About Paris Insiders Guide

Mark Craft and Diane Shaskin, founders of Paris Insiders Guide, 2024

Paris Insiders Guide began with a simple goal: create the kind of Paris travel guide we wished we'd had on our first visit. More than 25 years later, that goal still guides everything we publish. We return to Paris every year to research the city, photograph its neighborhoods, and update our recommendations so readers can plan their own visit with current, first-hand information.

Today, Paris Insiders Guide is an independent travel publication built on more than two decades of research and over twenty visits to Paris. Every guide, itinerary, review, and monthly planning page reflects our own editorial decisions. We choose what to write about, what to recommend, and what no longer belongs, with one purpose: helping readers make informed decisions about their time in Paris.

How Paris Insiders Guide Began

Our early years photographing Paris – Mark Craft, 2010

Like many travelers, our first visits to Paris raised as many questions as they answered. We wanted to know which museums were worth reserving in advance, where to find good neighborhood cafés, how to choose a Seine dinner cruise, and which parts of the city deserved more than a quick walk-through. We found plenty of information, but much of it was scattered, outdated, or written from a perspective that didn't match the way we wanted to travel.

So we started keeping our own notes. Every visit added another notebook, another folder of photographs, and another list of restaurants, museums, neighborhoods, hotels, markets, and seasonal events. Over time those notes became detailed travel guides, built from first-hand experience and updated as Paris changed.

Paris Insiders Guide grew naturally from that work. What began as a way to organize our own research became a resource for friends, family, and eventually readers planning their own trips. Today the site covers every stage of visiting Paris, from choosing where to stay and what to do each month to planning museum visits, day trips, guided tours, and practical details that help make time in the city easier and more rewarding.

More than 25 years after our first visit, we continue to return to Paris. Every new trip adds fresh photographs, updated recommendations, and new discoveries that find their way into the guides. Paris continues to change, and so does Paris Insiders Guide.

How We Research Paris

Every research trip adds new photographs and fresh observations – Diane Shaskin, 2024

Paris Insiders Guide is built on returning to Paris year after year. Every visit adds new neighborhoods to explore, museums to revisit, restaurants to try, guided tours to evaluate, and thousands of photographs to our archive. Some trips focus on seasonal events and exhibitions, while others are devoted to updating practical planning information or expanding our coverage of the city..

Research in Paris rarely follows a schedule. It might mean photographing food shops along Rue Cler before they open, walking a neighborhood several times to understand how it changes throughout the day, revisiting a museum after a major renovation, or trying a newly introduced guided tour. We spend as much time observing the details that help readers make better decisions as we do visiting the city's well-known attractions.

Photography is an important part of that process. Many of the photographs on Paris Insiders Guide are our own, taken during research trips over more than two decades. We photograph streets, neighborhoods, museums, markets, hotels, restaurants, parks, and seasonal events to document what readers can expect to see. When we use photographs from other sources, they are clearly credited.

Our research doesn't end when we return home. We continue checking museum programs, exhibition schedules, seasonal events, transportation updates, and changes that affect travelers throughout the year. Before major guides are updated, we review them again, replacing outdated information, removing recommendations that no longer meet our standards, and adding new experiences that deserve a place in the guide.

How We Choose What To Recommend

Photographing neighborhood food shops on Rue Cler – Mark Craft, 2006

Everything featured on Paris Insiders Guide is there because we believe it deserves a place in a visit to Paris. We write about museums, neighborhoods, restaurants, hotels, guided tours, and experiences that we know well or have carefully evaluated. Many are places we return to ourselves. Others are new discoveries that earn a place only after thorough research.

We don't accept payment in exchange for favorable coverage or rankings. If something no longer meets our standards, it doesn't stay in the guide. As Paris changes, our coverage changes as well. Some entries are expanded, others are updated, and some are removed when they are no longer useful or relevant.

Some of our articles include affiliate links to tours, activities, hotels, and other travel services. If you make a booking through one of those links, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Those partnerships help support Paris Insiders Guide, but they never determine what we cover or how we evaluate it. Editorial decisions always come first.

Our goal is straightforward: publish practical, reliable advice that helps readers make informed decisions about their time in Paris. Every museum, neighborhood, hotel, guided tour, and seasonal event included on Paris Insiders Guide reflects that approach.

Keeping Paris Insiders Guide Current

Paris changes with every season, and so do our guides – Mark Craft, 2018

Paris is constantly changing, and our guides change with it. New museum exhibitions open every season, guided tours evolve, restaurants come and go, and practical information changes over time. Keeping Paris Insiders Guide current means returning to the city every year while reviewing and updating our content throughout the year.

Some updates are seasonal. Our monthly guides are revised annually to reflect exhibitions, festivals, concerts, sporting events, and other experiences taking place that month. Other updates happen whenever attractions introduce new visitor policies, neighborhoods change, hotels are renovated, or practical travel information needs to be refreshed.

Updating a guide often means more than changing a date or a price. We review the entire article, replace outdated information, add new discoveries, improve photography, and remove material that no longer belongs. Some of our most popular guides have been revised many times over the years as Paris itself has evolved.

Paris Insiders Guide is never finished. Every research trip, every museum visit, every neighborhood walk, and every conversation adds something new. That ongoing process is what keeps the publication growing and helps readers plan their visits with confidence.

Continue Planning Your Paris Visit

Where To Stay In Paris →
Paris Neighborhoods →
How Many Days In Paris →
Paris For First-Time Visitors →
City of Paris: Events & News →