Plan a first Paris trip with kids around these. They're the places we'd take visiting family first, picked because they hold a kid's attention and not only an adult's. Parisian kids grow up pushing wooden sailboats across park ponds and shouting at Guignol puppet shows, so leave room for a garden between the big sights. Here's what we checked, from the Louvre to Disneyland Paris.
The Eiffel Tower is the 330-meter iron tower on the Champ de Mars, with three levels open to visitors. The first level has a glass floor where kids can stand and look straight down to the ground.
Stairs climb about 600 steps to the second level, and elevators go all the way up. The top, at 276 meters, holds a champagne bar and Gustave Eiffel's old private apartment.
The Senate's garden mixes formal French lawns with wooded English-style paths around the Grand Bassin, where kids rent toy sailboats and push them across the pond.
Elsewhere there are pony rides, a carousel, a puppet theater, a playground, swings and sandpits. Older kids can shoot hoops or play table tennis and chess, and 102 statues and the Medici Fountain line the walks.
Paris's first botanical garden, open to the public for almost 400 years, runs from Gare d'Austerlitz to the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution between long alleys of trimmed plane trees.
Kids can climb the labyrinth hill to Buffon's gazebo, one of the oldest metal structures in the world, and find a cedar planted in 1734. The Ménagerie zoo, the Grandes Serres greenhouses and the natural history galleries sit inside the grounds.
The Grande Galerie de l'Évolution is the Natural History Museum's main hall at the Jardin des Plantes, an 1889 iron-and-glass nave holding about 7,000 specimens. Downstairs, whales and a giant squid loom over sea life. Upstairs, an elephant leads a parade of savannah animals, and the lights and soundtrack run from dawn to a passing storm. A room of threatened and extinct species holds a giant panda and a Tasmanian tiger.
A science museum in a huge glass-and-steel hall on the edge of Parc de la Villette. Kids push, pull and test their way through hands-on permanent and temporary exhibitions, sit under the planetarium dome, and walk through the Argonaute, a real navy submarine.
The Cité des enfants has two timed play areas, one for preschoolers and one for school-age kids, built around water play, a forest and a building site.
The Louvre is a former royal palace with about 35,000 works on display, from Egyptian antiquities to the Mona Lisa. It is huge and tiring for kids, so families do best picking one wing and keeping the visit short.
The Studio, on the ground floor of the Richelieu wing, has drawing activities, board games, a reading nook and a baby space with a bottle warmer and nursing chair.
Bateaux-Mouches runs commentated sightseeing cruises on the Seine from the Pont de l'Alma, on the right bank. The big passenger boats pass the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, the Conciergerie and Notre-Dame, then return to the same pier without stops.
Kids can tick off the landmarks as they slide by. The company also runs brunch, lunch and dinner cruises.
Place du Tertre is the old village square at the top of Montmartre, a few streets from the Sacré-Cœur basilica. Painters set up easels here every day, and portrait artists sketch visitors, kids included, while families watch.
Picasso, Modigliani and Utrillo lived nearby in the early 1900s. The Montmartre funicular climbs from the foot of the hill to Sacré-Cœur, skipping the Rue Foyatier stairs.
The only amusement park inside the Paris city limits, set at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. Around 45 rides run from a dragon roller coaster and flying swings to a pirate ship, a mirror maze and a Guignol puppet theater.
The farm side has dwarf goats, alpacas, Ouessant sheep and some 450 birds, and toddlers get a paddling pool and a bear-themed maze.
The Arc de Triomphe stands at the top of the Champs-Élysées, in the middle of Place de l'Étoile. Kids climb 284 steps inside the arch to a rooftop terrace that looks down the avenues to the Eiffel Tower.
Under the arch are the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and its flame, framed by huge sculpted groups on the pillars. The climb suits kids who can handle a long staircase.
Notre-Dame is the Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, built between 1163 and 1345 and reopened in December 2024 after the 2019 fire. Inside, kids can look up at the restored stone vaults and the big rose windows.
A separate climb up the south tower runs 424 steps past the gargoyles, which were built as rain spouts, to views across Paris from 69 meters up.
The Tuileries is the formal garden stretching from the Louvre to Place de la Concorde, with over 3,000 trees, open lawns and ornamental ponds. Kids push little sailboats across the octagonal Grand Basin with a stick, a tradition here since 1850.
The north side, along Rue de Rivoli, holds a play area with a rope bridge in the trees, a carousel and trampolines set among palm trees.
Louis XIV's royal palace holds the Hall of Mirrors, the royal apartments and the Royal Chapel. Behind it, formal gardens with fountains and statues run down to the Grand Canal and a huge park. Across the estate, the Trianon has Marie Antoinette's smaller palaces and the Queen's Hamlet, a mock country village.
It suits school-age kids who can handle crowds and long walks; toddlers do better in the gardens.
Disneyland Paris is a Disney resort with two theme parks a short walk apart. Disneyland Park is the classic one, built around Sleeping Beauty Castle and Main Street, with rides themed on Disney stories.
Disney Adventure World, the second park, opened World of Frozen and a lake called Adventure Bay in March 2026, alongside Avengers Campus and the Ratatouille ride.
