Great British Heritage Pass

Karen, The only way to know for sure would be to price out all the attractions you are likely to see and determine if their individual admissions are significantly more than the cost of your pass. I suggest "significantly more" because if you miss a site or two, you'll still come out ahead. GBHP has an excellent guidebook and site map. Unfortunately you only get it if you order the pass. Their website, on the other hand, I found frustrating since there was no single list of covered sites that also had descriptions of what they were, and the geographic groupings were very large. You have to skip around a lot to get the whole information. We opted for passes and were glad to have them in Bath/York/London/Edinburgh (2 weeks). First I wrote down all the sites I knew I wanted to see, then went to GBHP website to see how many were covered. Next, I read about the other GBHP sites and added ones that sounded interesting. I'm a bit of a planning junkie, so I made two calculations: one of savings using the pass for only the "must see" stuff and a second one if I managed to see everything including my "interesting" list. The savings made it worth it for us. As I recall, the pass is bad for London (except a few sites like the Globe Theatre?) and better as you head north. We saw excellent "maybe list" sites in York that we would have skipped without the pass, and I recall a number of good places covered in Scotland beyond Edinburgh. It takes some work but I think adding up the costs and comparing the savings is worth the effort. Matt PS Be sure to check out York: one of my favorite places in Britain. (Clifford's Tower, Merchant Adventurers' Hall and Cold War Bunker are all covered by the pass. I saw #1 and #2 despite blah reviews by Rick Steves and I recommend both).

You might want to explore joining the National Trust as you do your planning homework. It's different from the Heritage Pass and has a different list of places. A couple can join the National Trust for 89pounds. It all depends on what you plan on visiting. For us, it was gardens, museums, castles, cathedrals, etc. We did encounter a few places that the Trust card couldn't get us into that I'm sure are on the Heritage Pass. However, as we added up all of the entrance fees and costs, we broke even on the cost of joining the National Trust and it was well worth it.

If you think of the National Trust you may want to look into The Royal Oak Foundation, a US associate of the National Trust, and your (less expensive and you pay in dollars) membership gets you in all National Trust properties. Have a look at .... http://www.royal-oak.org/ -...... - another thing to consider Karen, when will you be travelling? I say this as October has arrived in August in the UK. The best time to see National Trust gardens is certainly summer. - Many Trust properties are staying open longer in the year, but our focus is the gardens, as well as the stately homes.

If you are doing most of your sightseeing out of London, the Heritage Pass is reckoned good value. It includes the National Trust and English Heritage sites as well as their Scottish and Northern Ireland counterparts. This is in addition to private sites eg Blenheim Palace. Here is the 2010 list of properties http://www.visitbritaindirect.com/visa/en-GB/download/GBHP%20Attractions%202010.pdf Edit - and Wales

We certainly enjoyed using our 15 day Heritage Pass on our last trip. There are so many free things to see in London; you don't need to start pass until you get back from Paris. I believe the Heritage pass only works in Northern Ireland...but I might be mistaken. The National Trust pass did not work in Scotland on the previous trip we took so we bought Scotish Pass and English Heritage, which seems to cover the more archeological sites. So I believe the best buy is the Heritage Pass which covers most everything including the "The English Treasure Houses". We would just pick a direction and see what was in the neighborhood. Some serendipity brings an amazing variety. Some of the smaller, less visited places turned out to be the most memorable.

Great responses, thank you so much. Lots of cool information from you all. I'd appreciate any other tidbits that you may have. After leaving London, staying in Bournemouth, then up to Stonehedge, then into Wales at Swansea, Llangollen, then to Nottingham 2 days, York 2 days, South Shields, then back inland to Glasglow 2 days, Fort Augustus 2 dsys and then finish up 2 days in Edinburgh, back to Dublin. I know I am zigzagging across country, but want to see as much as I can. I travel nurse so used to driving up to 500 miles a day to get to next 13 week assignment. Kinda crazy I know!!

Karen: Reccomend you read some of Edward Rutherfurd's books on areas you are visiting. Historical fiction but fills in a lot of actual facts that make a visit more meaningful.

If you are going to Wales consider Tintern Abbey (Wye valley) as you go in, and the town of Chester as you leave. Must see York. In Derby County, we enjoyed walking Dovedale, Chatsworth House. Doone Valley (Lorna Doone) and the moors in the south; Yorkshire Moors.

The pass also puts you to the front of the line, which can be very helpful at places like Stonehenge. When we went there was a huge line and we think we saved ourselves at least an hour's wait.

Hey, Thank you all again for the information. I purchased the 15 day Heritage pass and am thinking of the London pass too. Thanks for the list of the heritage pass coverage. Tried to download it from site, but was no able at this time. Too cool.

The London Pass is regarded as poor value (especially the one with the travelcard as most visitors only need Zones 1 and 2). Most of the sites on the Pass are second tier and you would have to rush around to get your money's worth. They also list sites which are free to see eg the main collections in the Imperial War Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

New post because of the paragraph problem. A guy on Tripadvisor has drawn up a spreadsheet comparing prices using the London Pass with the 2 for I offers. ( http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/attraction-types/2for1london.aspx ) Spreadsheet here https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApAT6ZYPYl1ndFVwOUxpMVl5NHZITHI1NFJyQlBNSHc&hl=en&pli=1#gid=0

You mentioned Ireland. You didn't ask about the OPW card but it was extremely cost effective for our 11 day visit. You can just about cover the cost going through Newgrange, Knowth and Trim Castle which are all just outside Dublin. We really liked Clonmacnoise which isn't in Rick's and Pat's book except for a note that it isn't included. Glendalough is also great. It's worth a good four hours but is worth stopping for just an hour. There are sites all over the Republic of Ireland (not NI) that are covered. The OPW site is easy to navigate and will show you what's available. Their guidebook that comes with buying the card is also very helpful. Most of the sites we went to not on the OPW card were definitely second tier. Even if you're just staying around Dublin there are plenty of sites to get your value out of the OPW.