The Ultimate Paris Guide for 2025: Luxe Hotels, Chic Cafes, and Dreamy Photo Spots

Your ultimate 2025 Paris travel guide: best hotels, restaurants, shopping spots, and photo ops - curated for content creators, digital nomads, and luxury-coded girlies.

💅 The Lazy Millionaire’s Paris Travel Guide

Controversial opinion:
People who say they don’t like Paris are either trying to do it as cheaply as possible… or trying to see the entire city in one 4-day trip.

And to that I say: of course you hated it. You were running on €3 espresso and stress hormones, dragging your body through 17 museums before noon, and staying in a 2-star hotel that doubled as a hairdryer testing facility.

That’s not Paris. That’s punishment.

Paris is not meant to be conquered. It’s meant to be wandered through slowly while wearing a good outfit.

I’ve been to Paris more times than I can count and I still haven’t seen everything. And guess what? I’m not trying to.

My favorite thing to do here is what I like to call dilly-dallying in designer—aka: getting in my 20k steps while stopping at every cute café, eating my weight in flaky pastry, stopping at every cute boutique store, and taking unnecessarily chic mirror selfies in the windows of every Haussmann building I pass.

So I wrote this guide. Not to help you “do Paris efficiently” but to help you do Paris beautifully. It’s a curated love letter to the chic, unbothered, self-aware traveler who’s here for the vibes, food, wine, architecture, luxury, and of course…some epic Instagram content.

Inside this Substack article, you’ll find my recommendations for:

• 💼 Where to stay (and where to avoid unless you want a stress rash)

• ✨ The best hotels at every budget—from “my AMEX might cry” to “surprisingly vibey for the price”

• 📸 The most iconic photo spots (that don’t require waking up at 6am)

• ☕️ The best coffee + matcha spots with vibey decor

• 🗼 Where to get the best Eiffel Tower dinner views—not just from the lawn with 700 teenagers

• 🛍️ Shopping recs: vintage, designer, iconic AND - where to snag a vintage Birkin (!!) if Hermes won’t give you an appointment

• 🥐 Most importantly: where to get the best croissant in Paris (I’ve tried them all—some twice, for science)

Also… I’m moving (!!!) to Paris for the entire summer. So this guide is a living document. I’ll be updating it every time I find something new, unhinged, or just deeply chic. So bookmark it, save it, send it to your friend group text titled “Hot Girl Paris 2025.”

My new home!!!

---

Disclaimer: This Paris list is not for the girlies who want to spend eight hours in a crowded museum or fight for a photo at the top of the Arc de Triomphe. And it’s definitely not for the Michelin-star loyalists in search of foie gras and a sommelier with an attitude. Every other Paris guide will tell you where to eat foie gras and how to skip the line at the Louvre. This is not that.

This Paris Guide is for the girls who:

• Choose their arrondissement by proximity to Dior, not museums

• Would rather sip champagne in the Ritz bar than wait in line for the Mona Lisa

• Travel with film cameras, linen sets, and zero plans before 11am

• Romanticize room service in their hotel robe like it’s a spiritual awakening

• Have a Notes app full of content ideas + OOTD’s to film while in Paris

• Care more about croissant flakiness and people-watching at a wine bar than “checking off” Paris

Because we’re not here to conquer Paris. We’re here to be the main character in it.

If that sounds like you? Keep reading…

---

🇫🇷 Where to Stay in Paris