How to Choose & Plan Day Trips from Paris

Paris makes a wonderful base for exploring places beyond the city, from royal palaces such as Versailles and Fontainebleau to Champagne vineyards, Monet's gardens at Giverny, Loire Valley castles, medieval towns, Normandy's D-Day sites, Disneyland, and even London.

But choosing a destination is only part of planning a day trip from Paris.

How much of your limited time in Paris should you spend somewhere else?  Is it easier and faster to book a tour with transportation or take a train on your own?  Which destinations really work well as day trips, and when might you be trying to fit too much into one day?

In the Sunday edition of my free Paris Discoveries Newsletter, I answer questions about Paris travel, and day trips are a frequent topic.  For example, readers ask about Champagne tours, whether a day trip makes sense during a short first visit, how to reach places such as Chartres and Mont Saint-Michel, and how much of Normandy you can realistically see in one day.

This article, part of the Paris Discoveries Q&A Archive, brings together these real reader questions and my answers based on my own experiences taking day trips and longer excursions or short stays from Paris.

I've lightly edited, expanded, and updated my original answers and added practical tips, alternatives, and related resources where useful.

Top photo:  Chateau de Fontainebleau, (c) Paris Discovery Guide

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Which Champagne Day Trip from Paris Do You Recommend?

Bill's Question:

We will be in Paris from November 18-22.  Do you have a recommendation for a day trip with a Champagne winery tour?

Susan's Recommendations: 

Yes, I do - I love going on these tours myself, and I have three favorites.  All are small group tours by minivan and are limited to 8 people.

They follow a similar format: you'll visit one famous Champagne House such as Moët & Chandon, Taittinger, or Nicolas Feuillatte, where you'll get a tour, maybe visit their cellars, and get a brief overview of the Champagne-making process.  These are, of course, large commercial operations - so they're all quite impressive.

You'll also visit one or two small family-run operations - small wineries that may produce wine as well as Champagne and they may also sell some grapes to local co-ops.  These are like small family farms, and I find them even more interesting than the big famous brands because you get a better feel for what's involved and get to hear from people with hands-on experience.  When the weather is good (I've only hit one rainy day), you'll get to walk into the vineyards and look at the grapes on the vine, check out how they're pruned and staked, etc.

The guides are usually real experts - in fact, I've been on a couple of tours with guides who had their own small vineyards and spoke from first-hand knowledge as we walked the fields.

A couple of these tours include lunch, and at one you'll have time to eat on your own at a nearby cafe (anyone who's vegetarian or vegan might want to choose that tour since the included meals, while delicious, tend to be meat-centric).

These are my favorites:

• Small Group Tour from Paris to Champagne with 6 Tastings & Reims Cathedral Visit - You'll visit the Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne house and a family-run winery.  You'll have time for lunch on your own, and will also visit Reims Cathedral. 
• Small Group Day Trip from Paris to Champagne with 8 Tastings & Lunch, plus Hotel Pick-up - You'll visit a major Champagne house plus 2 small traditional Champagne houses or wineries. Lunch is included with your tour, and includes Champagne and food pairings.
• Small Group Champagne Lunch, Vineyard Tour, & Tastings with Hotel Pickup/Dropoff - You'll visit a famous Champagne house as well as a smaller family-run winery/Champagne producer.  Lunch as well as pickup/dropoff at your hotel is included.

I like all of these tours equally well, despite their minor differences - although I must admit that I especially loved the hotel pickup/dropoff included with the third one, as I'm not a "morning" person. 

Also, in case you're wondering about the amount of Champagne involved, the "tastings" were quite generous - basically, regular-sized pours.

Should You Take a Day Trip from Paris during a 4-Day Visit?

Shelley's Question:

We have never been to Paris, but we are taking a Tauck Normandy cruise next September, and then are staying in Paris another four days post-cruise.

Should we take a day trip anywhere?  

Susan's Answer: 

That depends on what else you want to do and see while you're in Paris - but since you'll be in Paris for 4 days, definitely consider a day trip. 

Compare the best day trip destinations from Paris 

In particular, the tours from Paris to Palace of Versailles and Giverny are both wonderful in September with smaller crowds, beautiful flowers, and the first hints of lovely fall colors. 

For even smaller crowds and beautiful fall colors, consider the magnificent Chateau de Fontainebleau (shown in the photo at the top of this article) and Vaux-le-Vicomte which you can visit together during a one-day tour from Paris.

Is Chantilly Worth a Day Trip from Paris?

