How An Annual Membership Helps A Holiday
Travelling and holidays can get expensive, with most visitor attractions charging an entry fee. Often when you buy a ticket, the price makes you wonder whether you'd be better off with an annual membership instead.
We've picked The National Trust and English Heritage for this post, as both have properties and sites spread across the whole of the UK. Membership of one of these could give you more places to visit during a holiday, without worrying about the cost building up on every visit.
The National Trust
The National Trust has over 200 properties throughout the UK — mainly country homes with historic significance, usually with beautiful gardens and a good tea room too. Many contain artworks, furniture and other pieces on display. The Trust also owns many parklands, parts of national parks, and coastal paths. Highlights include Stourhead, Wakehurst Place, Polesden Lacey and the Giant's Causeway, though some of our own favourites are the smaller local properties that give a real insight into a piece of history.
An annual membership at the National Trust cost, at the time of writing:
- Individual — £60
- Joint (2 Adults) — £99
- Family (2 Adults) — £104
- Family (1 Adult) — £65
- Young Person (13–25) — £30
- Child (5–12) — £30
As an example, an individual visit to Stourhead cost £15.20 at the time — different properties vary in price, but as a rough guide you'd need to visit around 7 properties in a year to make membership worthwhile.
English Heritage
When you think English Heritage, you think castles. English Heritage looks after over 400 of England's historic buildings, monuments and sites, including Stonehenge, Hadrian's Wall, Battle Abbey, Dover Castle and Tintagel Castle.
An annual membership with English Heritage cost, at the time of writing:
- Individual — £50
- Joint (2 Adults) — £88
- Senior (60+) — £41
- Joint Senior (60+) — £63
- Family (2 Adults) — £88
- Family (1 Adult) — £50
- Adult & Senior — £74
- Student — £41
As you'd expect, there are significant differences in price between locations — Dover Castle cost £19.80 for an individual at the time, so it would only take 3 visits to be worthwhile, though many properties are much less.
What are your favourite memberships?
Do you have a membership card you pull out each time you go camping or travelling, or one place you keep going back to? Let us know.