One of my goals when we travel to new places is to visit as many places as we can while keeping it budget-friendly! Because we homeschool on the road as well, we love when our visit turns into a field trip and therefore a school day -bonus! Extra bonus: we can do so many of these things for FREE thanks to our ASTC Pass!
WHAT IS THE ASTC PASSPORT PROGRAM?:
The Association of Science and Technology Centers is a collection of museums and other science and technology centers that offer discounted or free admission to those who have passes to participating centers.
For example, we buy an annual pass (we’ll call it our “hometown pass”) to the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, AL every year and we visit 3 to 4 times per year. Our pass costs about $120 and is good for one year. Since it would cost $66 for our family of five to visit once, it more than pays for itself in two visits, a good deal by itself. Because McWane is an ASTC participant, our pass also gains us FREE or discounted admission to 350 other centers and museums – not just in the U.S. but in 50 countries!
HOW TO USE THE ASTC PASSPORT:
Find a participating center HERE. You will want to find one near you to make sure you can use your pass as much as possible. **However, one program rule is that you cannot use your pass for entry to any other museums/centers within 90 miles of the center you purchased your pass for. **
If you plan to visit a city with an ASTC Passport museum/center, I recommend printing out a list of centers and what they offer. Make sure to read the rules of each center you plan to visit. Many centers offer FREE admission while others offer discounted admission (usually 50%). Some may specify a certain number of people allowed (it may be different than what your “hometown pass” allows).
Make sure to bring your ASTC “hometown pass” and your ID! Many centers will check to make sure your name matches the family name on the pass and that you aren’t within 90 miles of your “hometown” museum/center.
BONUS!:
Pass bonuses! Besides admission, many centers include a discount at their gift shops and/or cafés. The participant list will include these details as well!
Homeschool Bonus! We can count days at these amazing places as field trips! We keep a field trip log to document the experience and field trip journals so we never forget what we learned!
WHERE TO USE YOUR ASTC PASSPORT:
Like I said, you can use the Passport at 350 different locations! Almost everywhere we travel to, a participating center/museum is close by! Our ASTC Pass has turned many trips into amazing experiences! Visiting most of these museums and centers would never be possible for our budget-friendly trips without our ASTC Passport! In Chicago alone we “saved” $450 in one trip by using our pass!
We’ve used our pass in many different cities across the U.S. and plan to use them on every trip possible! Because admission is FREE or greatly discounted to many of the participating museums, we can go back several times during our trip! Most of the museums/centers we have visited take at least two days to see everything!
Keep in mind, no two museums are alike! We learn so much at each one! From animals, weather, dinosaurs, space, chemistry labs, live veterinary procedures, to giant outdoor tree house structures and so many other fun and unique learning opportunities!
See below some of the places we’ve visited for FREE or discounted:
MCWANE SCIENCE CENTER
BIRMINGHAM, AL (OUR "HOMETOWN PASS")
Science Center of Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Imagination Station Science and History Museum
Wilson, nc
Museum of Life and Science
Durham, NC
Sidenote: If I had to pick ONE “museum” to have an annual pass for, it would be THIS one! So much to do indoors AND outdoors!
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
Raleigh, nc
La Brea Tar Pits
Los Angeles, CA
Field Museum
Chicago, IL
Adler Planetarium
Chicago, IL
Museum of Science and Industry
Chicago, IL
These FREE experiences in Chicago make up most of our time when we are there, which makes for a very BUDGET-FRIENDLY trip! If you’d like to see what else we love about Chicago, check out this post!
We would love to hear about your experience at an ASTC center/museum and the ways you are using your ASTC Passport!
Very informative! Thanks!
Thanks for reading Stephen!