the ability to add fares onto your phone, either through the Apple Wallet or through the Bonjour RATP app, is a question of what fares can you load on there.

Flat Rate Ticketing System over the Ile de France Region

[00:32:23] Mike: So, the fare system for the Paris Metro, RER, and Transilien network, and buses, and trams has now changed to a flat rate ticketing price that’s independent of any…

[00:32:37] Annie: Zone.

[00:32:38] Mike: …other factors.

So, in the past, there were five geographic zones, there were various discount schemes based on one thing or another, different prices based on type of transport, whether you’re buying one ticket or ten tickets at a time, if you had a monthly pass, and more. So, the RATP was estimating that there were over 50,000 different fare possibilities within the greater Ile de France region based on all these different factors.

And it was just incredibly complicated. And it was also a little bit unequal for people who lived in the suburbs coming into the city. The price of transit was prohibitively more expensive than people living within Paris and traveling within Paris. So they’re also seeking to equalize the price burden for people within Paris and outside the Paris region who are relying upon coming into Paris.

[00:33:26] Annie: Right, so IDF is Ile de France. It’s the region. So it’s a much smaller region than say Aquitaine or Occitanie, but it is its own region.

[00:33:38] Mike: So, the fare changes that they are implementing will result in an increase in transit prices for visitors of about 10-25 percent per ticket for most trips. So if you’re traveling just within central Paris, it’s going to be a little bit more expensive. But overall, Paris transit is enormously less expensive than other European cities. So it’s still a very good deal.

But the new pricing applies to the entire region, and so transit costs will actually drop by half for some of the places you might be going, so if you’re going to Disneyland, Versailles, Fontainebleau, places that were previously much further out, they’ve capped the fares a few years ago, so I think it was like five and a half euros was the maximum fare within the Ile de France region.

Well, now it’ll be the same price as if you’re just going within Paris, say from Notre Dame to the Louvre, you know, very short trip. It’s going to be the same price if you’re going all the way across the region, so that’s going to be a significant cost savings for visitors.

[00:34:40] Annie: So it’s 2.50, 2.50 euros for now, no matter where you’re going in the Ile de France.

What Modes of Transportation Are Included in the IDF Region

[00:34:47] Mike: For Metro, RER and Transilien trains. So this is something that we were discussing a little bit before as we were preparing the show, as the, transit authorities are using a strange nomenclature that makes it a little bit confusing for visitors. So they have this 2.50 euro ticket for Metro, RER, and what they say is the train.

Well, more specifically, the train that it’s valid for are the Transilien commuter trains, and those are trains that go out into the suburbs that may sort of go out a little bit further than what the RER trains are, but they’re still considered trains for within the region. And you can recognize which lines you can use the train. RER metro tickets on. Because metro lines all have a number, currently 1 through 14. They’re going to be in the next few years opening lines 15 through 18. So numbered lines in a circle with a color, those are metro lines. And then there are lettered lines that are in a square with a color and those are A, B, C, D, E, which are RER or Transilien which are H, J, K, L, N, P, R, U, V.

So if you’re boarding a rail type of train that has a circle with a number or a square with a letter, you can use this 2 euro 50 ticket on any of those lines. And Annie was speaking to, you mentioned that you called the RATP the other day and said, Oh, I can even take this to Fontainebleau. And she said, yes, you can take it to Fontainebleau.

The trick is that there are Transilien trains, which it’s line T, I believe, that goes out there. You can use your 2 euro 50 ticket to get all the way out to Fontainebleau,

[00:36:31] Annie: On the T.

[00:36:32] Mike: Yes, but there are also regional trains, the TER trains that go out there, and that is not part of this ticketing system, so just make sure that if you’re boarding a train with your 2 euro 50 ticket, that it’s a circle with a number or a square with a letter and your fare is valid for those means of transport.

[00:36:50] Annie: That’s an excellent point, because I was a little bit confused, I was like, you can take the train like that’s a SNCF train. How does that work?

[00:36:59] Mike: Right. I think this is a legacy. When I lived in Paris eight years ago, they were trying to define all the train means of transport in the area as just The Train. Whether it was a metro or an RER or a Transilien, they just wanted to call it The Train.

