Travel Cheap and Watch the 2024 Paris Olympics Ceremony for Free

While it might be too early to look for flights, it's the right time to buy tickets for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Some admissions are as cheap as $26, and for the first time ever, the opening and closing ceremony will take place outside a stadium and be free to the public. Here's how to make an affordable vacation to experience the major international multi-sport event.

The 33rd Summer Olympic Games will take place from July 26 to Aug. 11, 2024, and are expected to attract millions of spectators from around the world.

How to catch the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony in person

Olympic opening ceremonies are filled with fanfare, artistic performances, parades featuring all the competing nations, and, of course, the lighting of the Olympic torch. As mentioned, spectators will be able to catch the opening ceremony for free on July 26, 2024. You don't need to be a ticket to the official games to watch the ceremony.

The opening ceremony will be held along the River Seinea, with thousands of athletes on boats cruising along the river. Paris is inviting about 600,000 people to watch along four miles of the upper banks of the riverside for free, with some tickets available for seating on the lower banks, bridges, and other nearby areas. There will also be 80 giant screens around the area showing the whole ceremony.

If you're interested in the lower bank tickets, they are available during a "single tickets sales phase" and only available by a draw, which you can register for here. If you are selected, you can buy up to four tickets for the opening and closing ceremony. You can find more information about the opening and closing ceremonies here.

Where to buy tickets for the games

Tickets for the actual games are already on sale, but it's not too late to get yours. Be mindful that the Paris 2024 ticketing website is the only place where international spectators can buy the tickets. If you buy tickets from any other unauthorized site, they could be cancelled.

Ticket sales for games, like the ceremonies, are determined by a draw. The second phase of the of ticket sales closes on April 20 at 6 p.m. CET, so make sure to enter the draw before then. If you win the draw, you'll be notified by email after May 9 and will be given a 48-hour window to buy tickets for event, as well as paid tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies.

Ticket prices will vary depending on the sport and seating location you choose, but you can find tickets for as low as $26 and as high as $1,000. Since this is the second wave of ticket sales, there's a chance that the most popular events will already be sold out. You can buy a maximum of 30 tickets per account, and a maximum of six tickets per event. Find all the ticketing information here.

Getting to Paris and lodging

Since it's still a bit early for flights, it's better to first buy tickets for Olympic Games you're interested in attending (unless you just want to watch the opening and/or closing ceremonies for free), and plane your plane ticket purchase around those events.

You can start shopping for flights in September 2023, which will be around the time when most airlines will start selling flights for July 2024. It's important to start tracking flights as early as possible to get good prices. We recommend you use Kiwi to buy your international flights.

The most important thing to book will be lodging. Some hotels in Paris are already taking bookings for the summer 2024, but the majority won't open their reservations until about 13 months in advance, according to the New York Times. That means the earliest you can start looking for lodging will be around July 2023, and at that point, you should already know which events you'll be attending, so you can plan your lodging around those dates. Just make sure you don't wait any longer than July to start looking.