Looking at the different heritage passes - are they worth it? We are visiting Scotland, wales and England / London with 4 children. We will be visiting some castles and museums.

The Great British Heritage Pass is the most emcompassing of the various passes as it covers England, Scotland and Wales - others may be just for the individual regions. and the English Trust pass does not cover nearly as much as the GBHP.

The GBHP to me is a no-brainer for anyone traveling by car for more than a few days as there are so so many places covered that you will pass by - and then with the pass not be faced with a daunting choice of well do we pay $15 or so each for the adults to see this stately house or ruined castle or heritage site? Point is you will see a lot more such places by having the pass and it does not take very many visits using it to make it pay off.

And you can postpone the decision and simply buy the GBHP at many of the places covered (I had thought the GBHP had to be ordered before hand and that participating places did not sell it directly but was corrected by janisj that this was not correct and that many places sell it on site).

children if young enough probably will get free or greatly reduced admissions so only the adults need buy the pass I believe.

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"are they worth it?"

No idea.

Nor, frankly, has the previous poster as far as you're concerned. Or anyone else but you.

Most museums in Britain are free. So are many castles - though admittedly mainly the castles most people don't find terribly rivetting. And some that charge don't accept the GBHP.

The ONLY way of aswering this question accurately is for YOU to cost how much it would be to visit the PRECISE places you propose visiting. "Some" castles and museums gives no-one any information they can use.

How many days?

How old are the kids?

Where do you want to go?

The Great British Heritage Pass is priced by days, which means you need to visit X places in X days to make it worth your money. It is <b>nearly useless in London</b> because the few places it covers usually have a better discount scheme -- <b>the 2-for-1 program through daysoutguide.co.uk</b> -- and it does not include some of the best attractions (no Tower, no Cabinet War Rooms).

If you're going to bop around castle country in Scotland from the northern highlands to Aberdeenshire and points south, it might be ok because Culloden battlefield, Drum, Crathes, Fraser, Glamis Castles and Scone Palace are all included, BUT Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyrood House, Cawdor Castle (MacBeth's legendary home) and Stirling Castle are not included so you'd have to pay up.

Ultimately, when you purchase a pass of this nature, the pass ends up shaping your itinerary instead of fitting within it. The GBHP exempts so many top attractions from its scope that you would have to spend extra time pittering about secondary and tertiary sites at the expense of more prominent places. Do you really want to skip the British Museum and National Gallery (each of which are free) to use the pass at a lesser exhibit hall that you would otherwise have to pay for out of pocket?

Unless you plan to visit a significant number of places covered by the GBHP and do so within a small time period, I'd skip it.

The GBHP exempts so many top attractions from its scope that you would have to spend extra time pittering about secondary and tertiary sites at the expense of more prominent places.>

could you please name some of those top attractions, outside of London - OP is not asking about London - in reality practically every top sight/site is covered IME - like the Roman Baths in Bath; Stonehenge; Edinburgh Castle; Holyrood Castle; Tintagel Castle - practically every famous castle like Warwick and Stratford shakespeare properties (were covered last i went there not sure bout now) and in York alone I visited several places right in town that without the pass I normally would have skipped due to absurdly high entry fees for a small place - but fascinating places - in one day in York alone I recouped the whole price I paid for the GBHP.

Locals like flanner often don't know didilly IME because they are not like foreign tourists who are agog at every stately house and castle they pass by and 99% or so it seems are covered.

Many posters in the past have raved about having the GBHP simply because they did stop and go in places they would not have and on any motoring trip there are so many, as you can see by the listing in links above.

And the entry fees for places like Stonehenge and Edinburgh Castle are so so steep that just a few of those can make the pass payoff.

Since Her Majesty's Royal Palaces took them off the GBHP scheme a few years ago - Windsor, Kensington, Hampton Court and 50% off the Tower yes in London only it is relatively worthless, covering things like St Paul's Cathedral and several lesser sights - museums in Britain are often free but so few museums attract tourists outside of London this is not a factor.

On the surface the pass looks expensive. Very expensive.

However, the only way that you can calculate value for money is to plan where you want to go work out the admission fees and then compare the costs of the memberships.

The main options will be

1. Pay on entry for each site
2. Membership of NT (England)
3. Membership of NT (Scotland)
4. Membership of English Heritage

The choice will be dependant on the sites you intend to visit and how many times that you intend to visit the Uk in one year.

NT Scotland allows you access to all the English sites and is about £60 for a family annual membership. It is cheaper than the English membership.and so don't join the English NT.

Is it worth it for us?

In two weekends we had payback on our membership. It will probably save us £400 this year, indeed many visits will be short "hellos" which we wouldn't have paid for on the door without the membership card.

Is it not correct that the Trust, like English Trust passes cover only Trust properties but the GBHP covers much more than the Trust Passes do - like lots more privately owned stately houses, estates, etc.

Trust pass is more limited, I believe, than the GBHP.

and about those 'hellos' poster above mentions - you never know until inside whether it will be really interesting or not - and the pass lets you in the door to find out without paying the usual $10-15 entry fee even for lesser houses, castles, etc.

And i should have added to above that I believe GBHP covers all Trust properties - like John Lennon's mum's house in suburban Liverpool, etc.

