Meet Dionna—visual artist, world traveler, and our newest contributor. This week, she writes us from Paris, with a comprehensive guide to touring without being a tourist.

Dear ITG,

The best part of visiting any new city is finding the places you can go every day—it always makes it feel more like home. Staying right by the Palais-Royal, I found two breakfast-quickie stops— Juice It, with 100% organic juices, açaí bowls, and homemade almond milk cacao shakes; and Café Kitsuné for coffee, a matcha valrhona chocolate loaf, or their pastel ice creams on the go (another possible breakfast solution).

After breakfast, it's hard not to walk down rue Saint-Honoré to browse Colette, Astier de Villatte for incredible black terracotta clay ceramics with a milky glaze that make everything look more appetizing, or cute beauty provisions at the & Other Stories (soon to be available stateside!).

There is no dinner better than the dinner at L’Arpege, where Chef Alain Passard stopped using red meat entirely and does an amazing 3-hour vegetarian tasting menu. Standout dishes were the tomato sushi, tomato soup with celeriac ice cream, and the ratatouille with eggplant caviar and tomato confit. If you can possibly eat any more after that, walk along the Left Bank and try a signature palm size rosé ispahan from Pierre Hermé.

Before the end of my stay, I always make sure to spend time in Le Marais, which has cafés and shops all over— French Trotters for chic goods, the Broken Arm concept store for well-curated clothes, Nanashi for Japanese Bento, Rachel’s for their cheesecake, and the absolutely decadent éclairs at the L’Éclair de Génie.

No matter how long the vacation, it never seems like it's enough time.

XO,

Dionna

Dionna Lee is a photographer and visual artist from Singapore. Follow her on Instagram @tofurier and @studio.oooze.