The Third Bakery
Food & Drink · Easy · 100 points · 30 min
Walk past two bakeries and buy from the third.
The catch: No chains, and no going back to a bakery you skipped.
Bonus +25: Order entirely in French.
Free travel game
Side Quest
Turn Paris into an adventure.
Tell us where you are. Pick your kind of adventure. We'll give you something unexpected to do. No account. No app. Just go.
Start a side questPlay anywhere · Complete quests · Earn points · Screenshot your wins · Challenge your friends
Step 1
Pick your place
Tell us what city you're exploring.
Step 2
Get your quest
Choose a category or let us surprise you.
Step 3
Complete + share
Finish the challenge, earn points and screenshot your achievement.
Playing Side Quest in Paris
Paris is best played at café pace. These quests lean on counters, markets, staircases and the parts of arrondissements that never make a highlights list.
- Best time to play
- Mid-morning on a market day, or the hour before dinner when the city is walking home.
- Local rule
- Say bonjour before anything else in a shop. Skipping it is the fastest way to a cold reception.
- Honest note
- Standing at the zinc counter costs less than sitting on the terrace, and it is where the regulars are.
Where are you right now?
No location access needed — just tell us the city.
What kind of side quest?
How far do you want to go?
Your side quest score today
0 points
0 all-time
100 points to Explorer
Scores are saved in this browser on this device only. No account, no email, nothing sent anywhere. Clearing your browser data clears your score.
Side quests written for Paris
These challenges only work here. Play them in any order — the game will mix them with quests that work anywhere in France.
One Painting, Twenty Minutes
Museums · Adventure · 200 points · 1 hr
Choose a single painting in a Paris museum and stay with it for twenty minutes.
The catch: You may not look at your phone while you are with it.
Bonus +50: Find out what the artist was doing the year they painted it.
Double Digit Arrondissement
Explore · Bold · 300 points · 2–3 hrs
Spend an afternoon in an arrondissement numbered 11 or higher.
The catch: No crossing back into the first ten arrondissements until you are done.
Bonus +75: Find a bakery, bar or park you would return to.
The Baguette Test
Food & Drink · Quick · 50 points · 20 min
Buy a baguette tradition and eat the end of it before you leave the street.
The catch: You must attempt the French.
Bonus +25: Come back tomorrow and compare a different bakery.
Terrace, Facing Out
Local Culture · Easy · 100 points · 45 min
Sit on a Paris terrace facing the street and do nothing for forty-five minutes.
The catch: Phone stays face down the whole time.
Bonus +25: Write down three things you saw that you would forget.
Covered Passages
Hidden Gems · Easy · 100 points · 1 hr
Find and walk three of Paris's covered passages.
The catch: Three separate passages, no doubling back.
Bonus +50: Find one with its original mosaic floor.
Zinc And Marble
Photo Quest · Quick · 50 points · 30 min
Photograph the details of a Paris café — zinc bar, marble table, chair weave.
The catch: Detail shots only, nothing wide.
Bonus +25: Get the reflection of the street in the mirror behind the bar.
One Painting, Twenty Minutes
Museums · Easy · 100 points · 1 hr
Stand in front of one painting in a Paris museum for twenty full minutes.
The catch: You may not photograph it until the timer ends.
Bonus +50: Find out who painted it only afterwards.
Canal Not River
Outdoors · Easy · 100 points · 1–2 hrs
Spend an evening on the Canal Saint-Martin side of Paris rather than the Seine.
The catch: No Seine, no tour boats.
Bonus +50: Watch a lock cycle all the way through.
Market Picnic
Food & Drink · Easy · 100 points · 1 hr
Build a picnic entirely from a Paris street market and eat it outside.
The catch: No supermarkets involved.
Bonus +50: Ask a stallholder what is best this week.
The Quiet Hill
Local Culture · Adventure · 200 points · 1–2 hrs
Walk a Paris cemetery slowly and find three graves you did not go looking for.
