Every family should strongly consider joining a museum that’s part of the ASTC Passport Program. ASTC stands for the Association of Science and Technology Centers and it covers a ton of museums and science centers across the United States, Canada and beyond! It even covered a zoo in Duluth, Minnesota, the Greensboro Science Center, North Carolina which had a zoo, aquarium and kids museum all in one and the Montreal Science Center in Canada (which had a great dinosaur special exhibit when we visited)!

In 2022, we were visiting Michigan for an extended visit and I found that buying an annual family membership to the Ann Arbor Children’s Museum paid for itself in two visits! And with that membership, we would be allowed to visit any museums beyond 90 miles of this museum and our home address for FREE! Museums within that mileage would be 50% off. This was a no brainer for us and we actually found that many museums did not check our ID, so even when we thought we would pay 50% of the admission price, we often got in for free with our pass!

In November 2022 and November 2023, we bought the Maryland Science Center (Baltimore) Groupon for around $80-90. This gave us a family membership for one year and there’s a long lead time before you have to redeem and start the one year clock. We actually waited until April (6 months later) in both cases to redeem our pass with a Sunday visit to the Maryland Science Center. If you join, which I highly recommend, check out my IG highlight for some more Baltimore ideas.

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If you travel, this is the MUST HAVE pass!

I try to yell from the rooftops about the benefits of this program. From where we live in Silver Spring, I don’t think Baltimore is super convenient because it involves taking I-95! But we make a point of going two times in the year, on a Sunday, avoiding baseball game days. We go on Sundays because we can find free parking and we go twice, because that’s how quickly this pass pays for itself. in 2024, it’s $30/adult and $22/child (ages 3-12). In the DMV, there’s also the Children’s Science Center in Fairfax (inside the mall) that is also part of the ASTC Passport Program. It’s fun to check out downtown Fairfax while in the area too.

When we travel, I always look up all of the covered places using the ASTC Passport website to see the current brochure of places listed by state. In my mind, whether we visit a place for 30 minutes or for hours, it doesn’t matter, because it’s FREE. We have visited museums that would have cost us more than buying the Groupon for the Maryland Science Center. When I tell you it’s worth it, it is 100% worth it.

To give a quick example, when we cruised to Santa Barbara in April 2024, there were three covered places by the pass that we visited in one day. If we had paid for admission separately, we would have paid $148! Below is the breakdown by museum, but remember we paid $0 in Santa Barbara to enter these three places. The main takeaway is that spending $80-$90 for our Maryland Science Center pass in November when it’s on Groupon is a MUST PURCHASE!

• MOXI The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation – This was an incredible kids museum, with a great makerspace. We even got to enjoy a beautiful rooftop view. In 2024, this museum cost $15/kid (3-12 years old) and $20/adult (13+). This would have cost our family (2 adults + 1 child) $55 to visit, but instead it was FREE because it’s more than 90 miles from our condo in Maryland and the Maryland Science Center.
• Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History – We enjoyed seeing the indoor spaces, the huge dinosaurs in the back, the whale skeleton and we happened to be here during the Solar Eclipse so it was amazing to use the huge telescope. They also have an outdoor kids play space and small play room. This would have cost our family $52 to visit ($19/adult and $14/kid ages 2-12), but instead, we showed our Maryland Science Center pass and it was FREE.
• Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (Sea Center) – This was a small aquarium. I loved seeing the octopus and watching an employee pull up items directly from the water. It was also conveniently close to the cruise port. This would have cost our family $41 ($15/adult and $11/kid ages 2-12).

I love this pass and I think you and your family will too. It also makes for a great experience gift! I set a reminder for each November to keep a look out for it! If you subscribe to the Maryland Science Center newsletter, you also get notified. I’ll do my best to share via my newsletter too!

Have you visited an ASTC Passport covered museum? Let me know in the comments.

About the Author

Lydia Garry and her family, TeamTravelsBaby, live in Silver Spring, Maryland, and are working to achieve “vagabond status”. Much of their affordable family travel experiences include U.S. travel, national parks and Europe. Adventure with them here, subscribe to their newsletter and follow along on Instagram!