So, Schafer bit the bullet and bought her tickets on an unofficial, third-party website. It cost her two to three times as much as the official Vatican site.
When she was faced with a similar problem with the Colosseum, she decided it would be best to just forgo the historic attraction altogether. “I just honestly wasn’t willing to spend more money,” the 21-year-old student from Miami said. “It starts to add up very quickly.”
Schafer’s experience reflects a growing problem for travelers in Europe, where efforts to better manage mass tourism and massive crowds have meant that travelers need to buy a ticket to do most anything in travel hot spots. The result is a tourism ecosystem that renders spontaneity difficult for travelers who still want to make the most of cities without planning every hour of their vacation far in advance.
Popular attractions sell out almost as soon as they go on sale, opening the door for third-party companies who buy large amounts of tickets ahead of time to sell them back to travelers at a higher price.
Alessandro Onorato, a tourism councilor for Rome, called the practice “a scourge.” In an email interview, he said that these companies, often based outside of where they’re selling, can use “ultra-sophisticated programs that manage to buy … monument tickets within minutes of when they go on sale and then put them back on sale at prices three or several times higher, creating a distortion of the market and damaging tourists and companies that operate legally.”
Here’s what to know about navigating ticket-buying.
How to avoid being priced out of your bucket-list sites
The best step to take is to buy tickets to must-see attractions as soon as possible, when possible, even if that means booking months in advance.
“We’re always trying to book at least four months in advance, six months, maybe even seven months at best,” said Ryan Villa, owner and operations manager at All Travel Guru, an agency that specializes in European travel. “Typically, any clients that come to us within 30 days, we advise them that there could be some issues [securing tickets].”
Especially for high-profile attractions, like the Louvre in Paris or the Vatican Museums, experts recommend booking as far in advance as possible. Often, that means researching ahead of time when tickets for each attraction go on sale.
Colosseum tickets on the official site, for example, go on sale 30 days in advance. That means travelers who want to go visit without paying extra for a third-party tour or price-gauged ticket should schedule an alarm for exactly one month before their desired visit date and time.
How to spot an unauthorized third-party vendor
Even if tickets for a given attraction aren’t sold out, unauthorized third-party vendors will use official-looking websites to sell upcharged tickets to travelers.
When making reservations, travelers should pay close attention to where they’re buying their tickets from, according to Andrea Giordani, a representative at Florence’s tourism promotion office. Often, third-party websites will use misleading language in an effort to appear more official than they are, meaning that travelers should be extra careful when determining whether a website is the correct one.
Checking website details like the top-level domain name (“.com” versus “.fr” in France, or “.it” in Italy) can be a good way to weed out impostors, though not a perfect science. As can checking the city’s official government or tourism board website, as they often offer direct links to popular attractions.
The same goes when buying “city passes” or “city cards,” which promise travelers the city’s best offerings for a bulk price. While many big cities have their own official passes for travelers to buy — which can be a convenient way to bundle costs for transit, museums and other attractions — those run by third-party companies can be more expensive than just buying tickets to individual attractions.
There are plenty of unofficial passes floating around. A quick Google search for “Barcelona Pass,” for example, brings up dozens of options. Only one, Barcelona Card, is official. The result is travelers buying passes from unauthorized retailers that are too expensive and rely on potentially predatory practices. Instead, travelers should use official city tourism websites as a resource.
While buying from a third-party vendor won’t necessarily be an inherently negative experience, it’s important to know the difference between the real deal and an independent company.
How to find a good third-party vendor
Even if you try to book your high-priority attractions as soon as possible, there’s still a possibility that tickets will be sold out. This is especially true for trips planned on tighter timelines.
In these cases, Villa recommends seeking out a reputable tour company, as even the most reputable providers will buy out blocks of tickets to service their tours. “You’re gonna have to spend a little bit more for the guide, but you’re getting the guide and entry,” Villa said. The deal can be worth it “if it’s an attraction you really wanna see.”
“When it comes to scams, they’re getting trickier and trickier,” Villa said. That means that when finding a reputable tour provider, research is key. In these cases, Tripadvisor posts, Trustpilot scores and Google reviews can all be invaluable sources of information. “If they don’t have any sort of review trail or anything written about them, I would advise against using a particular guide,” Villa said.
While websites like Viator or GetYourGuide provide aggregated search results (they are not tour operators), which can be hit or miss, Villa recommended Context Travel, Project Expedition or Tours by Locals as more reliable sources of information: “These sites vet all of their guides and everything, so you can be pretty trustworthy with them.”
How to approach timed tickets
A majority of uber-popular attractions have shifted to only selling timed tickets that require travelers to plan out each day of their vacation long before they touch down. At the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, for example, the most basic tickets (which go for 26 euros) are available at 15-minute intervals from 9 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. on most days.
When purchasing these tickets, it can help to think realistically about what’s possible in a given trip itinerary. “Don’t be overambitious,” Villa recommended. “When it comes to time slots, understand you’ll be competing with traffic to get there.”
Villa advises his clients to “know the attraction” that they want to visit. This means knowing where it’s located relative to where you’ll be coming from, whether that be the hotel or another location. It also means researching the attraction in advance: “Look up in advance where the meeting points are or the entry points so you’re prepared for your time slot.” In a pinch, going to the wrong entrance of a museum or historical site could be the difference between being on right on time or late.
The actual time the tickets are for can also make a difference. Early morning or afternoon tickets each have their perks, but it depends on the traveler. “If they’re an early riser, I’d say do the morning, because it’ll be less crowded,” Villa said. A morning slot also gives less of a chance for time delays from earlier parts of day to build up.
Still, Villa recommended travelers be honest with themselves about how they want to go about the trip. If you want a slower start to your day, an afternoon ticket might be the best shot. “With all the travel to Europe, it’s not even like there is a slow period anymore.”
Consider overly crowded days and other rules
Make sure to research free or reduced-price days at high-priority attractions. Most museums, historical sites and other attractions will offer ticket discounts or even free tickets for certain populations, like students or people over a certain age. But this also means the site could be even busier that day.
There are also more specific rules in certain attractions that can be helpful to keep in mind. Some Spanish attractions, like the Royal Palace or the San Lorenzo Monastery in El Escorial, for example, will offer free tickets for citizens from Latin American countries during certain days and times. Churches or other religious sites will also offer alternative entrances to people going to worship rather than as tourists.
There’s also always the option of second cities — like Lyon or Marseille in France, Glasgow in Scotland or Porto in Portugal — which can provide a travel experience that is as great or even better than their more-famous counterparts. And, if you have the flexibility, traveling during off-season months like March or November can help lessen some of the reservation and crowd hassles.
Making a conscious decision to take the roads less traveled once there can make the experience even more rewarding. “Sometimes people don’t look for alternative paths,” said Marta Moretti, a representative for the Azienda Veneziana della Mobilità, which manages Venice’s public transit. In doing so, she said, “they lose the fantastic views and the more quiet areas” that can be discovered.
