Our favorite way to save money while traveling is through reciprocal memberships. These are memberships that you buy from one place and can use at many.
Basically you buy an annual membership from a participating museum, zoo, or science center and you can use your membership for free or reduced admission at hundreds of others across the country.
When we first started traveling we bought a membership online to the Montana Natural History Center. This got us an ASTC membership. Our first stop was Seattle Science Center. Our entire family of 7 got in free. The current annual price of the Montana membership is $60. The price we would have paid to get into the science center for 1 day was $140. At our first stop we had already saved money. We got our ACM membership in San Diego, which was one of the more expensive children’s museums, but we were just learning and we still got our money’s worth. Then we found a zoo we wanted to go to and we knew to shop around. We paid for our annual membership online to the Baton Rouge zoo in Louisiana for $59. Then we got into the Living Desert Zoo for an additional $50 which was the half price discount. We paid $109 for the day, but then we could get into other zoos for free or half price for the rest of the year. If we bought our membership from the Living Desert zoo that we were visiting it would have cost us $130 for the year and all other zoos would be half off, none would have been free. So in the one day, we saved money by shopping around and got a better discount for the rest of the year.
We continued learning and the following year when the memberships were up for renewal we bought a membership from Dayton Society of Natural History, also called Boonshoft, for $145 and this membership gave us all three of the reciprocals. This was a great savings. The next year got even better. We heard about a reciprocal to Kern County museum in California. This one offers reciprocal benefits for ASTC, ACM, NARM, and Time Travelers. This membership costs $125, but during the week of Black Friday, they had a sale and it was only $62! For $62 we get free admission for our family of 7, to over 1,800 museums for the entire year. It didn’t include the zoo membership, but we can always get online and buy from Baton Rouge again, or we can do some more research and possibly find another one that will save us more money.
Before traveling we had no idea about these reciprocals. They wouldn’t be much of a benefit if you stay in one place, but they have provided us with a way to go to so many different places and it only costs us the gas to get there. With a large family, things can add up quickly so we are selective about our purchases. This has been one of our best purchases.
There are many different reciprocal memberships and they all work about the same, but each have their own set of rules. Click on each one to go to their website and check out the participating museums, centers and zoos and read about any special rules. You can always search for reciprocal memberships and find even more, but these are some of the most popular.
ASTC- Association of Science-Technology Centers This membership gets you into about 300 science centers and museums for free.
ASTC – Association of Science Technology Centers https://www.astc.org/
NARM- North American Reciprocal Museum
One of the largest reciprocal membership programs in the world with members in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, El Salvador and Mexico! NARM has over 1,000 arts, cultural, and historical institutions along with botanical gardens, children’s museums, science and technology centers. Free admission, discounts at museum shops, discounts on concert/lecture tickets
AZA- Association of Zoos and Aquariums Free or half priced admission into nearly 100 different zoos and aquariums.
AZA – Association of Zoo’s & Aquariums https://www.aza.org/
Time Travelers- Historical Museums
Reciprocal membership network for historical museums, sites, and societies throughout the United States. It includes over 300 organizations in more than 40 states across the country. Members of these organizations can receive a variety of exclusive benefits and privileges, such as free admission, gift shop discounts, and more.
LACMA- Art Museums Free admission to 24 art museums nationwide.
Smithsonian Free admission into more than 50 Smithsonian Affiliate museums and educational organizations.
ACM- Association of Childrens Museums Half price admission to over 200 childrens museums.
ACM – Associations of Children’s Museums https://www.childrensmuseums.org/
Our favorite three favorite reciprocals have been the ASTC, ACM, and AZA. The kids are always excited to go to a zoo. Some are free and some are 50% off. We always go to the free ones is we are nearby and we check the rates if they are half off. Sometimes it’s a good price and other times we’ll use our other memberships instead. We have yet to find a childrens museum we don’t like. The kids could spend days playing at these museums. If you’ve never been to a childrens museum and you have kids, you need to check one out. It is basically a big play area for kids, usually with different themed play areas. They are a blast for kids under 10, but even our older kids love them. Again these are only 50% off, so with a family of 7, the price can still add up. The prices vary greatly so we always check ahead of time. Sometimes we pay just a couple dollars per person and other times we opt out and use one of our free reciprocals. ASTC is our most used reciprocal. We love science centers, they are educational hands on learning and play areas for kids and adults. Admission is free and we definitely get our moneys worth!