Well, it seems like they’ve now called the Transilien, The Train, but then it does get confusing because there are so many other train means of transport throughout France.

And so if it’s a OuiGo or a inOUI or another type of TGV or a TER, the regional trains, this is not valid for those. So it’s only for the commuter lines and the suburban lines and the metro lines within Paris.

[00:37:41] Annie: But it also means that if you are just like you mentioned, if you’re just going two metro stops over, you pay exactly the same price as if you were going between Versailles and Disneyland. You know, which is, it’s going to take you an hour, two hours almost. So yeah, it seems weird, but it’s better for French people because it’ll be cheaper for the people who live in the suburban areas.

[00:38:07] Mike: But even in my experience living in Paris previously, is that if I wanted to go to Versailles, if I wanted to go to Disneyland, if I wanted to go to Fontainebleau, it became a challenge going into a station and then having to buy a special ticket that was a different price than everything else and having to queue at a ticketing machine and all that.

This eliminates all those hassles that you previously would have.

[00:38:30] Annie: And it used to be that you couldn’t add your train to Versailles to your Navigo card, but now you can. I mean, it’ll just be the same ticket.

[00:38:39] Mike: Yeah.

[00:38:39] Annie: It’s silly for me to say you can’t, because it’ll be the same ticket, so it won’t matter.

[00:38:43] Mike: Right.

Special Airport Access Tickets

[00:38:43] Mike: The only exception with the trains is that if you want to access the airports, there will now be a special airport access ticket, and that’s 13 euros. And so instead of the 2.50 flat rate for the overall region on train means of transport, if you want to take Orly via Metro Line 14 or get to Orly via the Orly Val train, which connects the RERB, or if you want to go to Charles de Gaulle Airport via RERB, if you’re exiting at the airport, it will be 13 euros.

So you will need to add that 13 euro airport access ticket to your virtual wallet or to your Navigo card.

[00:39:21] Annie: So I think the Orly Val might be more expensive by a couple of euros.

[00:39:26] Mike: No I checked, all airport means are going to be 13 euros.

[00:39:30] Annie: I think eventually they will do away with the Orly Val, I think eventually they want people, because Line 14 goes there now, of the metro, so most people will just take Line 14. And it’s very good, very fast, very clean, very good.

[00:39:44] Mike: That’s it for the train system.

Bus and Tram Fare Updates

[00:39:46] Mike: The other part of the fare changes in Paris is that there is now a cheaper ticket for travel on buses or trams in the greater Paris region. So there are many, many bus lines throughout Paris and the suburbs. And about a dozen different tram lines that run on the periphery of Paris and out into the suburbs.

And if you’re taking the bus or tram anywhere in the Paris region, then it’s a 2 euro flat rate. So it’s cheaper than taking a metro in RER or a Transilien train. So I think this lower price is to try to encourage some of these other surface means of transport. I think a lot of people may have avoided doing that in the past, but…

[00:40:29] Annie: It’s a little cheaper now…

[00:40:30] Mike: Yeah, with Google Maps or some of these other transit mapping things, if they’re giving you bus options, it’s a wonderful experience. It’s a great way to see the city from up above. You get to go through some different neighborhoods that normally, if you’re underground, you wouldn’t get to see. So I find it kind of fun to take the bus and the tram in different places.

[00:40:49] Annie: The only problem with that is that it used to be that it was the exact same metro ticket that you took either on the bus or on the metro. Now they’re different. So I’m going to have to load bus tickets on my Navigo card, whereas I could just use up my tickets in the same way everywhere.

So, just remember that if you plan on taking the bus or the tram, metro tickets will not be valid at all.

Even though they’re more expensive, so I told them, I said, but it’s more expensive. What do you care, if the person wants to pay 50 cents more, let them? And she’s like, no, they’re not valid, you will get a ticket if they catch you, with, you know, a metro ticket on the bus. Okay.

[00:41:35] Mike: Yeah, and so on the topic of transfers is you can transfer among bus and tram lines for 90 minutes. So if you’re, you know, you can continue going from one bus to another bus to a tram, to a different tram, to another bus over a 90 minute period. And you’ll continue to be able to transfer for 90 minutes. With the train, RER metro ticket, you have two hours, during which you can use that same ticket to continue making transfers. But you can’t, as you said, transfer from the bus tram ticket to a metro RER train ticket without using a brand new ticket.

