21 Things to do in Paris with Kids

Including a snack cruise, space invaders, crepes, thrift shops, and my favorite Paris pastry crawl

Jardin du Luxembourg

For the third summer in a row, we ditched expensive day camp for our three girls and instead spent a month working abroad. (If you’re new here, a little backstory.) This year we spent August in France — first three weeks in the South, just outside Aix en Provence, and then one week in Paris.

The original plan was to go to Mexico City, but a few weeks before we were due to leave, I worried about contributing to the water crisis there. I used the Google flight tool to look for airfare and was shocked to find the cheapest tickets were to France. It turns out, the summer Olympics kept travelers away. (AirFrance and Delta took a combined hit of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and hotels and short term rentals were cutting nightly rates due to low occupancy.) We found good deals on flights and apartment rentals, and even scored €15-apiece tickets to see an Olympics event — the U.S. women’s soccer team play Australia in Marseille.

I’ll share our favorite kid-friendly things to do in the South in a few weeks, but here I’m highlighting the best of Paris. Read on for:

• The family-friendly Airbnb we stayed in near the Luxembourg Gardens

• Kid-friendly (or tolerated) restaurants

• Our daughters’ favorite museums and things to do

• My favorite Paris pastry crawl

• A Snack Cruise, Space Invaders, and more