Free entry for children at leading tourist attractions puts Italy and Greece top of the family-friendly league for ‘Sightseeing on a Shoestring’, according to a new survey by Post Office® Travel Services.
Cash-strapped holidaymakers planning summer holiday visits to Italy’s most popular tourist attractions, led by Pompeii and Rome’s Colosseum, will find that ‘kids go free’ - so a family of four can enjoy a sightseeing day out for under £20 (£18.58 for two adults and two children under ten years).
The same goes for Greece, where the Acropolis, Knossos and Mount Olympus are free for under-19s, while Spain also emerges from the Post Office® survey as child-friendly. Most of its heritage attractions are either free or low priced for younger children.
However families should take care to research costs in France more carefully. The Post Office® found that many of the country’s attractions levy charges for children, making a day out much more expensive. A visit to the Eiffel Tower, for example, will set a family of four back £31.58 - a whopping 70 per cent more than a day at Pompeii.
The Post Office® Sightseeing on a Shoestring survey investigated the cost of family days out in 10 leading destinations featured in its recent Holiday Costs Barometer. The best value long haul holiday destinations in that survey - Thailand and South Africa - also proved cheapest for family sightseeing while Turkey was least expensive in Europe. Bangkok’s Grand Palace was the lowest priced of the top tourist attractions, while a cable car trip up Cape Town’s Table Mountain during the summer is great value for families as the normal child price is waived for the South African winter months.Florida’s most popular attraction - Walt Disney World® - was the most expensive in the survey, weighing in at a hefty £148.72 for a family visit to the Magic Kingdom. A cheaper option, the Post Office® found, would be a thrilling ride through the alligator-infested waters of the Everglades - priced at just £36.64, less than one quarter the cost.
Post Office® Travel Services not only looked at the costs of the best known attractions, but also considered cheaper alternatives and found free sights for families on a budget. These include one of France’s top draws, Mont Saint Michel in Normandy, and the Pantheon in Rome, just rated top free attraction in Europe by TripAdvisor site visitors.
Helen Warburton, Post Office® head of travel, said: “The survey shows that it will pay parents planning sightseeing trips to check out costs in advance to find the best deals. We found a wide range of cost-cutting opportunities, which savvy travellers can use to shave money off sightseeing trips. In Greece, for example, we found that the top attractions are completely free on the second Sunday of the month in July and August.”
Looking longer haul, cash-conscious families can get to see the Pyramids, one of the great wonders of the world, by paying for entry to the Giza Plateau compound at a third of the price it costs to enter inside the Great Pyramid.
The Post Office® Sightseeing on a Shoestring survey is available for holidaymakers to view online at postoffice.co.uk/sightseeing.
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