Smart Destination travel passes
Smart Destinations offers travel passes for many cities. If you are planning a trip‚ or a staycation‚ this site may be helpful. A person can purchase a pass for many city sites. Most often, a pass can be purchased for one day or multiple days, with the price based on the number of days being purchased. Currently, there are city passes for Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Las Vegas, New York City, San Franscico, Seattle.
I also like that many of the cities have an Explorer Pass options, where a person can select a few specific sites and the pass is good for 30 days. You don’t have to know exactly when you will see the site. Personally, I am thinking I may do this during the winter in Chicago think it will be a way to make sure that I see some of those local sites that I just haven’t gotten around to. But beware! I did the math and the Explorer Pass may not always provide the best savings.
On a whim, I’m going to price out an Explorer Pass for Chicago that I may purchase:
Architectural Boat Tour = $26
The Skydeck (Sears Tower, Willis Tower, whatever!) = adult $14.95
Art Institute of Chicago = $18
Roughly $58 if purchased separately, but $52 with an ‚ÄúExplorer Pass‚Äù. Sigh‚ not the savings I was hoping for, and it appears that some sights would create a better savings than others. (Do your research to make sure you are saving money! Hopefully Thriftista is helping with that research.) But I’m still going to keep it in mind– if I decide to visit these sites anyway, a savings of $6 is still a savings.
A Chicago Card for one day is $65, so if you can do one or two more sights in one day, it may be cheaper to buy a Chicago Card instead of a Chicago Explorer Pass.
