🇫🇷 Europe
From the museums and cafés of Paris to the châteaux of the Loire, the vineyards and the French Riviera, France is art, food and landscapes for every taste.
France is the most visited country in the world, and not by accident: in a territory barely larger than the province of Buenos Aires you get the cultural capital of Europe, five hundred kilometres of Mediterranean coast, the highest Alps on the continent, vineyards that named half the bottles on the planet and a handful of châteaux that look like film sets. For Latin American travellers it is usually the first door into Europe, and it works well as one: everything is connected, signposted and designed for you to get around on your own.
The classic route starts in Paris and fans out. With only a few days, stay in the capital and add Versailles as a day trip. With a long week you can add the Loire Valley and its châteaux, or Normandy with Mont-Saint-Michel and the D-Day beaches. With two weeks you fit in Provence and the French Riviera (Avignon, Marseille, Nice, Cannes), the wine of Bordeaux, the table of Lyon, the colourful Alsatian houses of Strasbourg, the medieval citadel of Carcassonne, the Alps at Chamonix or the Atlantic surf of Biarritz. The TGV links almost all of it in a matter of hours.
What makes France different is not one particular monument but the density: you can have a croissant straight out of the oven for breakfast, spend the morning in front of the Mona Lisa, eat a three-course set lunch for twenty euros and end the day with a glass of local wine watching the Eiffel Tower light up. The flip side is the price, and since January 2026 there is one fact worth knowing before you plan a budget: five of the country's most visited sites (the Louvre, Versailles, Chambord, the Sainte-Chapelle and the Opéra Garnier) charge a higher ticket to anyone who is not a citizen or resident of the European Economic Area, which is the case for any Latin American tourist.
The local currency is the euro (EUR). Carry some cash, tell your bank before you travel and check the day's exchange rate.
Full converter for EUR →Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) takes almost all the direct flights from Latin America, and Orly (ORY) serves Europe and domestic routes. From CDG the RER B reaches the centre in about thirty-five minutes; Orly has been on metro line 14 since June 2024, which drops you at Châtelet in around twenty-five minutes and has made the expensive shuttles unnecessary. Inside the country, SNCF's TGV solves almost everything: Paris–Lyon is about two hours, Paris–Bordeaux a little over two and Paris–Marseille a bit more than three. Ouigo is the low-cost version of the same train and it pays to buy the moment tickets go on sale. For regional hops there are the TER trains, no reservation needed and cheaper. The Eurostar crosses to London from Gare du Nord. For Provence, Brittany, Normandy and the Loire châteaux a car makes sense, bearing in mind that motorway tolls are expensive and add up fast.
The best windows are late spring (mid-April to June) and September: long days, mild temperatures, everything open and none of the peak-summer saturation. July and August are the absolute high season —top prices on the coast and in the Alps, long queues in Paris— and they bring a very French quirk: in August half the country goes on holiday and many neighbourhood restaurants and shops in Paris simply pull down the shutters for several weeks. If you are going for the lavender in Provence, the exact window runs from late June to mid-July.
The climate changes a lot by region. The north and the Atlantic (Paris, Normandy, Brittany, Bordeaux) are temperate and rainy, with grey but rarely very cold winters. The Mediterranean has dry, hot summers and mild winters, with the mistral blowing hard in Provence. The east and the mountains do get hard winters: the Alps and the Pyrenees are ski destinations from December to March. Winter also has one concrete advantage for your wallet: between November and March Versailles costs 25 € for everyone and several monuments apply low-season pricing. In summer keep in mind the heatwaves (canicule), more and more frequent, and the fact that many budget places to stay have no air conditioning.
Eating is half the reason to go. The basics come from the bakery: fresh baguette, croissant, pain au chocolat, quiche, ham and butter sandwich. From there the repertoire opens up by region: boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin in Burgundy, cassoulet in Toulouse, bouillabaisse in Marseille, buckwheat galettes and cider in Brittany, tarte flambée and choucroute in Alsace, oysters and white wine on the Atlantic coast. The cheeses are a world of their own —brie, comté, roquefort, chèvre— and they come before dessert, not after. For wine, every region has its own: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhône, Loire, Champagne.
Rough prices as of July 2026: an espresso at the bar runs between 1,80 and 2,50 € (sitting on the terrace costs more, and it is legal for it to), a croissant between 1,20 and 2 €, and a restaurant lunch averages around 15 €, with formules of starter plus main or main plus dessert from 12-18 € at midday. A bistro dinner usually comes to 25-40 € per person without wine. Three habits that save money and trouble: always ask for 'une carafe d'eau' (tap water, free and required by law in any restaurant), take advantage of the fact that the lunch menu is much cheaper than the evening one, and know that service is already included in the bill: a tip is optional, and rounding up or leaving 5% is more than enough.
France is a safe country to travel in and violent crime against tourists is uncommon. The real everyday problem is pickpocketing, concentrated in the predictable spots in Paris: metro line 1, around the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro, the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, Châtelet and the Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est. The classic scams are easy to spot: the 'gold ring' someone finds on the ground, the petition to sign for a supposed NGO, the shell game. With your backpack on your front in the metro, your phone out of your hand in the street and a firm 'non merci', 95% of the risk disappears. In Marseille it is best to avoid the northern neighbourhoods at night, and in summer to pay attention to heatwaves.
