If you're planning your first trip to Paris with kids, you already have a long list of things to think about. Plane tickets, hotels, monuments to visit, restaurants to book, and a thousand little details in between. So I wanted to share 5 small apps that genuinely make daily life easier here, especially when you're traveling with children in Paris. None of them are famous, and that's part of why they're useful. They solve very specific Paris problems, the kind you don't see coming until you're in the middle of the 1st arrondissement with a 6-year-old who urgently needs the bathroom (yes, this happens to all of us).

I've tested all 5 of them in real conditions, with my nephew and my niece, walking around the city. Here's what I think.

5 apps on my phone for families travaleing to Paris

1. Toilets Paris

This is probably the most useful app on this list when you're traveling with kids. Toilets Paris is a simple map of every public restroom in the city. With kids, the "I need to go now" moment can derail an entire visit if you don't know where to go. Toilets Paris saves you time, because instead of stopping at a random restaurant or hunting for a McDonald's (which is what most tourists end up doing), you open the app and walk straight to the nearest option. It's free, it's accurate, and it works well!

A small note. A lot of people recommend the app Flush for the same thing. Honestly, I don't love Flush. I find it less pleasant to use and less precise on the actual locations. So if you only download one, take Toilets Paris.

2. L'eau de Paris

This one is a bit different. L'eau de Paris is not an app, it's a website, but you can add it to your phone's home screen and it behaves exactly like an app. On iPhone, open it in Safari, tap "Share", then "Add to Home Screen". On Android with Chrome, same logic.

What it shows: a map of Paris with every free water point in the city. The drinking fountains, of course, but also all the cafés and shops that let you refill your water bottle for free. It's a small thing, but with kids on a hot July day, having water always within reach makes a real difference. And it saves you from buying a 4-euro bottle every 2 hours.

The site is in French by default, but you can use the translate function of your browser (Chrome and Safari both do it automatically in most cases). It's free, it's official, and frankly it's one of those tools that should be much better known!

3. Paris on the spot

I want to be upfront with you. Paris on the spot is the app I built, so consider this a clearly disclosed recommendation, not a neutral review ;) That said, I want to mention it here because it actually solves a few specific problems that come up when you travel with kids.

Inside the app you'll find kid and teen-approved restaurants near the main monuments (no need to scroll through 400 Google reviews to find one that works for children), shops for small kid shopping (or a rainy-day distraction), and a backup plan whenever one of your visits gets cancelled.

The idea is simple. You already have a lot to think about, so the app handles part of that work for you. It costs 1.90 USD, one-time, no subscription, no ads. If it's useful to you, great. If not, the 4 other apps in this article will still help you a lot.

4. Weather Radar

Paris weather is a real headache for visitors, and I'll tell you something as a Parisian myself: even we struggle with it. The weather here can change very fast, especially in spring and fall, and most weather apps are unreliable on a half-day scale.

The native iPhone Weather app? Forget it. I've tested it for years and it's just not accurate for Paris. I don't know why, but please don't rely on it.

The one I trust is Weather Radar (the free version is enough). It’s the most reliable weather app, I'd say it's about 90% accurate, which is the best you can hope for in this city. With this app, you know in the morning if you need to take an umbrella, how many layers to pack for the kids, and whether the afternoon picnic at the Champ-de-Mars is realistic or not. That's a small detail, but when you're managing children's moods and energy through a long day, getting the weather right matters a lot.

5. FlashInvaders

This is the lesser known of this list, so probably the one you've never heard of. Paris is covered in small mosaic art pieces called "Invaders", made by the street artist Invader. There are more than 1,500 of them on buildings across the city. FlashInvaders is the official app. You walk around, spot them, take a photo through the app, and earn points.

Why it's brilliant with kids? Instead of complaining about the long walk between two monuments, they turn into little detectives looking up at every wall. It transforms a 15-minute walk into a treasure hunt. My nephews love it, and so do I!

If you have older kids or teens who prefer Pokemon Go, that also works. Same logic, Pokemons are everywhere in Paris and they love it. Small piece of advice from experience. Set rules before you start. With my nephews, we have a "max X Pokemons per stop, and only when we actually stop somewhere, never while walking or visiting" rule. It keeps the game fun without eating the whole time.

Et voilà! 5 apps, all tested by me with kids in the city. They make the small daily friction lighter so you can focus on what actually matters. Enjoying Paris with your family without spending half the day looking for a bathroom, an umbrella, or something to keep the kids busy between the Eiffel Tower and lunch.

If you find another small app that works well for Paris with kids, I'd love to hear about it!