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I have lived in Paris for six years and I get this question every month from someone in a different city. Should I move there? My answer is yes, more often than people expect. Here are the seven reasons I actually share when a friend asks, and not the ones that show up in glossy listicles.
I am writing this as someone who came in 2018 for the HEC Paris MiM and stayed. I am Indian, I have lived in Bangalore, Manipal, Paris, and Los Angeles, and Paris is the city I picked to stay in.
1. Paris is built to be beautiful, on purpose
Paris is beautiful everywhere you go. The architecture is gorgeous, the streets have personality, and you see art in public space constantly. This is not an accident. Building owners are legally required to follow certain design standards. Renovation projects cover scaffolding with painted facades of the building underneath so the visual continuity holds even during repairs.
The Seine has hundreds of years of bridges across it. The roads alongside the river used to carry cars. The city closed them off and turned them into pedestrian space. You can now walk from the Eiffel Tower to Bastille along the water without crossing traffic.
Living in a beautiful environment changes your mood. I notice it on my commute. It is a source of small daily bliss that compounds across years.
2. People here actually relax
The moment the weather turns, everyone is outside. Parks, river banks, rooftops, picnic spots. With cheap supermarket snacks and a bottle of wine, you have an evening with friends that costs 10 euros each.
You do not need to book three days ahead, pay parking, or pay bar prices. You walk, you bike, you take the metro, you find a spot. Groups of friends across every age range do this constantly in the warmer months.
If you do want the high-end version, the bars, restaurants, and clubs are world-class. The choice is yours. I covered the relaxed weekend rhythm in more detail in what it is really like to live in Paris.
3. The restaurant scene is genuinely world-class
Paris has incredible food, and not just French food. The boulangeries and patisseries are obvious. The bistros are reliable. The high-end French restaurants are world-famous and often overpriced for what they are.
But the depth of non-French food here is what surprises people. The Asian scene around rue Saint-Anne is excellent. Belleville does the best Chinese food I have eaten outside Asia. Mexican is finally taking off. The African food in the 18e and 20e is some of the best in Europe.
I went deeper on the food angle in my favourites post about working in France, where lunch is treated as a real meal every day.
4. Everything is close to everything
Paris is small. Crossing the city takes 45 minutes maximum, and most things are within 15 to 20 minutes of each other. From my flat I can bike to the Luxembourg Garden in 10 minutes and to rue de Rivoli in 20. It feels like living in one big walkable neighbourhood.
This compactness has a social side effect. Spontaneous plans actually work. You can text a friend at 7 pm for an 8 pm aperitif and both of you will make it. That sounds small, but try it in London or New York and you will understand the gap.
You also do not need a car. The metro, RER, buses, and Velib cover everything. I have lived here six years without ever owning one.
5. Paris is a great launch pad for travel
Charles de Gaulle connects to almost every major destination. Flights to the US are easy. Flights to Asia are easy. Within Europe, budget airlines hit every city you would want to visit.
The seven Paris train stations are the real story. Two hours to London. Three to Amsterdam, Brussels, or Frankfurt. Four to Barcelona. Six to Milan. The European weekend trip is something you can actually do here without planning two months ahead. I have taken Friday-after-work trains to Amsterdam more times than I can count.
If you are coming for a master’s and weighing whether to study in France versus the US, the European travel access is one of the underrated points I covered in my France versus US for the MiM piece.
6. The expat community is real and diverse
There are people here from everywhere. Some passing through for a year. Some staying long-term. Some who picked Paris as their forever home in their thirties. The cultural mix is genuinely wide.
Post-Brexit, more international professionals choose Paris over London to keep their EU footing. The number of non-French-speaking professionals in central Paris has visibly increased in the last five years.
The flip side is that close friendships still take time to build, especially with French locals. I covered the social trade-off honestly in the pros and cons piece and in reasons to move abroad that are not obvious.
7. You will not run out of things to do
Museums, galleries, concerts, exhibitions, film festivals, food festivals, weekly markets. Paris produces cultural events at a pace I cannot keep up with. The Louvre, the Orsay, the Pompidou, the Picasso Museum, the Musee de la Vie Romantique. You can spend a year going to one museum a week and still not finish.
When you want nature, you take the metro to Bois de Boulogne or Bois de Vincennes, or the RER to Parc de Sceaux. You can row a boat or walk for hours. The Loire Valley is two hours away by train if you want a real day trip.
You do not need a car for any of this. That alone is a structural quality-of-life advantage that I did not appreciate until I had lived in Los Angeles for half a year.
Should you move
If you want a city with beauty, public infrastructure, food, travel access, and a real long-term path to residency, Paris is a strong answer. If you want fast wealth or easy English-speaking friendships in your first month, look elsewhere.
I write more on this in reasons to move abroad that are less obvious, which applies to any city change, not just Paris.