[00:42:11] Annie: Right. So for people who think they want to try the bus or the tram, but the tram would only be if you’re in the periphery, but even if you’re in central Paris, if you want to use the bus, then you have to buy a few bus tickets. Add your Navigo card.

Reduced Fare Information

[00:42:28] Mike: You had also brought up the topic of reduced fares. I had a little bit of difficulty finding information about reduced fares. They’ve had different prices in the past. A lot of them are really set aside for people who live in the Paris region and who have already like monthly passes or annual passes.

So I think this is a topic that won’t be relevant to a lot of people. The one that will pop up is that they do list discount fares on the website and basically it’s half the price. So 1.25 for the train tickets or 1 euro for the bus tickets. And that would be for children from four through nine years old inclusive.

So if you have a four year old, if you have a nine year old, they can get a half price ticket and we can’t see yet on the Navigo pages how this will work. But currently, with the way that the old tickets work, if you’re in your wallet and you’re adding a full fare ticket, you can just choose a full fare ticket.

Fair Enforcement on the Paris Transportation System

[00:43:29] Mike: You could, in this case, choose a reduced fare ticket for your child and then tap them in using the reduced fare ticket. But just make sure not to purchase reduced fare tickets for yourself because they do have ticket controls in stations and on buses and if you’re using a reduced fare ticket for yourself and you’re not eligible for that then you’re going to get a fine.

[00:43:49] Annie: Yes. And the enforcement in Paris is not friendly, okay? They will ask you to pay the fine immediately on the spot. And people get mad and, but very often it’s people who they bought the cheapest ticket they could find on a machine because they figured it would open the gates, and then they get caught and then they just.

It wasn’t my fault!

[00:44:11] Mike: And they’ve announced that they’re going to step up enforcement of fare controls now that they’re changing the system. So they’re going to have even more ticket controls in the future. So don’t put yourself in a situation just in order to save a euro here and there.

[00:44:25] Annie: And that’s another reason why you should use your app to have your tickets on, because when people used to have paper tickets, they sometimes got off the train and threw out the ticket and then didn’t realize that they needed it until they were at the surface. So like, just because you’ve exited the train didn’t mean you didn’t need the ticket anymore.

There might be people controlling, you know, 200 meters further before you are on the street. But if you are using the app, then you have them in your pocket.

Special Passes: Navigo Day and Paris Visite

[00:44:56] Mike: And then the final topic on the evolution of the fares in Paris are special passes. And so this is the Navigo Daily pass, the Navigo Jour, the Paris Visite Pass, and then one other that I will address.

So the Navigo Day pass is going to be 12 euros, and that will allow access to every mode of transport from 12:01 am to 11:59 pm except for airport access. So you can pay 12 euros and then that will let you be on a train and a tram and a bus and a metro and an RER, whatever you want throughout the day for 12 euros. It’s a great option if you’re taking more than five total trips in one day or if you just don’t want to really think about your tickets all that much.

So you would buy it late in the evening, it would then activate for the following day, and then you can just use that daily pass for 12 euros for the 24 hour period from 12:01 am until 11:59 pm. So that’s one option for visitors.

[00:45:58] Annie: That’s a good option, yeah..

[00:45:59] Mike: Yeah, the other option is the Paris Visite Pass, and this pass lets you choose one, two, three, or five days of validity.

It starts at about 30 euros per day, and then each day gets a little bit cheaper. So if you were to buy a five-day pass, it’s about 75 euros, I believe. It gets you unlimited use of transport, including airport access. And it gets you discounts for a few tourist sites, but it really, it’s like a few euros off at the Musée Grévin, it’s a few euros off at the Château de Vincennes, and things like that.

[00:46:31] Annie: Places where people don’t go very much.

[00:46:33] Mike: Yeah, I tend to find the Paris Visite Pass to not be a very good deal. The price has gone up quite a bit from what it used to be, so I think that it’s probably one to avoid. You can maybe do a little bit of research and figure out if it works for your specific situation, but I think on the whole, the best situation is either buying your individual daily tickets or the Navigo Jour Day Pass.

