London and Paris in 10 Days: How to Split Your Time

Give Paris one more night than London. For a ten-day trip, I plan four nights in London and five in Paris. You fly into Heathrow, take the Eurostar in the middle and fly home from Charles de Gaulle. That's where I start whenever someone asks me to put these two cities together.

The split is the easy decision. The harder work is knowing which mornings in each city are worth protecting and booking them before they're gone. That part is my job.

How should you split 10 days between London and Paris?

Four nights in London and five in Paris works for most first trips. Ten days usually means nine nights on the ground. You land in London on the morning of day one and fly home from Paris on day ten.

Paris gets the extra night for two reasons. First, the train day costs you half a day, and Paris is an hour ahead of London. Leave St Pancras late in the morning and you won't reach Gare du Nord until early afternoon. Second, Paris has the stronger day trips. Versailles takes a full day if you do it properly, and so does Champagne. I don't use the same split for everyone, though.

If you...	London	Paris
Are doing both cities for the first time	4 nights	5 nights
Have West End tickets, family roots in England, or want a day in Windsor	5 nights	4 nights
Have been to London before	3 nights	6 nights

Should you start in London or Paris?

Start in London. Overnight flights from New York reach Heathrow early in the morning, and nobody's at their best on that first day. A city where you read every menu and every sign is the easier place to spend it.

Then book the flights as an open jaw, into London and home from Paris. You never backtrack, and the daytime flight from Charles de Gaulle gets you back to New York the same afternoon.

Where should you stay in London?

On one London and Paris trip I designed, my clients stayed at Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane. It sits on Hamilton Place, between Mayfair and Hyde Park, and the spa is on the roof. Yannick Alléno's restaurant, Pavyllon London, is downstairs. That makes for a good first dinner on a trip whose second half is in France.

The location is the real reason I chose it. You can walk to Buckingham Palace through Green Park, and that walk mattered on this trip. As a Four Seasons Preferred Partner, I can add daily breakfast for two, a property credit, and an upgrade when one is available.

What should you do in London that most visitors miss?

See the Changing of the Guard from the inside. Most people watch it pressed against the railings at Buckingham Palace, a few rows back, and catch glimpses of bearskin hats between other people's phones.

My clients started at Wellington Barracks on Birdcage Walk on a private behind-the-scenes experience I arranged for them. They watched the guard gather for inspection before going on duty. Sometimes that's the King's own guard, and sometimes it's a visiting regiment like the Gurkhas, the RAF or the Royal Engineers. They talked with the guardsmen about the ceremony and took photos alongside serving soldiers. When the parade began, they watched from inside the Parade Ground while the crowds stayed outside the railings.

Afterward they went next door to the Guards Museum and tried on the tunics and bearskins themselves. Of everything on the trip, this was what they remembered most.

Here's the planning detail that matters. The ceremony doesn't run every day. On the current schedule, it runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:00, and the new guard leaves Wellington Barracks at 10:57. So I set the London nights around those days before I book anything else.

How do you get from London to Paris?

Take the Eurostar from St Pancras to Gare du Nord. The fastest nonstop trains take about two hours and fifteen minutes, and they run every hour or two.

I book my clients in Eurostar Premier. You get the lounge, a hot meal with champagne and a fully flexible ticket. Premier passengers can also arrive about 45 minutes before departure. In Standard, it's closer to 75.

Give yourself that time. French passport control happens in London, before you board. It now includes the EU's new Entry/Exit System, so Americans crossing for the first time get photographed and fingerprinted at a kiosk. The upside is that you step off the train in Paris and walk straight out. I have a driver waiting at the property door in London and another at the platform in Paris.

One more thing for London. Americans now need a UK Electronic Travel Authorisation before they fly. It costs £20 on the official gov.uk site. Skip the lookalike sites that charge more for the same form.

Where should you stay in Paris?

For the Paris half, I booked those same clients at Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg, at 15 rue Boissy d'Anglas in the 8th. It's a block off the Faubourg Saint-Honoré and a short walk from Place de la Concorde. From there you can walk the Tuileries to the Louvre in the morning and cross to the Seine in the afternoon without getting in a car.

The property has a garden with palm trees and a fountain. The Bar du Faubourg serves a chocolate afternoon tea that's worth planning an afternoon around. Through my Accor Preferred access, I can add breakfast and an upgrade when one is available.

What does the 10-day plan look like?

Here's the outline I start from. Then I move pieces around once I know the client.

Day	City	The anchor
1	London	Land at Heathrow, settle in, walk Hyde Park
2	London	Changing of the Guard behind the scenes, Guards Museum (Mon, Wed or Fri)
3	London	Westminster Abbey and the Tower with a private guide
4	London	Windsor, or an evening in the West End
5	London to Paris	Late-morning Eurostar, afternoon in the Tuileries
6	Paris	The Louvre with a private guide at opening
7	Paris	Versailles
8	Paris	The Marais and Île de la Cité
9	Paris	Champagne, or a day with nothing planned
10	Home	Fly from Charles de Gaulle to New York

That open day on day 9 is on purpose. Your last full day in Paris shouldn't have an alarm.

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If you're thinking about London and Paris for 2027, book a call with me. Tell me what you want out of each city, and I'll tell you how I'd split the nights and which mornings I'd book first.

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Alex Ziselman is the owner of A2Z Travel Design, an affiliate of Gifted Travel Network, a Virtuoso member agency.