where should I stay...Paris or the suburbs?
 

This is my first time traveling alone from USA to Europe. Im a sngle girl traveling to Paris for a week and another week in Switzerland.
Im a bit undecided about if should I stay in a hotel in Paris by myself and pay per nite or should I stay at my friends house ( they are living in the suburbs) like around 45 minutes from Paris. Free place to stay but a bit further away.

whats should I do? any advices please?

They said they live close to the train station to Paris.

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I'd rather stay in Paris, but I don't know how much the free play to stay means to you. IMO, 45 minutes x 2 a day = almost 2 hours that you aren't seeing Paris.

Should be "free place to stay," but I'm sure you knew that.

I have friends who live in London, literally across the street from Heathrow airport. They always encourage me to stay with them. But that would mean about an hour into the city center and an hour back daily, plus having to be polite and spend at least a chunk of my time with them, which I would not mind except that sometimes I am in a hurry and have a lot of ground to cover and they don't. And getting back to them in time for supper, meaning my evenings are not necessarily spent the way I would chose. See? A week in a city could end up being effectively only 2 or 3 days. If you have the money, stay in the city center, and have them come to meet you once or twice. Plus, if they come to the city to meet you, that might make for a very pleasant time for them.

What does "the train station" mean?

You really need to invest in some basic maps and guidebooks to get yourself oriented to the places you are visiting in Europe. Reading your posts, what comes across is that you haven't done any basic research at all, which doesn't augur well for people offering you good advice. We're much more likely to help out if you've helped yourself out to begin with. It seems like you just want other people to guide you around everywhere. It's YOUR trip. Do some research!

45 minutes is not that bad considering that if you stay in Saint Germain and want to visit for example Le Sacre Coeur in Montmartre it will take you that amount of time to get there.

From: Saint-Germain Des Pres (METRO), Paris.

To: Eglise Sacré-Coeur (Immaculée Conception), Le Blanc-Mesnil.

Time : departing at 10 h 25. Date : 5/18/11. .
The quickest – 44 min Select this route




If you can afford a hotel in Paris stay in the city..However, have you seen the prices of the hotels lately?

Otherwise take advantage and stay with your friends.

yeah I will take advantage of that place

thanks guys!!

Stay in the city. Commute time into Paris is very unreliable due to common train strikes. We stayed out by Euro Disney and wouldn't do that again. Much of the allure of Paris is walking the streets in the evening. Have fun.

Stay in Paris. You will regret staying in the suburbs, no matter how nice your friends are. If you cannot afford to stay at a hotel in Paris, cancel the trip.

Having done both (and it depends on how far out you might be), I'd stay in Paris. Many years ago I had several friends who lived in Meudon-la-Forêt and I felt like I was spending half the day getting from there to the center of Paris and back. Mind, most of my friends either worked or went to university in Paris, so they did commute. But they would also stay with friends in the city whenever they could -- usually some tiny single room where we'd take up every inch of floor space. My recollection is that I had to take a bus to the Metro (I think Pont de Sèvres) then in. Lots of waiting!

In short, even though I had that option, I only did it when the purpose of my trip to Paris was to visit my friends and not sightsee. Otherwise, even on my then limited budget, I could always find some clean but very basic room with a bathroom down the hall that would suit me just fine and I'd be able to avoid the commute.

Stay in the city. Not sure what your budget is, but you may be able to rent a studio apartment for a week and save some money too. Chck out www.rentparis.com , they have very reasonable prices (you can also eat some meals in and save on food too)

This ought to be a complete no-brainer.

Are you visiting France or gawping at "sights" that mean nothing to you but you've been told by someone you've never met you "must see"?

Staying with friends means visiting France. Staying in a tourist hotel in a tourist ghetto (which is what all this stuff about "Much of the allure of Paris is walking the streets in the evening" is about) means you're visiting a theme park.

If you want to tick off boxes in a "this is what's worth doing in Paris" list, stay in the theme park. If you want an insight into how France works, you'll learn more in ten minutes in the dreariest suburb than in a lifetime following some foreigner's book on Paree.

Staying with friends means wasting the entire vacation socializing with those friends. If you just want to visit friends, you can find plenty of those at home.

If you want your money's worth, stay in Paris and skip the friends, or limit your interaction to a dinner or two. Stay in a hotel in Paris. Friends in the suburbs aren't going to know much of anything about Paris, so they won't be able to show you the city in any useful way, and they will quickly tire of showing you around (or you will quickly tire of being shown around by them).

When I was little, we always stayed with my great aunt and uncle in the suburbs. Taking the train into Saint Lazare every day was part of the enjoyment, since we lived in a very small town. The thrill of pretending to be a big city commuter!

Split the difference? A couple of nights with your friends and a few nights in Paris. Then come back and tell us the pros and cons of each.

This is what I would probably do.

True, even when my brother and sister-in-law came to visit, even though I live in Paris, they spent half of the time in my apartment and half of the time in a hotel.

For some strange reason, when they returned a year later, they spent the entire time at my place.