[00:46:53] Annie: Agreed.

[00:46:54] Mike: And as you’re looking at fares, there’s going to be another one called Navigo Liberté Plus, and this is something that is reserved for locals, so it’s not going to be of interest for the regular tourist. It’s basically, you sign up, you add your bank account to your Navigo account, and then they charge you at the end of the month for all the trips you’ve taken.

It cuts 20 percent off of your travel cost, so it may come across your, as you’re doing your research, trying to set up things, you may see something about the Navigo Liberté Plus. Just ignore it because basically you have to be a local and use a French bank account to link everything. So just ignore that.

[00:47:30] Annie: Right, yeah. Because there are locals who will use the yearly Navigo or the Navigo, which will still exist, I think. But if you only take transportation on occasion, this Liberté Plus is a good deal.

[00:47:42] Mike: Right. So, that’s it for our main topics, and then you had asked me also what other things I found new in France during this visit. So, in discussing with my husband, we came up with a couple of just funny little things that may, you know, help one or two or three of your listeners out there.

Health Prevention Pathway Certificate

[00:47:57] Mike: One of the things is for those of you who’ve competed in sporting events in France in the past, such as a running race or a triathlon, it used to be…

[00:48:05] Annie: That’s right, it’s changed.

[00:48:06] Mike: It used to be you had to get a doctor’s note approving your participation.

Your doctor had to write this letter saying that you’ve suffered from no physical ailments and that you are able to compete in this event and so forth. That one changed in the middle of this year with a new online tool called the Parcours Prévention Santé, the Health Prevention Pathway.

And it’s basically a quick little five minute thing that you do online. They do a little video about different exercise related health topics. They give you a couple little quiz questions, and then that generates a certificate for you that you present when you’re competing in this athletic event. So it’s sort of removed one of those like little annoyances.

You still have to do something, but you don’t have to go get special paperwork from your doctor and have all this stuff signed off on.

[00:48:51] Annie: Yeah, French doctors complained bitterly about this because people would come in to get a certificate for their kid, but then would also bring up this and this. And so, so the doctor would say, Oh, this is a fast visit. You know, this is a 12 year old who’s going to sign up for soccer, you know, five minutes is fine.

But then the mom or the dad would just bring up this and this and this, and they ended up spending a lot of time on these minor things. And so they just, they, yeah, last, last time there was a negotiation about the, how much you pay for doctor’s visit, they said no more certificates for health stuff, like, unless the person, I mean, if you’re signing up for if you’ve had a health issue, that’s different, but…

New Traffic Flow and Safety Measures

[00:49:33] Mike: Another thing that was, of note that may be interesting to some visitors, is just the way in which traffic flows in Paris and outside of Paris has changed quite a bit. In Paris, bikes have become a much bigger part of life, and so there are bike lanes, some different street closures to make things available only to bikes, such as the Rue de Rivoli in Paris.

And so that will make things a little bit more tricky as you’re trying to navigate, because places where there might have been buses before, or where there might have been taxis, it’s a little bit, you have to sort of work around some of these changes that have happened with the traffic flow.

But as I drove outside of Paris and spent a bit of time in the countryside, different cities and even small towns out in very rural areas have made changes to the way traffic flows in order to slow down traffic and to make things safer.

When I lived in France 30 years ago as a university student, the death toll on French roads was enormously high and it has dropped precipitously because a lot of different things have been implemented. So as I was driving into small towns, there would be little bump outs that force you to drive around a planter and then driving around another planter and then people in the opposite direction had to stop themselves in order to go around in their way. So there are a lot of different things

[00:50:46] Annie: To slow people down, yeah.

[00:50:48] Mike: Yeah to keep people more alert and being more mindful of what the speeds were.

And you often talk about the speed cameras, and those are obviously everywhere. So there are a lot of things that, you know, as a driver, you might find, oh, wait a minute, why are they doing this? And it’s out of the interest of trying to slow down traffic and make things safer for people.

[00:51:07] Annie: Yeah, my village went to 30 kilometers per hour in much of the village. And it’s it feels really really slow. But I try to stick to it because it’s for good reason. There are cats crossing the street. Even if there’s no people, I don’t, I do not want to crush a cat, okay? So I’d rather go a little slower and yeah, be done.

