Scott Barronton (00:00)
If you were planning a trip to Europe, chances are you've seen ads for city passes. They promise big savings, skip the line access, easy sightseeing, and on paper, they look like a no brainer. But are they actually worth it? As we've been planning our own time in London and looking at passes across other European cities, we realized something pretty quickly. The answer isn't simple.
For some travelers, a city pass can save money and make planning easier. For others, it can quietly push you into rushing through a city just to get your money's worth. And that's the opposite of how we like to travel. So today we're breaking down the real cost comparison, city passes versus individual tickets, and sharing how to decide what actually works for your travel style. Because at Sunshine Travelers, it's not about doing more,
It's about traveling more and better.
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We're Scott and Melissa, The Sunshine Travelers.
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Scott Barronton (01:27)
All right, Melissa, let's start with the question we keep asking ourselves while planning this London trip or this broader Europe trip that we're doing is should we just buy the pass and be done with it?
So honestly, at first, it felt like an easy answer. One purchase, everything's included, no thinking required. but also I don't wanna overpay just to make it easier.
So let's start by defining quickly, what a city pass actually is. It's a pass that usually bundles multiple attractions together for a fixed price. Sometimes it has transportation or extras included in it. But it's really getting the top attractions into a single ticket, if you will.
Yeah, and of course when you see the marketing for it, it always shows huge savings numbers. And technically that can be true, but sometimes only if you visit a lot of attractions in a short amount of time. Now, disclaimer, a lot of these do have multiple type passes that you can choose. And we're going to talk about those. Also, we have done cities with these passes, and then we've done cities with
without these passes. So for example, years ago, let's say even back to 2013, we did a London pass, transportation included. And back then I even did a lot of research as to whether we would get our money's worth. Do we wanna do all these things? For example, we've used them in New York City. We've looked at them in other cities. So there are lots of questions as to whether this is something that is a good value for you.
and even more than just value, is it the right fit for your trip? Here's the question we think matters the most is, are you really trying to see everything or are you looking to experience the city that you're going to?
as we mentioned in the last episode, in a couple of episodes, we are taking your dad and your stepmom. And so we asked them, like, what are the main things that you guys want to see? And we wanted to make sure that we create an itinerary that maps out those so that we're not crisscrossing the city, then in a kind of way it makes sense. And do we want to or will we be able to visit three or four attractions?
every day and cause it is a lot of walking and by the end of the day you're exhausted. So how many things can we actually accomplish and like use the pass for? Yeah, exactly. A city pass can unintentionally turn your trip into a checklist and that can be something that actually wears you down and becomes exhaustive rather than being refreshed on your vacation or.
having some relaxation.
All right, so first of all, let's talk about when it does work. it can definitely work really well on shorter you're only in a city for two or three days and you want to hit the major highlights quickly, a pass can absolutely save you money. great example of this is the first time that I had visited London with you and we had the kids with us.
And we're actually having dinner with some friends of ours who we've mentioned, who we had on the podcast, and Erica. And they said, what all have you done? And we're telling them, we went to St. Paul's and we've visited the Royal Mews and of course, been to see Buckingham Palace and been to the Tower of London and all these things. And I think we'd only been there like two days at this point. And there was even more than that. And they were like, my gosh.
And also when you talk to people who are from there and they're like, we haven't never even done all those things. So that can be a great thing. I think that if you do a trip like this and you do all those things and you have kids, they need to be of the age where you can do that efficiently. Little kids, that's going to be very hard to do. Our kids were teenagers by that time.
The second thing I would say is that first time visitors who are looking for some type of structure, like, they're not quite sure what to do. Maybe they haven't come across this podcast. and maybe, you know, someone out there who's like this that they've just said, Oh, we're going to go to London. and they haven't done an ounce of preparation. Then the city pass is probably good for them because it'll tell them some of the different attractions. there's a hundred and I think 18 total.
attractions that are included inside the city pass. or anyone who likes having everything prepaid and they just don't want to worry about it. They want to go up. They want to show their ticket, have them scan it and go in and enjoy the attraction. Those are the type of people that really would benefit from a city pass. Yeah. And I do think Scott, is a great point because it will tell you exactly what's included.
which is usually like the major attractions, like when they're open, if you need reservations and you can typically book them through that and that is good and it does help you budget as well. So now let's talk about when it's better to buy individual tickets instead.
Well, if you don't have a structure that you're looking to follow, and Melissa mentioned that earlier, is going through and listing out all the different attractions that you want to see.