No vaccines are required to enter from Latin America. Tap water is drinkable everywhere in the country. Public healthcare is first rate, but a foreigner without European cover gets billed in full, so travel insurance with medical cover is practically compulsory (and several European insurers ask for proof at the border). Pharmacies, marked with a green cross, solve a great deal and usually have someone who gets by in English. Emergency numbers: 112 is the single European number and works for everything; within France, 15 for medical emergencies (SAMU), 17 for police and 18 for the fire brigade (verified July 2026, official sources of the French Ministry of the Interior).
France is expensive, but the range is wide. A backpacker day —hostel bed, bakery and supermarket food, public transport and one or two entrance tickets— works out at around 70 to 90 € (roughly 80 to 105 dollars at the exchange rate of late July 2026, when the euro was around 1,15 USD). A mid-range trip, with a modest hotel or a short-term rental, one restaurant lunch a day and paid visits, sits between 130 and 180 € a day (150 to 205 dollars). A comfortable trip starts at 250 € and has no ceiling. Outside Paris and the French Riviera everything drops a lot: the interior and mid-sized cities are noticeably cheaper.
Concrete references verified in July 2026. Urban transport in Paris: the metro/RER ticket costs 2,55 €, the bus and tram ticket 2,05 €, the monthly Navigo pass 90,80 € and the Paris-airports ticket 14 €. Trains: the low-cost TGV Ouigo has Paris-Lyon fares from 16 € if you book ahead, with a fare cap of 119 € in 2026; prices climb fast at the last minute, so book as soon as sales open. Tickets: Louvre 32 € for non-Europeans, Eiffel Tower 23,50 € (second floor) or 36,70 € (top), Versailles 35 € in high season, Chambord 31 €, Sainte-Chapelle 22 €, Mont-Saint-Michel 16 €, Aiguille du Midi cable car up to 83 €. Accommodation: a dormitory bed in a Paris hostel usually runs 35 to 60 €, and 25 to 40 € in cities in the interior. One key fact for Latin Americans: under-18s get into national museums free, but the free entry for 18 to 25-year-olds applies only to citizens and residents of the European Union, so do not count on it.
Language is the first barrier: Spanish is barely used in France and English works fine in hotels, museums and the tourist areas of Paris, but much less so in villages and neighbourhood shops. There is one cultural detail worth more than any course: you always greet people when you walk in. Saying 'bonjour' (or 'bonsoir' from dusk onwards) as you step through the door of a bakery, a shop or a taxi is not optional politeness, it is the social norm, and skipping it explains much of the reputation for rudeness the French carry with tourists. With 'bonjour', 'merci', 'au revoir', 'pardon' and a 'parlez-vous anglais?' almost everything unlocks. The timetables are their own thing too: lunch runs from 12 to 14 and dinner from 19:30 to 22, many restaurants close between services, and on Sundays much of the retail trade shuts.
Plug types C and E (two round pins, with an earth pin) and 230V at 50Hz: anyone coming from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay or Peru only needs a shape adapter, but anyone coming from Mexico, Colombia or Central America, where 110-127V is used, has to check that their devices are dual voltage (almost all modern chargers are; hairdryers and hair straighteners almost never). To get online, the most practical option is a European eSIM bought before you leave: coverage is excellent across the country and roaming within the European Union is included, so the same line works if you cross into Spain, Italy or Germany. Tipping is not compulsory because service is included by law. And one practical tip: always carry your passport or a copy, because the reduced prices for Europeans require proof and more than one museum will ask for it.
The history of France is that of a territory that was once the frontier of the Mediterranean world and became, century after century, one of the great workshops of European civilisation. Before it was called France it was the Gaul of the Celts and the druids, the Roman Province of Marseille and the aqueducts, the Frankish kingdom of Clovis and Charlemagne. Out of that mosaic there gradually emerged, with the Capetian dynasty, a state that made Paris its heart and that, after the bloodletting of the Hundred Years' War and the fervour of Joan of Arc, established itself as one of the most powerful monarchies in the West, crowned by the dazzling absolutism of Louis XIV at Versailles.
But if France weighs so heavily on the memory of the world it is, above all, because of what happened from 1789 onwards. The Revolution that stormed the Bastille and proclaimed the Rights of Man, the Terror that darkened it, the epic and the despotism of Napoleon, the three revolutions of the 19th century and the Paris Commune made this country the political laboratory of modernity. Travelling France today —from the châteaux of the Loire to the D-Day beaches of Normandy, from the Palais des Papes in Avignon to the trenches of Verdun, from the French Riviera to the Alps of Mont Blanc— is moving through that dense and contradictory history: that of a country that invented the modern idea of nation and citizenship, and that carries at the same time the shadows of a vast colonial empire, of the Bordeaux slave trade and of Vichy's collaboration with Nazism. A history that cannot be told without its lights and its shadows.
Read the full history of France →Pick a region and open each destination to see what to do, prices and how to get there.
These are the sources we cite most across this country's guides, with how many times each appears. Hard data —tickets, opening hours, requirements, transport— comes from the official source and carries the date we checked it. Restaurant and hotel picks come from guides and reviews, and we say so on each page.
