Budget Tripping - Not Disney

[zenshome]

I am curious what other Budget Board fans have as ideas for Budget Trips or Trip Planning Ideas. I am aware this is a generic question but that is intentional. I will give you all a couple of ones that we do and see where this goes from here.

1. We buy an Annual Zoo Family membership for $40. This is the same amount it would cost our family to go to the same Zoo for one time but it makes it so we can go to this zoo or 200 others across the US for FREE or half price as many times as we would like. The membership allows us to plan many little trips with little cost and we can do it with little planning.

2. We buy a Annual Science Center Membership for $75 at the Science Center. Again this is the same amount we would pay for ONE visit but it is good across the country for as many visits as we want. Most Science Centers across the country become FREE or half price.

We love Annual Passes!

 

[pixiewings71]

We have an annual pass to Yosemite, for $40 we can go as much as we want until next June, we love to go there for a day and ride our bikes around, it's so gorgeous!!
We also have an annual pass to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, that was more $$ but still very much worth it and fun. We are planning a trip in August and possibly one in September but we will see.

Both of these are day trips for us so they only cost us gas and sometimes food. We've taken picnic stuff with us but sometimes we grab a bite when we get there.

 

[puddleduck]

We had annual passes to the zoo and science museum. Well worth the investment, especially if you plan to travel to different cities throughout the year. We more than got our money's worth out of them.

 

[Tinker'n'Fun]

I am curious what other Budget Board fans have as ideas for Budget Trips or Trip Planning Ideas. I am aware this is a generic question but that is intentional. I will give you all a couple of ones that we do and see where this goes from here.

1. We buy an Annual Zoo Family membership for $40. This is the same amount it would cost our family to go to the same Zoo for one time but it makes it so we can go to this zoo or 200 others across the US for FREE or half price as many times as we would like. The membership allows us to plan many little trips with little cost and we can do it with little planning.

2. We buy a Annual Science Center Membership for $75 at the Science Center. Again this is the same amount we would pay for ONE visit but it is good across the country for as many visits as we want. Most Science Centers across the country become FREE or half price.

We love Annual Passes!

We did the same thing when our kids were younger. They never went to Disney til 2000 when their Uncle paid for the trip. We also have a Six Flags close to us and very inexpensive yearly passes. Since they are older we no longer get the yearly passes.....

Here are some great places we have visited with zoo/science museum vacations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Cleveland, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Erie, Pa

So those are the N.E. one's that we enjoyed. Very inexpensive and we usually try to do one additional thing during the weekend.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

We get Silver Dollar City passes every year. It's only 3.5 hours from our house so we can run up for just the day if we want, but most of the time we stay teh weekend. We are going next Saturday and only staying one night. There is so much to do in Branson too! We are always finding cupons and deals (without doing timeshare presentations)