So if you don't have that structure and you're one of those people that you're likely to spend most of your time visiting, free attractions like the portrait gallery or roaming through the markets at Leaden hall or Spitalfields or Borough market, then a city pass wouldn't make sense for you. You should just go ahead and buy the individual tickets at the time of need. you do want to check though, and see if some of those attractions do require.
advanced booking because like Melissa said, some places do require that and they have a timed entry. And so if you haven't done that, you may miss out on getting to see that attraction. even some of the free ones, you now have to go and, pick a time. And so I will say that that was one thing about our trip in London is that we didn't go see the British museum on that trip or some of these other free things because we were like, we want to go see these other things.
having said that, that is going to be something that we're going to talk about in just a second. Like how do you balance those? okay, is this free? Is this paid? So we're going to talk about our framework for that If you only plan to visit one paid attraction a day,
then buying the individual tickets is probably going to be better for you.
Scott Barronton (07:48)
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Scott Barronton (08:33)
Well, here's the framework that Melissa was talking about that we've started using. And honestly, it works for almost any city that has this pass. So it doesn't have to be London, but we're talking about it specifically in terms of London because we're headed there in a couple of weeks.
The first thing we do is that we list out all of the attractions that we truly want to see without looking at what's on the pass or not. And I did this through putting together like a little survey for my parents and said, rate your interest in these activities. And so I listed out all of the activities that I could think of, and then did a little research and put those in there and then had them fill out this form.
which then prioritize for me, what are the things that they actually want to do? And then I went in and took their top wish list and added up the individual ticket prices. And we just made a quick Google sheet for this to make it simple and then compared that to the past price. And so you have to ask yourself if the pace,
that you've looked at. So if you're going to be there for two or three days and you've got 55 things on there, does that sound enjoyable or exhausting? And so that's kind of the framework that we're talking about here that we use. Well, and the other thing I would say about that is, is that even doable? Because if you look at a lot of attractions in London, like they're not going to be open. Like there's no way that you're going be able to do those. And so like
course structure and your itinerary where then, the free things, can you do those at night? But yeah, I mean, that wouldn't even be doable, for example. will go back to what you were talking about where you were saying that we met and had dinner with Mo and Erica and they were like, my God, I can't believe you guys did all of this. So we do have a tendency to over participate sometimes. And it was before we really got into a habit of thinking like this.
And I think that our first city pass that we purchased, even though you said, yeah, we did the research, it was the research of what all these things are more so than like where are they located? How much time do we need to spend in them in those types of things?
And so having said that, if it feels like super rushed or not even doable on paper, it's definitely gonna feel rushed in real life.
So when we looked things that we were going to do the four days, and that's the amount of time that we have to do sightseeing in London with them, when we looked at the pass that we would need for four days, it totaled out to be about 189 pounds per person, which is around $250.
So then we looked up the individual cost of each attraction, if we paid for them at the attraction or booked it ahead of time, or did the tours individually. And so for this trip, it actually came out to be about 250 pounds a person, which is about $340. So for this trip, it really does become a no brainer.
Because then when you look at some of the other things that are included that we may not have paid for, but we may have actually time to like pop in to some of these things. So for example, the Jewel Tower or the Guards Museum, or this then gives us an option to do a hop on hop off bus. An option for a fish and chips meal.
that is included. So whereas we had that on our list, like that's something we would pay for. Obviously, we, a first timer for London wants to go somewhere and get fish and chips. And so that would be included as well. And then also things like the Cutty Sark. We know we're going to go down to Greenwich. So if we have time, but then some of those extras, you can actually just like pop into these places and not feel like you have to spend a bunch of time.
Another example would be like the Horse Guards Museum. Last year we did one where we went up in the Wellington Arch, something we had never done. It doesn't take a lot of time. You may not pay for it if it was a la carte. So if you decide to do it, then it may give you some additional benefits.
Well, let's talk about the biggest mistake that we see people make. And a lot of times when people are buying the pass first and then planning the trip second. And we kind of mentioned that just a while ago is that you're like, Hey, I'm going to London. I'm just going to go and buy this pass. And then when I get there, everything will be taken care of.
Yeah, and then are you really seeing and doing the things that you want to see? for enough time? Did you buy it for too much time? Because these are based on ⁓ per day. Yeah, and then as I mentioned earlier, there's also some options to where you can buy a certain number of attractions, but it only lasts so many days. And then, of course, like you said, as many attractions as you want to see.
in a certain number of days. So that is definitely true. And then for example, if the hop on hop off bus is included, it's not included for the whole time. It's included for one time. For example, too. And I think a lot of those like have that as an option. So making sure that you are like not letting that dictate the trip, I would say. So, yeah, making sure that that itinerary that
list of things that you want to see like this just makes it make sense.
