It’s that time of year when we start to take summer vacations. But before you pack your bags, make sure you know where you’ll get your coffee while you’re away. No true caffeine addict can travel across the world without mapping out their watering holes.

I recently took a trip to Paris where good planning allowed me to avoid poor coffee. You’d think that a city with cafés at every corner would have some great ones to choose from. Not so, my friends. Parisian cafés offer plenty of opportunities to people-watch, but they don’t always offer first-rate coffee to go along with it. For a decent cup of joe, you’ll have to do some research. Luckily, before I left, I stumbled upon the website goodcoffeeinparis.com that provides a list of places that serve specialty coffee. The Google Maps feature on this site, which pinpoints speciality coffee shops near you, was a lifesaver. I didn’t get to try all of the great spots on the list, but I managed to get to a few. Below are the standouts.

Strada Café

While wandering around the Latin Quarter during my first day in Paris, I stumbled upon this café’s Rue Monge location. I could feel the jet lag start to dissipate as I took the first sip of my glorious Americano (referred to as café allongé by the French). Strada uses beans roasted by award-winning Parisian roaster L’Arbre à Café. There’s a no-laptop rule during peak hours, so if you wanted to get some work in during your vacation, you’re out of luck.

24 Rue Monge and 94 Rue du Temple

La Caféothèque

The décor in this joint is superb. It looks like a literal library of coffee, and even has a slightly musty smell to go with it. There are huge bags of coffee beans around, and a wall made up almost entirely of drawers that store green coffee from all over the world. There’s plenty of seating but La Caféothèque is popular, so you’ll likely have to wait for a seat if you’re not taking your coffee to-go. My café allongé took forever to arrive but it was worth the wait (and the cab ride). In this case, you really can judge a book by its cover.

52 Rue de l’Hôtel de ville

Café Lomi

My Fodor guide actually recommended Café Lomi for weekend brunch, but I discovered that this spot is also famous for its coffee and that beans are roasted on site. I started with the filtered coffee, which was made using Ethiopia-Hunkute beans, and it was so amazing, I almost wept. I also had the Chemex of the Day, which was made with Rwanda-Jarawa beans. The beans were subtle but complex. After several cups of coffee, I left Café Lomi feeling a little bit over-caffeinated than when I came in but hey, I could use the extra energy for sight-seeing.

3 ter Rue Marcadet

Iman Abokor is an insurance defence lawyer at Lawson LLP and Precedent’s coffee columnist.