Have you seen the meme with the elderly couple snoring, open mouthed, on a Venice gondola? One of the cruel ironies of life is that when people finally have enough time and money to travel, they’re sometimes too old to do the things they’d dreamed of doing.
My parents are in their mid-70s. My mom is super active, but my dad lives with debilitating back pain. He was recovering from back surgery during our European trip this summer. This left him walking slowly, and using a Rollator walker. But we decided not to let limited mobility stop us from enjoying a quick family trip to Paris. The four travelers: My father and mother, in their mid-70s; my son, age 15; and me, age 51.
Before we left, I sketched out a low-walking itinerary for our one full day in Paris. My plan was to see Paris’ biggest sights while walking “only” one to two miles in the day. In retrospect, this plan was wildly ambitious. My elderly father probably walked less than one mile in Paris — in very short stints.
However, our multigenerational trip to Paris was a success despite my elderly parents’ limited mobility. I’ll share what I learned!
Keys to a successful multigenerational trip to Paris
Most people who visit Paris walk for miles and miles — but you don’t have to. It’s actually possible for even elderly tourists with limited mobility to get a nice taste of Paris. While Paris can’t be called disability-friendly, with the help of Ubers and other hacks, you can get around the city with hardly any walking.
1. Stay in a central Paris location with good views.
If you are visiting Paris with older travelers who get tired easily, staying centrally is key. Ideally, your family won’t have to travel far to see sights. Bonus if they can feel like they’re part of Paris even when they’re resting at the lodging.
Paris has tons of HomeExchange participants! We felt very lucky to find a large studio apartment in the seventh arrondissement, right across the street from the historic Bon Marche department store. The building has an elevator. This neighborhood is in the middle of everything! It’s a 4-minute drive to the Jardin du Luxembourg. An 8-minute drive to the Louvre. 15 to the Eiffel Tower.
Even better, this apartment had a balcony! A balcony with a view of the Eiffel Tower. You could also look down on shoppers bustling on the sidewalks below and a sweet park across the street. Truly, I think my dad was happiest in Paris when sitting on that balcony, reading the thin international edition of the New York Times.
2. Sign up for disability assistance at Charles de Gaulle airport.
CDG doesn’t have a reputation as a traveler-friendly airport. But my parents received great disability assistance when they arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport. The wheelchair assistant took them to the front of the immigration line! Because of this, my parents were actually waiting for us at CDG before we arrived to meet them on the high-speed train from Disneyland Paris.
Random airport employees also proactively helped them. When they saw them waiting in the wheelchair for a while (our TGV was delayed) staff checked in on them and offered further assistance.
3. If you have limited mobility and little time, don’t bother with Paris’ public transit.
As a former study abroad student in Paris, I’m used to taking the Metro everywhere, of course. Most Metro stations in Paris have escalators, but mostly only going up. I didn’t want to make my dad walk down a million stairs, or even worse, arrive at a station to find out that the Up escalator was out of order.
The common advice for people with limited mobility in Paris is to take buses. We tried. But buses have a few drawbacks on a multigenerational family trip. The biggest issue with the bus is that they can get delayed or canceled.
The afternoon of our arrival, we wanted to visit the Jardin du Luxembourg. We could have walked there in about 12 minutes. But it was hot, my parents were jet lagged, and my dad can’t walk far without resting. So we headed for a bus stop about a block from the apartment.
That bus never arrived. We found a different bus stop and took a different bus, but by the time we arrived, my dad was already almost tired out.
4. Instead, take Uber everywhere.
Ubers, on the other hand, were plentiful and convenient in Paris. They generally picked us up right outside our front door with little waiting and were able to stop pretty close to everywhere we needed to be. Sometimes, we just hailed a taxi. And sometimes, the Uber app sent a taxi.
It might feel expensive to drop $10-$20 on an Uber every time you need to move from place to place, but trust me: It was worth it. When you’re trying to move through Paris with older travelers, every minute and extra exertion counts.
Another benefit of taking taxis and Ubers: We saw a lot of sights we would not have seen from the Metro. On our way from the airport to our lodging, we even drove through the circle around the Arc de Triomphe. And one of our taxi drivers was nice enough to pull over outside the Louvre so we could admire the glass pyramids.
