Friday, November 4, 2016

Being a Tourist in Boston with Go City Card: From Duck Tours to Museums

Traveling can get expensive, that's a fact. Never mind the flight and the hotels, once you get to your destination, it can cost a lot of money to visit the all the attractions you want to see. Thankfully, you can save money with multi-attraction packages like Go City Card from Smart Destinations.

They recently gave A Traveling Life5 Things to Eat, and me a 3-attraction Explorer Pass to try out. It was our chance to do all the touristy Boston stuff that we haven't done!
Our first attraction was the Boston Duck Tour. We got on the tour at the Science Museum.
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The bus goes to Boston Common area and continues on to Back Bay to Copley Square.
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It then heads back to Cambridge and near the Science Museum and enters the Charles River from there. The best part is getting in the water!
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Since the weather was warm that day, we got a good view of the yachts and sailboats on the Charles.
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Continuing with the water theme, right after the Duck Tour, we uber-ed to the Boston Harbor for our Sunset Cruise. The pun-filled tour guide gave us a bit of Boston history and what we are looking at. The view of the Boston skyline and harbor under the setting sun is certainly beautiful.
Sunset Cruise
They also sell wine and beers on board, since drinking while taking in a view like this makes for a great start to the evening.

Now, if I was a tourist I would probably choose the most expensive attractions to make the most of our Explorer Pass, but I had been meaning to check out the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum since many claim that it is the most beautiful museum in the city.

One of the main draws of this museum is not the "art", as you would normally think of it, but its beautiful center courtyard (which is filled with sculptures and carefully curated plants).
Isabella Gardner
The courtyard was indeed gorgeous! On Thursdays, the museum is open a bit later in the evening, and when I was there they were selling champagne. Naturally, I bought a glass and sat at the edge of the courtyard to relax.

A visit to the Gardner museum is more than just the art that is exhibited, but all the details of the building that houses the art, as well. I can see why people rave about this museum, it is definitely worth a visit.
Isabella Gardner

The Explorer Pass can definitely save you money if you plan on hitting at least 3 of the offered attractions. Here's the cost and savings breakdown for how I used it.
Original/retail cost:
Duck Tour: $37.50
Sunset Cruise: $27.95
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: $15

Go Boston Card Explorer Pass with 5 attractions: $69
Savings: $11.45

If I were you, though, and visiting Boston, I would probably have used my third admission for the Museum of Fine Arts, which is more expensive than the Gardner museum at $25 (I didn't do so because I'm actually an MFA member), or the aquarium which is $26.95. In other words, you can definitely maximize your savings if that's what you want to do! Either way, though, if you know you're going to be visiting multiple attractions in one city, the Go City Card is worth considering. Other cities offered include New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, Washington DC, San Francisco, and more.

1 comments:

EricaThomas

So cool! I love doing touristy things in my own city. I normally wait until we have guests in town but I love doing those types of things!

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