Lyon: le petit déjeuner

So I have some news, news that probably will not surprise you. I’m heading back to France this December!

On December second I’m heading to Lyon, France for two weeks, and then up to Paris for a quick Christmas trip before landing back in the US on the 23rd. So you guys are always filled in on the end of my trips, when I can confirm everything I’ve done was wonderful. I think this time around I’m going to let you come along for the whole time, from the pre-production to the final edit (are film industry allusions cool?).

So we’re going to start the Lyon series, but we are probably not going to call it that. This is what I know so far: I arrive in Paris on December 3rd. Johnny and I must take a train to Lyon, where we have an Airbnb in Francheville. We start French classes at Lyon Bleu on the 5th of December. I have about two percent of an idea of how we could get to our classes, but I figure I won’t have a definite answer until I am there. To acquire that two percent though, I googled around about the public transport system. They have one of the best systems in France apparently, but the english version of Lyon’s bus system is difficult. I turned to a handy dandy tool: Reddit.

Yeah, okay I get it. Reddit is not your typical travel website, but they have a subreddit (a specific group) for everything. Including Lyon. So I posted about the bus passes. Within a day, I understood the system and my options ten times better. I’ve used reddit to find out whats going on in Marseille, Budapest and Geneva when I was looking for advice from locals. I even use it here in Lexington sometimes, even though the Lexington subreddit is not super exciting (but we gotta keep it in the cards sometimes).

So in my effort to try and figure out cool things for me and Johnny to do outside of our french classes, these are my recent google searches: lyon city guide, lyon cool city guide, cool lyon, hipster lyon, cheap lyon, where do the cool kids hang out in lyon, best coffee shops in lyon, how to make friends in lyon, must see attractions in lyon, lyon for christmas, lyon in december, food in lyon, what is a bouchon, why are they called bouchons, etymology of bouchon, croix rousse lyon, dance clubs in lyon, lyon blogs, lyon vlogs, whats the best cheese to get in lyon

And even with all of those google searches, though they yield some interesting responses, I turned to Reddit again. This time I didn’t make my own desperate post, but read other peoples’. I found ones that had super in depth responses. These people wrote out the Must-See items, included addresses of secret passage ways, and even linked me to a local news website. An absolute score, and for anyone here planning a trip to Lyon right now, pleaseeeee check out Petit Paume. Like, whenever I find things like this I just want to scream because of course there are better things than trip advisor and yelp, but that’s all so many people use!

At this point, I start making a folder on my browser and writing in a notebook all the important details. I try to keep my details arranged in three different areas. I have the general details online–that includes websites of restaurants and a map of the bus system, those type of things. If I find any cool blogs or articles at all I make sure to bookmark it because you never know when you’ll need it. In my phone I keep exact addresses and exact names. Things I could plug into google maps if I needed to, along with the times of all our trains and buses. Then on paper I have a few different categories. We’ve got the important stuff, written numbers, dates, addresses, all in case something happens to both our phones. Then a section of highlights, the “you can’t go to Lyon without…” stuff, a page of coffee shops and a page of restos. They are short now but will grow.

That’s all I’ve done for now. I’m so excited. I’m going to write more updates as I keep planning the trip, hopefully it will help someone find a cool place to go in Lyon, or a cool thing in Lyon will find me! Who knows!

How do you organize for a trip? Do you do it in 10000 places like me, or all in one travel app? Let me know!