Paris street map should not evoke a picture of you with your face buried in a gigantic cumbersome foldout map you cannot decipher.

Do yourself a big favor if you are looking to navigate the streets and all Paris districts the smart way.

You can do so even better than the locals by getting the pocket guide "Paris Pratique par arrondissement", by Atlas.

Go to this link if you are in fact looking for a map of Paris for some other reason (plandeParis.info is a site that specializes in Paris map details). But otherwise, the "Paris Pratique" guide is definitely what you want.

To tell you how useful it is as a Paris street map, every Paris taxi driver carries one to locate addresses at a glance. Unless you already have the latest smart phone with international GPS capabilities, this guide will be the next best thing for you. It is available in English as well, but don't drive yourself nuts over it because you really do not have to know French for this.

It is very simple and well organized whether you're using a Paris street map to find addresses, metro stations, monuments, markets, key landmarks, etc. It is even color coded to help you do your search quickly.

The guide is broken down by arrondissements (the 20 Paris "districts") notated "arr" and color-coded red.

A few outlying Paris districts, such as La Défense, are displayed in the back section.

The street index gives you the core name of the street first, then it lists the different ways you can look up that name, such as Avenue, Boulevard, Place, Rue (street), Quai (Dock), etc.

Always be sure you have located the correct address with the exact corresponding identifyer, and be mindful of the Arrondissement number (1 to 20), which is different from the second and actual street (building) number.

To illustrate, if you are looking for Place de la Bastille, locate the core name "Bastille" first. Then, sift through the identifyers (in this example, "Place de la" is what you want, not "Rue" Bastille, etc.).

As far as street numbers go, keep in mind streets that are so long, they could straddle more than one arrondissement; So, the street number you are looking for may be on the next page of the guide.

The "nearest metro" station is another indicator by which most Parisians can navigate the city with a Paris street map, even if they're not using the Paris subway. You will see that in the guide as well (in our example, the metro station would be Bastille); All this really is a piece of cake as you thumb through the pages.

Here is the Amazon link for this guide. Feel free to order it in advance, or you can get it cheaper if you simply wait till you get to Paris and buy one at the airport, or any newstand in the city, as well as in train stations, bookstores, etc.

Every visitor who has used it gives it rave reviews, and I'm sure you will be glad you got one. This definitely falls into our site's objective of making your Paris trip as easy and user-friendly as possible.