Yeah.

Cocktail Menus and Wine Consumption Trends

[00:51:32] Mike: Final two observations. One rather silly is that I noticed that cocktail menus have taken the country by storm. When we lived in Paris eight years ago, it was rather rare to find a cocktail menu anywhere. You might be able to get an aperitif here and there, a Kir Royal or something like that. But every restaurant in Paris, every restaurant in Angers, every restaurant in the small town where my friends live in the suburbs of La Rochelle has a cocktail menu.

And so that’s just a funny observation that

[00:51:59] Annie: Yes.

[00:51:59] Mike: you can get all these spritzes and Palomas and special gin and tonics and all the bespoke thing of the small restaurant in the small town.

[00:52:10] Annie: Yeah. And French people are drinking less and less wine. It’s surprising, if you see the curve, it’s like, it’s like, we’re not drinking any wine. And wine consumption went up a little bit during the pandemic. I think it was because of stress or whatever. And since the pandemic is going down steadily, but people do drink cocktails and things like that.

Final Observations and Flexibility Tips

[00:52:29] Mike: And the final observation I have is sort of the overarching theme of our discussion today is, this is an attempt to try to catch up on a lot of the logistics issues of the past 10 years. You know, things that have evolved over the time that you’ve been doing the podcast. But despite all the information that’s out there, everything that we’ve talked about today, there’s going to be hiccups.

And so we can try to be the masters of logistics, but sometimes things won’t work out as planned. And so we just need to make sure that we are as flexible as possible and understanding of the changes that pop up. I tried to go to the Musée de Cluny one day that it was open. I showed up and there’s a sign in front saying, Oh, we’re closed today.

And I heard someone walk by and say something about grève, you know, a strike. And so there is unexpectedly a strike. I wanted to go out into the suburbs to visit the Cité Internationale de la Langue Française, a special museum about the history of the French language. I planned weeks ahead. I had everything all laid out.

I, sort of scoped out the tickets. And then the night before, I was just confirming the operating hours and there was a special banner on there saying, Oh, we’re going to be closed this week, exceptionally, because we have some foreign dignitaries who are visiting, so…

[00:53:33] Annie:

And I want to get the guy who started it on the podcast. I keep forgetting to reach out to him. But I would like to get him because this is an interesting place, right, language kind of displays, yeah.

[00:53:47] Mike: And during this trip, I went out to Chartre for the first time, because I wanted to visit the cathedral. I was looking at a website that was called cathedrale-chartres.org, to get all my information. And so I planned what I was going to do tour wise, audio guide, all those different things, And then it turns out there’s a different website that’s run by The National Center of Monuments that’s called chartres-cathedrale.fr, and it also has information, but the information isn’t completely in sync. One is run by the cathedral, and one is run by The National Center that is in charge of the national cathedrals. And the information didn’t quite line up about when tours available, when you could visit the treasury, the crypts about Visio guides and stuff like that.

So you can try your best, but sometimes you just have to be flexible and understand that you can’t have perfect information.

[00:54:40] Annie: Yes, yes. And don’t try to plan everything to the minute. You’ll drive yourself crazy with that. Wow, that was a lot of information. Mike, you’re awesome. You did a lot of research for this. I did a little bit, but you did a lot. There’s some things you explained that I was like, Oh, I wasn’t sure about that.

So thank you so much. That’s really wonderful.

Mike’s Travel Highlights

[00:54:59] Annie: And I’m sorry we didn’t have time to talk about your trip. You went to lot of fun places. Let’s see…

[00:55:05] Mike: In Paris for the first time. I visited the Chateau Vincennes and I went out to Chartres for the first time. What else did I say? Oh, we visited the new Collection Pinot, which is a new museum near Les Halles.And in Angers, I went to a Michelin starred restaurant and La Rochelle, visited some things with friends in the area for the first time.

So it was a nice opportunity to catch up on some new things and see some old things that, you know, are always part of the itinerary.

[00:55:35] Annie: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Mike. And, uh, please come back on the podcast. Hopefully not in eight years.

Certainly.

Thank you, Annie.

Merci beaucoup.

Merci.

Au revoir.

Copyright

[00:55:46] Annie: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent, and Copyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.

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