Last Updated on July 8, 2026 by Adrienne
One of my favorite family travel activities is visiting children’s museums and science museums, and one of the best ways to visit a lot of museums without spending a lot of money is to become a member in the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC)’s Travel Passport Program.
With an annual membership at any ASTC museum, your household will have free access to more than 350 partner institutions, including some biggies like the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and the Museum of Science in Boston. The only catch is that the museums you visit for free must be 90 miles away from both your home and your home institution (if they’re not in the same city) and that parking fees and fees for special exhibits like IMAX may apply.
Since we live in north-central Indiana, this is especially advantageous for us because we’re eligible to visit several Chicago museums (including the Museum of Science and Industry, Notebaert Nature Museum and Adler Planetarium) for free. We love going up to Chicago for the day, visiting one of these wonderful museums and grabbing some deep dish pizza or Stan’s Donuts before heading home.
But even if you don’t have such a great set of museums within easy driving distance, this program is still very worth it for travel. In a year and a half of total membership (with a pause for the pandemic), we’ve visited museums in Madison WI, Louisville, Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, Burlington VT and Phoenix for free.
One of the things I love most about the ASTC Travel Passport is having the freedom to pop into a museum briefly, or to go twice in one trip if my family really enjoys it. At $20+ per ticket, which is what many of these museums charge, we would only go once and stay until we feel we’ve really done the museum justice – which can make for a pretty exhausting day with a toddler. But when admission is free we don’t worry about visiting for a short time or going every day. For example, in Louisville my then almost 2 year old daughter was so taken with the Kentucky Science Center that we went two days in a row.
And on a trip to Woodstock, Vermont this past fall we were able to pop into the ECHO Center in Burlington for just a couple of hours before catching our flight home.
You can read all the details about the ASTC Travel Passport program, including a full list of current member museums, here. I can’t recommend this program enough for families that like to travel within the US and Canada. Our visits to ASTC museums have been a highlight of our family travel and whenever we’re making travel plans, the first thing I do is check out what ASTC museums on or near our route we can visit.
What a great idea if you’re willing to travel a bit. Even when I was a kid, I enjoyed walking around museums.
This is such a great initiative! I love exploring museums, even if I have to travel a little.
Wow, this is such a great deal for families who enjoy interactive learning. This is also a great incentive to explore your surrounding museums. Thanks for sharing.