Originally Posted by wjbesh

Looking at booking a <1 week trip to Paris in the next couple of months; I’ve not really spent a ton of time there and I’m hoping it’s less packed with tourists than it normally is. My big interest for the trip is history (especially the French Revolution), and so I plan to hire a private guide for the trip. I’m curious what the forum’s thoughts are on the Paris-specific usefulness of using a travel agent to plan the trip versus lining it up myself.

In the past I’ve used travel agencies to great success - Abercrombie & Kent for Russia and Imperial Tours for China, both locations a bit harder for an American outsider with no grasp of the language to plan, and it was nice to just be presented with a complete itinerary. But on other trips (mostly across Europe) I’ve just written ahead to the hotel concierge and asked if they had a private guide they’d recommend for what I’m looking for, and so far booking at a nice hotel has yielded pretty good results on guides (plus transfers, etc.).

So before I go down my usual route of booking via Amex FHR, am I missing any strong benefits to reaching out to a travel agency and having them arrange hotels and guide(s) in Paris? Don’t know the city too well, so figured it was worth asking first.