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Hey!

Would be nice to make a collection of offers that can be well combined with an Interrail pass (leisure passes, museumpasses etc.). I am going to start with some interesting offers:

  • Swiss Museum Pass, valid for one year, unlimited visits of museums and some castles (500+ attractions) for 166 CHF per year. If you have a Halffare-Card or GA even cheaper
  • Dutch Museum Pass, valid for one year, when buying a preliminary one (direct in the museum) you can only visit 5 museums at once. Only after you get the plastic card you can visit unlimited one. Price 64,9 Euro + some administration fee for delivery (around 3 euro). They also deliver abroad. Buying online beforehand is only possible with a Dutch bank account. Around 400 museums can be visited for free after purchase.
  • museumPASSmusées (Belgium): Price 59 euro, order online. Only available with address in Belgium, so you need to know someone in Belgium to whom you can send it. 200+ museums
  • Museum-Pass-Musées (Switzerland, France, Germany): this pass covers almost 350 museums and castles in the triborder region. Price 112 euro
  • Niederösterreich Card: Leisure card for Lower Austria and some attractions in Vienna and other neighbouring federal states in Austria (overall 300+ attractions - museums, cablecars, thermal baths, ….) for only 63 euro for 1 year (valid always April->March)
  • Ticino ticket: if you stay overnight in the Swiss canton Ticino, you usually get a Ticino ticket which gives you free access to the whole public transport in the whole canton. You also get reduced entrance to many attractions
  • Saastal Card: if you stay in the Saastal in Switzerland you also get already after one overnight stay a Saastal card (if you pay the tourist tax of 7CHF). It gives you free access to most cablecars in the region and also for public transport! So a pretty good deal :)

That’s it for now. I usually combine this offers with my Interrail trips as it helps to save money on attractions and you visit some stuff that you otherwise probably would not and get positively surprised.

Feel free to add more interesting offers - would be nice to have a good overview of such kind of offers in whole Europe.

Remark: Prices of the different cards might change → so don’t count on the prices written above.

Sorry, but I think there are already enough general touristy sites/fora that list these, and a side-effect is that such listings on www never seem to die and after many years of the offer being ended people still ask about old offers.

Also; f.e. this dutch pass is not that easy at all now to get-you need to make a permanent subscription and for that need to have a dutch IBAN (well, buy EU-law they needto accept any EU-IBAN and hence make that as hard as possible) and then cancel before x time before the 1st year ends. I know as I had to cancel that for my sister who died some time ago.

What i would rather suggest is more rail-related:

  1. spot all the errors/omissions/faults in the Inter/EU-rail site!
  2. list alternative offers from railways that may give better value as Iner/EU-rail
  3. in fact most touristy areas/towns in CH and AT-and also quite a few in DE-do offer some kind of free or very cheap local (name town) card that may give free or reduced admission to musea/attractions/local transportation etc. IF not-nearly all towns in these german speaking countries have their own www as (name town).de/ch and these usually give all the needed info on that.
  4. The usual 1st time IR-pass traveller seems to me not interested in stuffy musea etc at all-they skip off a list of capital cities to visit-preferably with a direct train in between and rather taste local beers/wines or meet like minded travellers in hoStels etc. This is a prejudice, I know.

Thanks for your feedback!
Well, it shouldn’t be a travelblog list which is mostly just showing the cards/passes they got sponsored but a list of passes which are maybe unknown to some fellow travelers (I hope also to find some new inspirations through this thread). So main reason for the list/thread is inspiration for new trips.

About Dutch museum pass: Your info is not true anymore… might have been some time ago, but now it is easy again for foreigners to get it… (direct in the museum) Only limitation as written was that the preliminary one is good only for 5 museum visits and then you have to wait 5-10 working days until you get the permanent museum pass. No need for Dutch IBAN etc. I just bought one in mid of September this year and have no Dutch IBAN.

About your suggestions:

  1. that’s gonna be a never ending story
  2. don’t think that Interrail’s gonna like that
  3. It is true that most German/Austrian/Swiss tourist offer something like that, BUT: some are very limited (e.g. in Interlaken you can only use the local buses), some are given only after a few nights stay etc.
    That’s why I wanted to make a list of passes/cards which are really good value (like the Ticino ticket, Saastal card etc. but also like Swiss museum pass (as with entrance fees of around 15-20 CHF it easily pays off if you are traveling frequently with Interrail to Switzerland).
  4. This might be true, but there are still some people who want to see more of a country than only its capital and the main tourist hotspots

Great initiative MartinM! :smiley: I'm sure it will come in handy for a lot of travelers planning their trip through Europe. Just as suggestion, you could also mention where it can be purchased and the link of the website, perhaps. Looking forward to see your list grow and tips from other travelers to be added. Cheers, 


The first thing that came to my mind were the following offers:

  • schloesserlandCARD: You can get a card for 10 days (24€) or for 1 year (48€), families will get a discount. It allows you to get into some of the most beautiful castles and exhibitions of Saxony, Germany including the amazing Dresden Xperience. 
  • The Pass Nantes: This one has different options (24h, 42h, 72h or 7 days). It allows you to use public transport for free, you’ll get free/reduced entry to museum castles, etc. and offers for restaurants in Nantes, France and the surrounding area.

(I’ll add more if I have a good tip)


Heritage Card in Ireland: https://heritageireland.ie/visit/heritage-card/

 

especially interesting for students as they pay only 10€ for one year, so it pays off with max. 2 visited sites. Includes Dublin castle, Kilkenny castle, Rock of Cashel, Cahir Castle, Trim Castle and so on… definitely worth it if you are a student and interested in historic sites. 


From South Tyrol I can add the offers of südtirolmobil:

- mobilcard (1, 3, 7 days) from 20€

- museumobil card (3 or 7 days) with public transport and 80 museums

- euregio 2 plus (1 day) with public transport in Tyrol, South Tyrol and Trentino

- day cards for the bus between Mals and Zernez and Engadin from 11€

https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/tickets/holidays-and-recreation


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