We live in the U.K., so are not eligible for the GBHP. However, we are members of both the National Trust and English Heritage.

The advantage for us is that, once having paid our annual subscription, all visits to sites are free. If we are travelling and want to stop for a meal en route, then we will look out for a National Trust property and use the restaurant there. We also make return visits to properties which we would not consider visiting a second time if we had to put full whack. This gives us the opportunity to see places at different times of year.

We did London, Edinburgh, and the Scottish Highlands in 2007. Had two adults and one child, which enabled us to use the GBHP family pass (doesn't look like they offer that anymore), at a very substantial savings to what it would have cost us had we paid individual admissions. Whether it is worth it to you depends upon where you are going. As a general rule, it's not much help in London, but more worthwhile if you are going elsewhere. In the end, however, it's a simple math problem--crunch the numbers and answer your own question.

Palenq, do you not read before you post?

I didn't see Stirling, Edinburgh, Holyrood or Cawdor as covered AS I SAID IN MY EARLIER POST. Just checked the GBHP website a second time, under the region labeled "Scotland" (seemed appropriate, somehow) and AGAIN, those four (and the Clava Cairns) are not on the list.

Considering that I've checked their website TWICE today and neither time did Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyrood House, the Clava Cairns, Stirling Castle, and Cawdor Castle come up as covered by the pass, I'm guessing your info is out of date, wrong, or made up.

I like castles a lot and there are a lot of good Scottish castles covered by the Pass -- Blair, Fraser, Drum, Balmoral (if HRM is not in residence), Scone Palace and others. And there are a lot of great English castles and other properties (Chartwell and Deal, Dover, Hever, Leeds Castles).

That said, you can get a National Trust of Scotland membership as an American for $100 for a <b>family</b>, which also gives you free entry to England's National Trust properties (and others in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) and which costs about the same for a family than an adult 7-day GBHP pass costs for one person (69 GBP).

Google National Trust Scotland USA

The biggest advantage to the GBHP is it covers a LOT of the privately owned properties -- which tend to have the highest entrance charges. Places like Blenheim, Chatsworth, Castle Howard, Alnwick, Warwick, Beaulieu and many more. So if these sorts of places are in the plans, the GBHP will probably save you 4 - 5 times it's cost. If you mainly plan os seeing places like ruined castles/Hadrian's Wall, National Trust properties, etc -- then you'll still save but not as much.

You need to figure out what you want to see - then you'll know which pass is best value for money. Generally though -- outside of London, if you fit in 2-4 sites a day you will save a LOT w/ the GBHP.

Considering that I've checked their website TWICE today and neither time did Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyrood House, the Clava Cairns, Stirling Castle, and Cawdor Castle come up as covered by the pass, I'm guessing your info is out of date, wrong, or made up>

then my apologies - I visited Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood and Stirling with my GBHP but that was a few years ago and they seem to have been removed - I will have to relook over the pass then. Again my apologies.

The ONLY way of aswering this question accurately is for YOU to cost how much it would be to visit the PRECISE places you propose visiting.>

flanner, as often the case, has missed the point - you will on a motor trip pass by many places covered by GBHP that were not on your 'precise' laundry list - places you may not even have known about until you got the map with your GBHP.

Well some folks may have a laundry list that says 10:30am visit xxxx castle and 2:30pm this stately house but the typical tourist is a bit more impromptu and spontaneous - again something locals like flanner who do not take long motoring trips around Britain will fail to understand. The best advice on Fodors about travel in Britain comes IMO often from Americans like janisj and not locals who have a lot different idea of what touring is all about - like here if I am driving somewhere yes I have a distinct list of what things I will stop at - but a foreign tourist here would be much more clueless and spontaneous.

OK, P'Q. You made me run back to the gbhp site yesterday thinking I'd misread it, I hadn't.

Blenheim was on the gbhp pass, fyi. As I recall, a LOT of Scottish castles are NTS sites. Scotland does a GREAT job with National Trust work -- it has about 128 National Trust properties, England has 300 despite its larger physical size and 10+ times the population.

Don't disregard the free museums and other sites along your route, some of them are gems and worth a side trip if simply to stretch your legs.

For example, in my old stamping ground is a hidden gem called Bolling Hall that even locals overlook.
http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/venue...hall/index.php

BTW, if any of your family is a Monty Python fan you'll recognise Cartwright Hall from one of their musical sketches

Check out this website for a list by region - it also has money saving vouchers for food, entertainment etc that could be useful to you.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/dea...-art-galleries

Cawdor isn't - and never has been covered by the GBHP. Nearby Brodie is. Clava Cairns has free entrance so doesn't apply.

Stirling/Edinburgh castles and Holyrood Palace were eliminated a year or so ago.

Eliminated along the the Royal Castles in London - Queen I guess thinks she weren't getting enough from GBHP so took properties out of scheme - in London at least decimating for the average tourist the value of the pass.

Janisj - are you sure about Stirling/Edinburgh and Holyrood being dropped by GBHP? I seem to remember that we used our GBHP at all 3 this past May. In any case, we more than got our value from this pass and appreciated that it we used it at many places that we had not thought of or perhaps would have otherwise skipped to our detriment.