Plan a first Paris trip with kids around these. They're the places we'd take visiting family first, picked because they hold a kid's attention and not only an adult's. Parisian kids grow up pushing wooden sailboats across park ponds and shouting at Guignol puppet shows, so leave room for a garden between the big sights. Here's what we checked, from the Louvre to Disneyland Paris.
The Eiffel Tower is the 330-meter iron tower on the Champ de Mars, with three levels open to visitors. The first level has a glass floor where kids can stand and look straight down to the ground.
Stairs climb about 600 steps to the second level, and elevators go all the way up. The top, at 276 meters, holds a champagne bar and Gustave Eiffel's old private apartment.
The Senate's garden mixes formal French lawns with wooded English-style paths around the Grand Bassin, where kids rent toy sailboats and push them across the pond.
Elsewhere there are pony rides, a carousel, a puppet theater, a playground, swings and sandpits. Older kids can shoot hoops or play table tennis and chess, and 102 statues and the Medici Fountain line the walks.
Paris's first botanical garden, open to the public for almost 400 years, runs from Gare d'Austerlitz to the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution between long alleys of trimmed plane trees.
Kids can climb the labyrinth hill to Buffon's gazebo, one of the oldest metal structures in the world, and find a cedar planted in 1734. The Ménagerie zoo, the Grandes Serres greenhouses and the natural history galleries sit inside the grounds.
The Grande Galerie de l'Évolution is the Natural History Museum's main hall at the Jardin des Plantes, an 1889 iron-and-glass nave holding about 7,000 specimens. Downstairs, whales and a giant squid loom over sea life. Upstairs, an elephant leads a parade of savannah animals, and the lights and soundtrack run from dawn to a passing storm. A room of threatened and extinct species holds a giant panda and a Tasmanian tiger.
A science museum in a huge glass-and-steel hall on the edge of Parc de la Villette. Kids push, pull and test their way through hands-on permanent and temporary exhibitions, sit under the planetarium dome, and walk through the Argonaute, a real navy submarine.
The Cité des enfants has two timed play areas, one for preschoolers and one for school-age kids, built around water play, a forest and a building site.
The Louvre is a former royal palace with about 35,000 works on display, from Egyptian antiquities to the Mona Lisa. It is huge and tiring for kids, so families do best picking one wing and keeping the visit short.
The Studio, on the ground floor of the Richelieu wing, has drawing activities, board games, a reading nook and a baby space with a bottle warmer and nursing chair.
Bateaux-Mouches runs commentated sightseeing cruises on the Seine from the Pont de l'Alma, on the right bank. The big passenger boats pass the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, the Conciergerie and Notre-Dame, then return to the same pier without stops.
Kids can tick off the landmarks as they slide by. The company also runs brunch, lunch and dinner cruises.
Place du Tertre is the old village square at the top of Montmartre, a few streets from the Sacré-Cœur basilica. Painters set up easels here every day, and portrait artists sketch visitors, kids included, while families watch.
Picasso, Modigliani and Utrillo lived nearby in the early 1900s. The Montmartre funicular climbs from the foot of the hill to Sacré-Cœur, skipping the Rue Foyatier stairs.
The only amusement park inside the Paris city limits, set at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. Around 45 rides run from a dragon roller coaster and flying swings to a pirate ship, a mirror maze and a Guignol puppet theater.
The farm side has dwarf goats, alpacas, Ouessant sheep and some 450 birds, and toddlers get a paddling pool and a bear-themed maze.
The Arc de Triomphe stands at the top of the Champs-Élysées, in the middle of Place de l'Étoile. Kids climb 284 steps inside the arch to a rooftop terrace that looks down the avenues to the Eiffel Tower.
Under the arch are the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and its flame, framed by huge sculpted groups on the pillars. The climb suits kids who can handle a long staircase.
Notre-Dame is the Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, built between 1163 and 1345 and reopened in December 2024 after the 2019 fire. Inside, kids can look up at the restored stone vaults and the big rose windows.
A separate climb up the south tower runs 424 steps past the gargoyles, which were built as rain spouts, to views across Paris from 69 meters up.
The Tuileries is the formal garden stretching from the Louvre to Place de la Concorde, with over 3,000 trees, open lawns and ornamental ponds. Kids push little sailboats across the octagonal Grand Basin with a stick, a tradition here since 1850.
The north side, along Rue de Rivoli, holds a play area with a rope bridge in the trees, a carousel and trampolines set among palm trees.
Louis XIV's royal palace holds the Hall of Mirrors, the royal apartments and the Royal Chapel. Behind it, formal gardens with fountains and statues run down to the Grand Canal and a huge park. Across the estate, the Trianon has Marie Antoinette's smaller palaces and the Queen's Hamlet, a mock country village.
It suits school-age kids who can handle crowds and long walks; toddlers do better in the gardens.
Disneyland Paris is a Disney resort with two theme parks a short walk apart. Disneyland Park is the classic one, built around Sleeping Beauty Castle and Main Street, with rides themed on Disney stories.
Disney Adventure World, the second park, opened World of Frozen and a lake called Adventure Bay in March 2026, alongside Avengers Campus and the Ratatouille ride.
