This letter is LONG—part travel diary; part recs (and anti-recs), souvenir recap, books to enhance your trip (or pretend you’re in Paris from the comfort of your couch)—I suggest opening it in your browser to see the entire thing.

Bonjour!

I used to think Paris was overrated.

The first time I went, I was 20 and studying abroad in Madrid for a semester. I spent a weekend gallivanting around the city with my friend Brett. The weekend was so debauched, in fact, that the American embassy had to find me. (But that’s a story better told over a second martini when things are loose and we start swapping secrets). I distinctly remember buying a baguette and a jar of Nutella at a grocery store to save money on food. Honestly, a valid choice. One of the best things I ate on my latest trip was a €6 baguette sandwich in a public park.

The second time I went to Paris, I was 25 and the startup I worked for had just folded. My best friend got fired from her job the same week, so we said, “fuck it,” and booked flights into London and out of Barcelona. We’d figure out the rest later. We spent 2 nights at a budget hotel in the 13^th arrondissement that’s still starred in my Google Maps, even though I definitely would not recommend it. We mostly drank a lot of cheap wine.

Somewhere along the way, I decided Paris was expensive (true) and a bit snobby (also true), and nowhere near as glamorous as it was made out to be in books or movies (it depends).

The third time I went to Paris was a decade later when two friends and I figured it would be infinitely more interesting to see a Harry Styles concert in Paris than New Jersey. For the first time, I arrived armed with a grown up salary and a map filled with more recs than I could ever use in five days thanks to friends, IRL and internet alike. We gorged on cheap pastries and expensive steak au poivre, walked until our feet blistered, sipped cocktails at sidewalk cafes, and spent hours getting lost in department stores that felt cavernous even by New York standards.

Oh, Paris wasn’t overrated. I’d just been young and broke and the only “recs” I had were from a blue Lonely Planet guide definitely not written with me in mind as its intended audience.

I just got back from my fourth trip to Paris with a side trip to Bordeaux, and my love for the city only grows. Let me tell you all about it: