Keep Costs Down While Being a Local “Tourist” in Your Hometown | brokeGIRLrich
This post contains affiliate links for Smart Destinations GoCity cards – which you all know I just used (and, incidentally, paid full price for) in Oahu. All opinions are my own, but if you’re headed out on an adventure soon and decide to pick up a GoCity card, I get a small commission from your sale and you help brokeGIRLrich stay in business! :o)
When I think of city passes, I think of far away, exotic places like Europe or my recent vacation to Hawaii, but city passes can also be awesome for your own backyard.
Say you live in or right outside a major metropolitan area like New York City or Washington DC. The odds are good that you haven’t checked out many tourist spots. While you’re moving in, there’s not much time and after you’ve been in a city like that for a little while, they quickly become spots you always meant to check out but just never seem to get around to it.
A fun weekend adventure could be to put on your tourist hat and spend a day or two hitting the major sites. Maybe you finally do ride the hop on/hop off bus or take one of the scenic cruises.
Part of the reason we all skip the major tourist “traps,” even though they all are pretty cool in their own right, is the cost. As locals, we know how to find entertainment that only costs a fraction of the price of those major sites and is just as authentic and fun.
That’s where GoCity cards come in. You can pick one up for a flat fee and then visit a number of sites in your city. After activating it, you have 30 days to use it, so you can cram everything into one whirlwind tourist weekend or you can hit a spot each weekend for a few weeks.
The GoCity cards are available for a wide variety of cities like Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco and, of course, Oahu.
For example, Go Washington D.C. Card has options like:
- CitySights Monuments Express Hop-On Hop-Off Tour
- International Spy Museum
- National Geographic Museum
- George Washington’s Mount Vernon
- Madame Tussauds Wax Museum
- The Capital Wheel
…and more.
Go New York Card has:
- Top of the Rock Observatory
- Empire State Building
- The Met
- Landmark Cruise: Circle Line Sightseeing
- Yankee Stadium: Classic Tour
…and more.
And the Go San Antonio Card let’s you pick from options like:
- Six Flags Fiesta Texas
- Battle for Texas: The Experience
- Ripley’s Believe It or Not
- Rio San Antonio Cruise
- San Antonio Zoo
- City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Tour
…and more.
While these cards could be an awesome choice next time you go on vacation to one of these spots, they could also make a weekend at home a lot more fun or they could be a great choice to pick up for next time you have company for the weekend (since we all know it’s company that manage to drag us out to the tourist spots anyway).
Great idea! It’s so true that most of us (myself included!) only think of vacation or exploring when its associated to travel. Why not do it close to home when there’s probably so much to open our eyes to. My wife and I called ourselves extended living tourists when we lived in San Francisco. We made an effort every weekend to get out and explore. There were some days where we literally jumped on the bus not knowing where we’d get off.
That’s awesome. I lived in San Francisco for a year, but spent most of that year on ships. During each break I tried to explore the heck out of the place. There’s just so much! I wish it hadn’t been such a crazy expensive place to live.
Mel @ brokeGIRLrich recently posted…Keep Costs Down While Being a Local âTouristâ in Your Hometown
I love this idea! I live in a city with many options, but I get into my routine and forget to take advantage of all it has to offer.
ZJ Thorne recently posted…Preparing to Buy a Place – 1 Year Out
Totally. One of the weirdest and most interesting spring breaks of my life though was doing a “staycation” with my roommate, where we explored all the local historical things in our city. It was kind of awesome.
Mel @ brokeGIRLrich recently posted…The Little Costs of Friendship
Very cool! Something we don’t always think about when sightseeing near to home. I haven’t been in NYC in quite some time…I think I’m overdue for a visit.
Gary @ Super Saving Tips recently posted…Keep Your Cool and Save As the Summer Heats Up
NYC definitely has no shortage of cool stuff to check out!
Mel @ brokeGIRLrich recently posted…Falling Off the Wagon
Oh, man, I’ve now spent most of my life in Pittsburgh and there’s STILL things I haven’t seen yet. Always so cool to find new things in your own backyard.
FF recently posted…Paving Your Way in the Dental Industry
Pittsburgh just seems to be the one spot I never make it to. I’ve heard you guys have an awesome brewery in a church though!
Mel @ brokeGIRLrich recently posted…Financially Savvy Saturdays #152
Great idea! I find I only tend to hit up the tourist spots when friends and family come to visit from out of town. However, I could totally do those things throughout the year.
Liz recently posted…Financially Savvy Saturdays #152
I enjoy knowing where the best spots are to take visiting family and friends and some of that is from checking out spots before they visit. Some spots are totally worth the admission price but others are really just all hype.
Mel @ brokeGIRLrich recently posted…Financially Savvy Saturdays #152
I’d love to do a staycation with hubs where we could do local sightseeing. We both grew up here, but I haven’t seen a lot of the attractions since field trips in 3rd grade. I imagine I’d appreciate them more now!
Pia @ Mama Hustle recently posted…A Season for Momentum
Totally! I went to Ellis Island with my dad not that long ago for the first time since a 4th grade field trip and found it wayyyyy more interesting now.
GoCity cards sounds like a great idea. I wish we had something similar in the UK! I still haven’t seen a lot of the sights in London even though they are really only a few hours away!
Hayley @ Disease Called Debt recently posted…What You Might Not Know About Debt
There is a GoCity card for London! There’s also a company called CityPass that has an even better card for London.