Kenny's Question:

Is a day trip to Chantilly worth the time? 

Susan's Answer: 

I haven't been there myself, but from what I hear from others who have, it definitely sounds worth it.

Chantilly's Grand Château that you see today was rebuilt in the late 19th century after the original structure was demolished during the French Revolution, although the estate itself has a much longer history."

The chateau features elaborate painted ceilings in the general style of Versailles Palace, and holds France's second-largest collection (after the Louvre) of Old Master paintings.  If you like art from this period, that alone is reason to visit.

But the Chateau de Chantilly is especially known for its majestic 18th century stables (Grandes Écuries) with horses, equestrian shows, and maybe the biggest attraction of all, a huge Horse Museum.

You can get there easily on a direct TER train from Paris - about a 23-26 minute trip from Gare du Nord to the Chantilly-Gouvieux station.   Alternately, you can take the RER-D commuter train which will be cheaper but takes closer to an hour due to the number of stops.  Once you arrive, you can take a taxi or a shuttle bus (navette) to reach the estate, but it's also an easy walk - the distance is 2km, so just over a mile - about 25 picturesque minutes on foot.

So if you're interested, definitely go explore!  You can easily spend an entire day there.

Can You Visit D-Day Beaches, Étretat, & Honfleur in a One-Day Trip from Paris?

Caryn's Question: 

A friend and I plan to visit Paris in early May and would like to find a day trip tour that includes Étretat and Omaha Beach.

We would also love to include Honfleur, Deauville, and Pointe du Hoc, if possible.

Are all these locations doable for a day-trip tour? Are there tours that would pick us up and drop us off at the nearest train station close to the beaches, or are the tours only by bus or caravan from Paris?

Susan's Answer:

Several good options for tours from Paris that include Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc are available such as this one (and here's a similar small-group option), and another one that includes Étretat and Honfleur, but I've never seen one with all the locations you mention. I'm guessing it's a time issue: in my experience, the tours from Paris usually have a duration of 13-14 hours so it's a very long day.

Other tours that depart from closer (to the beaches) Normandy locations such as Bayeux (such as this one) are also a possibility, but rather than packing in more destinations, they have shorter durations.

Plus, you'd need to allow time to get from Paris to the meeting spots, which due to connections and other logistics and/or complications (missing a train, not being able to find the right meeting spot, etc) could take even longer, start to finish, so to make that work, you might need to arrive a day before the tour and spend the night locally - which could be a win-win since you'd probably have a significantly cheaper hotel rate than in Paris.

My husband and I once rented a car and tried visiting the D-Day beaches on our own over a 3 or 4 day period - great trip, but we somehow (translation: many wrong turns plus perhaps a few too many leisurely meals in scenic coastal villages and walks along their beaches) missed many of the landing sites, memorials, museums, graveyards that I saw later when I took the bus tours from Paris mentioned above.

So while I don't necessarily recommend going on your own with a rental car, it is an option.  Even though my husband and I missed a lot of the landing sites and information, the other wonderful places we experienced more than made up for it. 

How to Get to Chartres from Paris by Train?

Melchor's Question:

We will be staying for a few days in Paris at the end of May, and we are not finding reliable information about day trips to Chartres (bus, train).

Do you have any suggestions for that? We follow all your newsletters, so thanks for all the advice!

Susan's Answer:

My suggestion for getting to Chartres is to take the train from Paris, which is super-easy to do, and it will get you there quickly in just over an hour.  

Almost all trains to Chartres depart from Montparnasse Station in the 14th arrondissement on the Left Bank, with an additional one or two departures from Austerlitz Station in the 13th.

SNCF currently shows tickets starting at about €10 each way, although prices vary by train and availability.  Book as early as possible to get the best choice and lowest fares.

You can find more details in the section about Chartres Cathedral near the end of my Day Trips from Paris article.

Be sure to book the train as early as possible in order to get the cheaper second-class tickets. 

The stained glass in the Cathedral is truly spectacular - well worth the short train ride to get there - and the small charming town of Chartres is fun to explore.  I hope you love it as much as I do!

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See Questions & Answers on Similar Topics

Wondering about fitting a day trip or overnight trip into your time in Paris?  Check out this other article from the Q&A archives:

• Day Trips & Overnight Trips from Paris - When does an overnight trip from Paris make sense?
• Paris Tickets to Book in Advance - How far ahead do you need to book?

Paris Discoveries Q&A Archive - See Q&As on all topics

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