The catch: No searching for the famous ones first.
Bonus +75: Find the oldest date you can.
Only French
Local Culture · Bold · 300 points · 1 hr
Complete one full transaction in French, start to finish.
The catch: No English at any point.
Bonus +75: Do it twice in different places.
One Arrondissement Only
Explore · Adventure · 200 points · 2 hrs
Spend two hours inside a single arrondissement you have never visited.
The catch: You may not cross the boundary.
Bonus +75: Find its market or its main square.
Free Paris View
Hidden Gems · Adventure · 200 points · 1–2 hrs
Find a Paris view without paying to go up anything.
The catch: No paid towers or observation decks.
Bonus +75: Count the zinc roofs before the sun goes.
Cross Paris On Foot
Must-Do · Epic · 500 points · 4 hrs
Walk from one side of central Paris to the other without public transport.
The catch: No metro, no bus, no bike.
Bonus +150: Cross at least four bridges.
Share your Side Quest
Paris Side Quest
Send Paris side quests to whoever you're travelling with. The link opens this city ready to play.
https://buybeforeyoufly.com/side-quest/paris
#BuyBeforeYouFly #SideQuestTravel #ParisSideQuest
What is a travel side quest?
A side quest is a small, self-contained challenge you can complete wherever you happen to be standing. Side Quest is a free browser-based travel game from Buy Before You Fly: you tell it which city you are exploring, choose the kind of adventure you are in the mood for, and it hands you something unexpected to do. Every quest is built from an objective, a constraint that makes it interesting, and an optional bonus — so instead of another list of the same twenty attractions, you get a reason to walk down a different street, order something you cannot pronounce, or look at one painting for twenty minutes.
There is nothing to install and nothing to sign up for. It works on the phone in your pocket, in the gap between a late checkout and an evening flight, or on a full free day in a city you have never visited.
How Side Quest works
- Pick your place. Search for the city you are exploring. No location permission and no precise GPS required.
- Choose a category. Food, museums, landmarks, exploring, photography, culture, outdoors or hidden gems — or let the dice decide.
- Get your quest. Each one comes with a mission, a catch and a bonus objective worth extra points.
- Earn points. Quick quests are worth 50 points and epic ones 500, with bonuses from 25 to 100 on top.
- Screenshot and share. Completing a quest turns it into an achievement card built to fit a phone screenshot.
Side Quest ideas for travelers
Food & Drink
Markets, bakeries, street food and the dish locals order without looking at the menu.
Museums
One room, one object, one story — museum challenges that beat drifting past everything.
Must-Do
The landmark experiences, with a twist that stops them feeling like a checklist.
Explore
Neighbourhood walks, wrong turns on purpose and streets guidebooks skip.
Photo Quest
Small photo missions that train you to notice details other travellers walk past.
Local Culture
Language, music, craft, ritual and everyday life where you happen to be standing.
Outdoors
Parks, water, viewpoints and green detours between the busy bits.
Hidden Gems
The small, quiet, odd and overlooked corners of a city.
Play Side Quest with friends
Side Quest has no accounts, no friend lists and no leaderboards to join — which is exactly what makes it easy to play together. Everyone opens the page on their own phone, plays the same city, and compares screenshots at dinner. Agree on a target before you split up: first to 500 points, most quests completed before sunset, or one epic quest each. Points are kept in your own browser, so the only scoreboard is the one you keep between you.
- 100 — Explorer
- 500 — Wanderer
- 1,000 — Adventurer
- 2,500 — Globetrotter
- 5,000 — Side Quest Legend
Explore more with Buy Before You Fly
Side Quest is free and always will be. When you want the rest of the trip sorted, the same site covers it:
- Destination guides
Country-by-country guides, things to do and short itineraries.
- Airport guides
Arrivals, transport, wi-fi, food and connections for major hubs.
- Travel eSIMs
Mobile data in 200+ destinations, installed before you land.
- Personalized trip plans
A downloadable plan built around your pace, interests and budget.