My Trick for Paris Metro Tickets [en]

If you’re traveling to Paris, you probably have to deal with those pesky metro tickets. Here’s what I do to stay sane.

• I buy 10 tickets at a time. They’ll still work next time I come if I don’t use them all.
• I hold them together with a paper-clip.

I store my current metro ticket on top of the stack with the same paper-clip. No drama if I bump into a ticket check, because I know where to find it.

This means that each time I go through the ticket doors, I:

1. take the stack of tickets out of my bag (!)
2. remove the ticket from the last trip and throw it in a bin (or in my pocket so I’m ready for the next bin
3. take a new ticket from the stack and use it to go through the door
4. immediately place that new-used-ticket on the stack with the others, and back in my bag

You can identify a used ticket because it has something printed on it (often illegible, but still). With this technique finding my “last used one” is easy, as it’s either the top or the bottom one. And I avoid the drama of stray tickets in my bag or pockets, used or not.