I attended the Olympics as a regular person. Here's what the surprisingly easy and cheap experience was like. (2024)

• Paris is hosting the Summer Olympics, and we attended one of the events in Marseille.
• Marseille has one of the stadiums hosting Olympic matches, and getting there by train wasn't bad.
• This story is part of "Road to Paris," a series chronicling athletes' and spectators' experiences at the Olympic Games.

Paris is hosting this year's Summer Olympics — but that's not where we kicked off the Games.

My husband and I got tickets for Olympic events while we were living in the United States in May 2023. We were working on our visas but weren't sure we'd be living in France by the time the Games rolled around.

We woke up in the middle of the night to queue up for tickets with other hopefuls around the world. Honestly, getting them wasn't that challenging.

Tickets weren't very expensive, either, unless you were looking to watch the much-anticipated women's gymnastics or men's basketball finals — those were over 300 euros a pop by the time I'd made it through the queue.

For most events I looked at, tickets started as low as 25 euros and were plentiful. I got us tickets to table tennis, golf, swimming, and athletics. A pair of tickets for all four events cost around 520 euros, or about $571 total.

A few months later, we were living just outside Paris, and the Games were quickly approaching.

With eight weeks until the Opening Ceremony, I looked to see which tickets were left. Soccer (or football) tickets were cheap and plentiful, thanks to the size of the hosting stadiums — and they were within our budget, at around 65 euros apiece for midlevel seats.

One men's soccer match in particular caught my eye: The US (our home country) versus France (our adopted country).

The match actually took place outside of Paris

The match felt even more special because it was the US men's soccer team's first appearance since 2008, and it was in our new home country, so we bought tickets.

But the game was actually in Marseille, about a 3 ½ hour train ride from Paris. It turns out that most of the stadiums hosting Olympic football matches this year are not in Paris at all.

We didn't think our first event would take us so far from the host city, but it was a minor wrinkle since France has a lot of trains that are relatively inexpensive — about 85 euros round trip — even with short notice.

To get to the stadium, we traveled from our home in the Paris suburbs on a regional train to connect to our high-speed train for the journey south.

Public transit to and from the stadium was easy to navigate and efficient, despite the crowds.

The stations we passed through also seemed well-staffed with workers answering visitors' questions.

The vibes outside the stadium were great

Our tickets suggested we arrive more than two hours before the game started, but we got to the stadium with about an hour to spare without incident.

Outside the stadium, we indulged in refreshments and enjoyed the jovial atmosphere.

We chatted with other Americans in town for the Games, including a Midwestern family following the US soccer teams around the French Riviera.

The Americans were the lovable underdogs in the bunch, so there was some gentle ribbing throughout the afternoon.

We heard things like "We'll win, I think!" and "Best of luck to you, but not too much!" as we wandered the snack stands outside the stadium, wearing our coordinating headbands.

Overall, we had an awesome experience

Getting inside the Marseille Stadium, or the Stade Vélodrome, was simple.

The stadium had a notable security presence, and getting to our seats was an orderly process. Arena staff showed patrons the way with giant foam fingers and megaphones.

Once at our seats, which were about midway up the stadium, we got the full French pregame treatment.

We heard booing and some French fans singing a song about lighting up your enemies, but no one heckled us.

As the clock wound down, the French were up 3-0. (The Americans held their own, mostly, for the first half.)

After the game, leaving the stadium was just as orderly.

We thought we'd have a challenging time getting back because so many people were waiting for the Marseille Metro, but staff was on hand to manage the crowds and only let in a certain number of people at a time.

Traveling around the city during the Olympics wasn't as hectic as we'd worried. Within a half hour, we were back at our hotel, joking about how we got to see three Olympic goals.