My first trip to Paris began with a video on my phone, from the morning we left. On paper, it shows nothing at all: just my own feet, climbing the stairs onto a plane. No dramatic music, no tears, nothing you’d stop scrolling for. But when I watch it back, I remember exactly what was going through my head in that moment. That same feeling shows up every single time I travel: a kind of buzzing anticipation that starts weeks before takeoff. It just keeps building until I’m standing in that doorway, one foot on the stairs, finally going.
This time, the destination was Paris, and this was going to be my first trip to Paris in every sense that mattered. I want to be honest with you: Paris wasn’t just another city on my list. It had been waiting for me for thirty years.
The Reason Paris Was Never Just a Bucket List Item
My dad spent ten years of his childhood living in Paris. Ten years sounded like an entire lifetime to me, back when I was a little girl hearing about it for the first time. He’d tell me about the streets, what the city felt like, what it was like to go to school there. He talked about growing up somewhere most people only dream about visiting once. That story sat in the back of my mind for decades, like a photograph I’d only ever seen half developed. I always knew I wanted to fill in the rest of it myself.
So this was never going to be a quick stop to check a box. I wanted to stand where he’d stood, to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, and the Louvre, all the places I’d built up in my imagination since childhood. This time, I’d see them with my own eyes instead of just hearing about them in his stories.
Planning My First Trip to Paris Started Weeks Early
If you’ve ever planned a big trip, you know the truth: it doesn’t start the day you leave. It starts weeks earlier, somewhere in your own head. I’m someone who starts pulling up photos of a destination long before I pack a single bag. I imagine what it’ll feel like to actually stand there, instead of just looking at a screen.
With Paris, that anticipation hit differently. Every time I closed my eyes and pictured the city, I saw something almost cinematic. Golden light on elegant buildings, the smell of coffee drifting from a café, that unmistakable silhouette of the Eiffel Tower somewhere in the background. If you grew up on rom-coms and Instagram reels of Paris the way I did, you know exactly the picture I mean. It’s completely human to build up a place we’ve wanted for years into something a little too perfect in our minds.
Then the day actually came. We packed, we got to the airport, we boarded the plane. There’s a very specific feeling in knowing that in a few hours you’ll be walking around in a completely different country. It’s equal parts excitement, nerves, and relief that after all that planning, you’re finally doing it instead of just talking about it.
What the Descent Actually Looked Like
Then we landed. And this is the part that caught me completely off guard.
Looking out the window as the plane dropped lower, the first thing I noticed was the ground below us: dry summer grass. The same tired, late summer green gold you’d see out any car window back home. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that screamed “Paris.” This was my first trip to Paris, and somehow the view already felt familiar.
For a second, that felt almost deflating. I’d spent so many years picturing this city as something elevated, almost mythical. Here was my first real look at it, completely ordinary. As we got closer, flying over the rooftops, that feeling only grew. The layout of the streets, the shape of the houses, the way the neighborhoods were stitched together, all of it looked a lot like plenty of American cities I already knew. Not identical, obviously, but familiar in a way I hadn’t expected.
What Starting My First Trip to Paris Imperfectly Taught Me
Here’s something I want to say directly to you, because I think it matters more than the Eiffel Tower photos ever will. So many of us wait years to take a trip, learn a skill, start a business, or simply choose ourselves. Some quiet voice keeps insisting it has to look a certain way first. It has to feel cinematic. It has to match the picture in our head, or it doesn’t count.
That ground below the plane taught me something I needed to hear: it doesn’t have to match the picture. You don’t need the moment to feel like a movie for it to be real. You don’t need to have waited for the “right” version of ready. That’s exactly what I want you to remember if you’re getting ready for your own first trip to Paris: it doesn’t have to match the picture in your head to count. The plane still lands. The trip still happens. You’re still standing there, having actually done the thing instead of just imagining it.
The Fragments My Dad Left Me With
The more I think about it, the more I realize this whole pull toward Paris was never really about one big story. It was built from dozens of small ones: things my dad mentioned almost in passing over dinner, memories that surfaced out of nowhere. What it was like to start middle school there. The language he had to learn. The friends he made. The holidays his family celebrated in a country that wasn’t quite home and wasn’t quite foreign either.
As a kid, I listened to those stories the way you listen to a fairy tale about a faraway world you can’t fully picture. As I got older, those loose fragments turned into something much bigger. Not just interesting stories anymore, but part of understanding who I am and where my family comes from. That’s exactly why this trip couldn’t just be sightseeing. It needed to be something closer to a pilgrimage, even if that word feels a little dramatic to say out loud.
What I’d Tell You If You’re Waiting on Your Own Version of This Trip
Looking down at the city from that plane window, one more thought hit me. Somewhere down there were the same streets my dad had once run down as a kid, just decades earlier. I found myself wishing, just for a moment, that time travel was real. Not for some big adventure, just five minutes. Long enough to see him as a boy, racing to school or hanging out with friends on some street I was about to walk down myself.
I know that’s just a wish. But that’s part of what makes travel like this so powerful. You’re not only living in the present, you’re quietly reconnecting with your own history at the same time.
Making Your Own First Trip to Paris More Personal
If your own trip has a personal thread like this, a family history, a place someone you love once called home, this is worth knowing. A private local guide can help you actually follow it. GoWithGuide pairs you with local guides in Paris and 500+ other cities. They build the day entirely around what you want to see, even something as specific as a neighborhood or a street that means something only to you. You can look at what’s available in Paris here.
A note on the link above: it’s an affiliate link. That means I may earn a small commission if you book through it, at no extra cost to you.
If you’re sitting on a trip you’ve wanted for years, whether it’s tied to family history like mine, or just somewhere that’s been living in your imagination since you were a kid, here’s what I’ve learned. The waiting will never feel wasted, but you’ll never get the ending until you actually book the ticket.
If this is going to be your first trip to Paris, let it be exactly as imperfect and real as mine was. The view won’t always match the picture in your head. Sometimes it’s more ordinary, sometimes far more overwhelming. Both are worth every bit of the wait. And both prove the same thing: you were ready long before you felt ready.
If you’re still waiting for your own version of this trip to feel like the right moment, the book below walks you through what it actually takes to get there, emotionally and practically.
