One of our go-to tourist items when visiting a city are city cards/passes.

Generally, they offer dozens of attractions within the city at one low price. The card serves as your ticket, or as the means to get a ticket to attractions. We use the heck out of these cards and end up saving a ton of money.

Not all cities have cards/passes but many of the major cities around the world do. With just a DuckDuckGo search (a search engine like Google, but encrypted and anonymous) we found the Dublin Pass. For a low price, $79 Euro each (the price at the time we bought them) and a 10% off coupon we found, we had access to dozens of Dublin tourist attractions for 3-days. The pass also included 24-hours to use a hop-on-hop-off bus.

Tips for City Cards/Passes

We have used cards in several cities over the years and have learned a few things to best utilize them.

Is the City Card Worth It?

If you’re a leisurely traveler, seeing only a couple of attractions a day, a city card/pass may not be right for you.

Here are a few tips to evaluate if a city card like the Dublin Pass is worth it for you and your family when sightseeing.

Value

The value of these cards are in using them at as many attractions as you can. For example, if you pay $50 for the card and only see two attractions that cost $20 each without the card (at the door cost), you lost $10. However, if you see four attractions that cost $20 each without the card, you’ve saved $30, and so on.

Plan Ahead

It’s a good idea to figure out what attractions you plan on seeing with the card and what the retail, at the door cost is. Remember to be realistic about how much time you’ll spend at each location and how long it’ll take to get from place to place.

Now, compare the retail cost to the cost of the city card/pass. Is it worth it?

The Itinerary is Nearly Done for You

Research on what to see and do is already done for you with city cards and passes like the Dublin Pass.

City cards/passes go out of their way to give you access to the biggest tourist attractions in the city because that’s how they get people to buy them. Plus, there’s a variety of attractions included so you’ll get access to things the whole family will enjoy!

Tip: Keep in mind that the card focuses on attractions that cost money to view or do. So, while the card will get you a pretty comprehensive list of popular things to do,you may still want to do a bit of research on free things to do. We supplement the our city cards with free attractions like architecture, parks, sculptures, hikes, etc.

Transportation is Often Included

Many city cards, like the Dublin Pass, include access to a hop-on- hop-off tour. Use it wisely and it becomes multipurpose in that it works as a tour of the city and also transportation from place to place. This means saving on taxi fare or parking fees!

Tip: Usually the hop-on-hop-off is only good for one day, so use it wisely. Plan out the attractions you want to see using the bus so that you get to see them all in one day.

Make the Most of the Card

If you purchase the card and don’e do a bit of extra planning, you may loose out on some of it’s value.

Plan out the destinations and their order ahead of time for each day you have the card. This way, you can fit in most everything you want to do and not miss a single attraction.

Our Planning Process

Here’s how we plan our sightseeing itinerary when using city cards. We used this process to plan our time exploring Dublin and it worked really well for us.

We open every available attraction in our browser, each in its own tab. Together, we look at each attraction page and decide if it’s something we want to do. We consider the value, the time it will take to do, and the location. We close the tabs with attractions on them that we don’t want to do. We then organize the remaining attractions’ tabs we want to do by priority. Using the provided map, we figure out where all of the attractions we’re doing are located. We note how close they’re to the hop-on-hop-off bus stops. We look up hours of operation and determine if we need to reserve a time or space for any attractions. Using all of the gathered data, we logically plan out our itinerary. Making sure that we pack in as much as we can, but keeping it realistic, so we’re not rushed and not enjoying the venue. We know how far we’re comfortable walking, where the bus will take us and how long we’ll spend at each attraction.

Sightseeing in Dublin