Yeah, I think this is when you start trying to force things into your schedule and that's when everybody starts getting angry around you. Starts getting tired. It's too overwhelming, but you're thinking, gosh, I paid for this city pass and we've got to use it. Yeah. And I think we sort of did this on the trip with the kids. We bought the pass and then started seeing how much of it we could use. And maybe not.
doing a ton of research about some of these So for example, we went to the London Bridge experience, which still exists. Now, I have to say, Scott, like as far as a travel memory, like this one has gotten a ton of mileage. so you're thinking, London Bridge experience, you're going to learn about the London Bridge and all the history and you do at first.
And then it's a full on like very strange haunted house, which our daughter, who is the oldest hated. I mean, like I said, it's been a funny travel story, but we did it. I mean, we would have never paid to do something like that. That was, that was the thing. So are you spending time on those things instead of the things that you really want to see? I don't feel like we missed out on anything on that experience. I honestly don't know how we did so much in that trip, but we did.
Well, it's because we started just fitting things in. do you think she would have learned more about the London Bridge in a museum or through this experience? Definitely through that experience. There are things that we remember about the actual London Bridge and London during that time frame from that experience, I think. The part that wasn't just a full on haunted house. So anyway.
So every time we go down to that area of London and we see that sign, it's just like, my gosh, that, that travel memory. So by the way, I don't think that's included on the go city pass. Okay. Yeah. don't think we're going to do that again. have plenty to do.
So the question was, should you buy a city pass? And our answer is maybe. If your goal is efficiency and hitting a lot of attractions quickly, it can be a great tool. But if you want flexibility, slower travel, and room for surprises, individual tickets might give you more value.
Yeah. And let's just talk real quick about, for example, and I'm not going to say,
that all of these things are still included in these passes. So look carefully at the different attractions. But I wanna say, let's say New York, for example, the time We went up into the Empire State Building. We went and did the tour, like the boat trip where you go out to the Statue of Liberty and to Ellis Island. And some of those things that are like on the first...
time experience, but we bought it for the number of days. We have used it in Miami. Miami was a little bit different, I want to say. We did have kids with us on the trip, little kids. And so we tried to do some things that were like a little bit different. That one we were actually gifted it and it was for a certain number of attractions. So we did something a little bit different. We did the Children's Museum and we took them on
an airboat tour and we did like the duck boat tour. So it's very different things. So I think it really just depends on each city. And I think if you use this framework, the other thing I would ask you, because I know that you built the spreadsheet in this case. We both, I love spreadsheets, but Scott built this one in this case. What tips would you give for like finding the price for each attractions just like quickly?
Actually, you can ask ChatGPT to do that for you. tell it the attractions that you're interested in and tell it to go and pull the list prices for those tours and attractions. Yeah. And now I would also say that these passes have become really easy because they have an app. Everything's in the app. back in the day, you had to have it mailed to you or go to some place and pick up your pass And so
You will want to make sure that you then go through it and say, which ones do we need to make reservations for? As in the case, let's say for London, a couple of the tours that we did in Miami actually had to book ourselves on the duck boat tour or the airboat tour, right? To make sure that there was enough space. And right there in the app, it will tell you how many days in advance you can go do that. So just make sure that you...
pay attention to those things. Things like the view from the Shard or the London Eye as well. Yeah, and what we've done is gone in and just kind of made a note in our calendar of when we can actually do those reservations for each of the attractions that we're interested in. And so we'll just have a reminder to go in then and reserve that through the app.
One thing that I did want to add real quick, and this is just kind of a tip for you, is that when you are making these reservations, it asks you for the pass number. But for whatever reason, they give you two numbers that are very similar inside your pass. So make sure you get the pass number and not the reservation number.
And we've noticed like, for example, we did one with the view from the shards. Sometimes they do have special lines that you go to But they do tell you exact instructions of different things to do as well. And they typically have a chat, that you can go and ask them questions So it's definitely not a cut and dry. Right. I it really just depends on, who you have traveling and
how much time you have and what are the things that you wanna do. So I think you just have to look at each trip individually. we will put links to just the city pass in general and all the cities. then because London is so big, so many people visit, they do have like a special one that's just called London Pass So we do have an affiliate link for that.
⁓
so I will put the links to the one that we have been using in the show notes. And if you're interested in going and checking out those and all the cities that it is available for, that link will be there for you.
If you found this helpful, make sure to follow the podcast and next episode we're talking about something that pairs perfectly with this conversation. The biggest travel mistakes that people make in Europe and how to avoid them. Thanks for traveling with us and remember the world is full of sunshine and surprises. So go and explore beyond the familiar.
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