Paris on a Budget: 2 Days for About £120 (Real Itinerary & Costs)
Our real 2-day Paris budget itinerary from Edinburgh, with exact costs for flights, hotel, transport, the Louvre and souvenirs — plus the choices that kept the trip around £120 per person.
Paris is often treated as an expensive weekend destination, but our trip was built around a very cheap flight, one well-located overnight stay, a city transport pass, lots of walking and food brought from home. We still saw the places that mattered to us rather than trying to squeeze in every paid attraction.
Our real Paris budget
| Expense | Cost per person |
|---|---|
| Ryanair Edinburgh ↔ Paris Beauvais return flight | £43 |
| French Theory — half of £70 room for two | £35 |
| Beauvais-area train connection into Paris | £12 |
| Paris day transport pass | £10 |
| Louvre Museum — pre-booked online | £8 |
| Souvenirs | £6 |
| Food + instant coffee | Brought from home |
| Bus from Paris back to Beauvais Airport | €7 |
| Recorded spend | £114 + €7 |
How to replicate this trip
Our prices are historical, so the goal is not to find the exact same £43 flight or £70 room. The better approach is to recreate the same cost structure: cheap transport, one well-located night, one or two paid highlights, lots of walking and tight control over food spending.
Paris Beauvais can produce very low fares, but add the airport transfer before deciding whether the route is genuinely cheap.
Check Ryanair fares →We stayed at French Theory in the Latin Quarter. A central location helped us walk more and keep the trip compact.
Check French Theory on Booking.com →We paid for the Louvre, viewed the Eiffel Tower from outside and benefited from special-event free entry at the Arc de Triomphe.
Check official Louvre tickets →Affiliate-ready note: these are ordinary booking links today. When we join affiliate programmes, we can replace eligible links with tracked versions without changing the article structure.
Getting there: Edinburgh → Paris Beauvais
We flew Ryanair from Edinburgh to Paris Beauvais (BVA) and paid £43 return per person. Beauvais is outside central Paris, so the cheap airfare only makes sense if you also include the airport transfer in your budget.
For the journey into Paris, we used the Beauvais-area rail connection and paid about £12 per person. The train itself runs from Beauvais station to Paris Nord; travellers should check how they will get between the airport and Beauvais station as well as the current rail fare.
French Theory, Latin Quarter
We booked a room for two through Booking.com for £70 total, which worked out to £35 each. French Theory is at 18 Rue Cujas in Paris's Latin Quarter.
Our Paris route
The Louvre, Tuileries, Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées
Louvre Museum — £8 booked in advance
We booked the Louvre Museum online before travelling and paid about £8 per person at the time. Pre-booking meant this was already part of the budget before we left Edinburgh.
Jardin des Tuileries — £0
From the Louvre we continued through the Jardin des Tuileries. This was exactly the kind of Paris experience that helped our budget: beautiful, central and free.
Arc de Triomphe — free for us because of a special event
We went inside the Arc de Triomphe without paying because a special weekend event was taking place. This should not be treated as the normal admission price: current entry rules and event openings need to be checked before travelling.
Champs-Élysées
We finished the day around the Champs-Élysées, taking in the atmosphere rather than making the avenue a shopping destination.
Eiffel Tower, walking and local shopping
On our second day we did the sightseeing on foot. We went to the Eiffel Tower but viewed it from outside, so it cost us nothing.
Local shopping — £6 each
We browsed local shops and each spent around £6 on souvenirs. Because we had brought our own food and instant coffee mix from home, we did not build restaurant meals into this short trip.
Back to Beauvais for the evening flight
For the return to Beauvais Airport we took a bus that cost €7 per person, then boarded our evening Ryanair flight back to Edinburgh. The return flight was already included in the £43 airfare.
How we managed food from home
Food was one of the biggest reasons this trip stayed cheap. We brought food with us from home and also packed instant coffee mix, so we did not need to buy breakfast, snacks or coffee simply because we were out sightseeing.
We have deliberately not listed specific foods because we did not record exactly what every item was. The useful lesson is the strategy: for a very short city break, carrying a few familiar, travel-friendly foods can remove several small purchases that quickly add up.
Read our full guide: how we save money by bringing food from home →
What made this Paris trip work
The trip stayed inexpensive because we combined a very cheap return flight with just one hotel night, pre-booked the Louvre, used a day pass for city transport, walked on Day 2, viewed the Eiffel Tower from outside, carried our own food and kept shopping modest.
Affiliate disclosure: Some booking links on Smart Budget Traveler may become affiliate links. If we earn a commission, it will not change the price you pay, and we will label those links clearly.
Booking options for this itinerary
Use these as comparison points when rebuilding the trip at today's prices. We keep official links for transparency and can add affiliate tracking later once the relevant programmes are approved.
Useful booking & planning links for Paris
These are the airlines, hotel, booking service and official attraction/transport pages relevant to our trip. Check current prices because ours were historical trip prices.
Practical guides behind this budget
More real budget trips
3 Days in London Under £200
Scotland NC500 for £600 for TwoParis trip at a glance
Trip: Edinburgh → Paris Beauvais → central Paris → Beauvais → Edinburgh
Length: 2 days / 1 night
Flight: Ryanair, £43 return per person
Hotel: French Theory, £70 room for two / £35 each
Paid attraction: Louvre, £8 per person at the time
Free highlights: Tuileries, Eiffel Tower exterior, walking, and our special-event Arc de Triomphe entry
Recorded spend: £114 + €7 per person
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