Keep in mind that the typical car in Europe is smaller than the typical car in the United States. When we were bopping around Paris, our family of four and the walker could fit in a regular Uber. But when we Ubered to Gare du Nord to take the train from Paris to Copenhagen, we woudl have needed an Uber XL to fit comfortably.
4. Take a Seine boat tour.
Taking a Seine tour was a highlight of my parents’ visit to Paris. Sitting in an open-topped boat, you can see all the main buildings of Paris. You might even be able to hear some useful explanations. (Our guide’s English, unfortunately, wasn’t easily understandable.)
You do have to be able to walk down stairs to the dock, then back up to the street. Fortunately my dad was able to walk them, slowly.
5. Spend plenty of time at sidewalk cafes
Really, Paris was made for sitting. All you have to do is pull up at a cafe table and watch Paris go past like a parade. Don’t limit yourself by thinking of cafes as only a place to sip coffee or hot chocolate. In the afternoon, cafes are basically the bars of Paris. A cafe near our lodging even served mojitos and chips with guacamole — a word I’d never before heard with a French accent.
6. Visit one of the high viewpoints with elevators
The Eiffel Tower has an elevator. Actually, it has 2: The first elevator takes you to the second floor, then a different one can take you to the tippy top. But be aware that elevator tickets book up early.
If you can’t snag an Eiffel Tower elevator ticket, do what we did: Visit the top of the Tour Montparnasse instead. However, you should know that the Montparnasse only accesses the indoor viewing area. It’s nice and goes all the way around the building, but it’s all glassed in. You have to walk up a steep flight of stairs to access Montparnasse’s outdoor rooftop.
Another option for the disabled is the Arc de Triomphe. Its elevator is reserved for visitors with disabilities. The view from the top of the Arc, while not as high as the Eiffel Tower, is really better. Because of the Arc’s placement on the Paris street layout, standing at its top gives the impression that the whole city is looking at you.
When you get to the top of the Arc, there is a narrow raised walkway all around the outside. When we visited, this walkway was crowded with people, which would have made it difficult for someone in a wheelchair to access it. However, there was an elderly guest in a wheelchair, and other tourists cleared a path for her.
7. Divide the day into ‘family time’ and ‘go time’
Moving through the streets of Paris at a snails pace, my son and I didn’t get impatient — because we knew our time was coming. My parents like slow mornings, which gave me the chance to walk the neighborhood. I’d come back by 8 a.m. laden with croissants and other treats from the neighborhood patisseries and boulangeries.
After about 5 p.m., my parents retired to the apartment for the evening to rest. And my son and I hit the museums.
Every night of the week, at least in summer, a few museums are open late. These evening openings, called “nocturnes,” are not only great for fitting more sightseeing in. They also tend to be less crowded than daytimes.
Since we visited in June, we would emerge from a museum at closing in time to see a glorious sunset. Then we went out to a bistrot for a late dinner.
My son and I also found it worthwhile to arrive a day early to visit Disneyland Paris on our own.
8. Focus on what you did, not what you missed
Every time I visit Paris, I leave with a list of things I wish I could have done. And lucky for me, I’ll probably get to go again. For my parents, this whirlwind Paris visit may have been their one and only.
I had wanted them to see the Notre Dame cathedral close up, but they only saw it from the river. We planned to visit the chocolate mousse bar outside the Jardin du Luxembourg, but my dad was too tired. I would have loved to take them to the Marais.
Still, it would only rob our fun memories to dwell on what we could have done.
Because look at everything we did! We were in the city less than 48 hours. But we managed to see lots of Paris street life. The Arc de Triomphe. The Eiffel Tower. The Jardin du Luxembour (a little). Notre Dame. We ate snails. Enjoyed happy hour at a sidewalk cafe.
And my parents got to hear me use my french, 30 years after they paid for me to study abroad here. Even better, I got to show them the street I lived on.
One of the highlights for them was seeing me get in a heated argument, all in french, with the Uber driver who didn’t think my dad’s walker could fit in the car with us. (It could! It did!)
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