Yes, yes, I know that such a thing doesn’t exist. So let’s say, “Not exorbitantly expensive accommodation in Paris for 3-4 weeks.”
I’m going to Paris to do research at the Bibliothèque nationale, and I plan to stay for about 3-4 weeks. I’m having a really hard time finding a place to stay, since I’m doing it on a grad student budget, and don’t really want anything too nice. It’s so short-term there’s no way to get an apartment, and I don’t want a whole apartment - just a bed, and a bit of fridge space would be great. Universities are in session, so no student accommodation. A classmate stayed in a convent, which would be very appropriate as I’m studying nuns, but the ones I’ve contacted have all told me they don’t rent rooms during the school year (I assume students take them for the year?). Hostels aren’t cheap for more than a few nights, and I don’t want strangers to have access to my computer.
Any ideas? It doesn’t have to be specific to Paris, just a suggestion for the kind of thing to look for would be great. I have no particular budget - anything is too expensive. I’d prefer to be somewhere close to the centre of the city, as I’ll just have to spend longer if I spend hours on buses every day. Thanks!
Couch surfing might be a bit too temporary. I wonder whether a hospitality exchange would work. The only one I have experience with caters to Esperanto-speakers, but I’ve heard that there’re others out there.
Here in Toronto, I’ve seen hotels that rent rooms by the week or month, but they’re either ritzy executive pads, or fleabag flophouses.
Hostels In Paris from €14 - Top Rated Hostels 2023 Lists a bunch of hostels with private rooms in the 25-45 Euro per night range (at least for late January bookings). There seem to be hundreds of sites for a search on “budget hotel paris france” but a lot of those are closer to 40Euro per night. I have no recommendations, though.
Well, googling ‘weekly accommodations paris’ yielded this as the first non-sponsored link. Is 1100 euros for a month for a studio apartment out of your league? This place quotes 900€/month for B&B-style accommodation.
This website has tons of apartments in Paris. I used it to find a studio that I rented for a week in the 7th arrondissement. You might want to look for something a little farther out if you need something cheaper and use the metro to get where you need to go.
Interesting - thanks very much. (It’s all out of my league - 900 Euros is four times my monthly rent! But I understand that Paris is not Victoria, BC, and that’s a good thing, so of course prices are different.)
Here’s the hospitality exchange I was thinking of: The Hospitality Club. I suspect that offering a stay in BC would be an excellent exchange for a stay in Paris.
I did ask at the international centre at my university, but they just stared at me blankly when I explained that I didn’t want to go there on exchange. I think it’s a slightly unusual situation in general - I’m a master’s student and we don’t normally do research abroad (my advisor is just a perfectionist:rolleyes:) and PhD students usually rent a normal apartment for a year or so.
Have you contacted anyone at the Bibliothèque nationale? I did a similiar thing as an undergrad in Germany. The institute I was working at had a guesthouse for visiting researchers. I got my own room and bathroom and use of a shared kitchen. Even if the library doesn’t have a similar accommodation (which seems unlikely?) they probably get a number of visiting students and might have suggestions.
If you’re going as a grad student you may want to try Cité Universitaire. Its basically a whole bunch of grad-student/postdoc residences on a beautiful campus about 30 seconds walk from Cité Universitaire RER B and T4 stations that offers short and long term leases for international grad students and postdocs. They may be able to help.
Thanks! Looks promising - and it teaches me to be lazy and switch websites to English. For some reason, there’s no option to register as a master’s student in English, but there is in French (?).
I’d prefer to be somewhere close to the centre of the city, as I’ll just have to spend longer if I spend hours on buses every day. Thanks!