Edinburgh City Passes

What’s a Edinburgh City Pass?

With an Edinburgh city pass you can visit several places of interest for an all-inclusive price. You only buy the city pass once and get free admission to many attractions. You may also be able to take the hop-on hop-off buses free of charge.

There are currently two Edinburgh city passes as well as one Explorer Pass, which covers attractions all over Scotland. They cost between £33.00 and £65.00, depending on what they include and how long they are valid. On this page we compare these city passes with each other and work out which pass is suitable for whom.

You can buy all three Edinburgh city passes on the internet. In some cases it is sufficient to print out the confirmation of purchase or download the pass to your smartphone. Sometimes you need to exchange your online voucher for physical tickets at a central location in Edinburgh.

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When Is a Edinburgh City Pass Worthwhile?

  • When You’re in Edinburgh for the first time

    The Royal Edinburgh Ticket, one of the three major city passes, is particularly suitable for first-time travellers, as it contains the main top attractions of Edinburgh. If you want to visit those, this city pass will definitely save you money.

  • When You’ve Been to Edinburgh Before

    City passes are usually suitable for first-time visitors to a city. However, the Edinburgh City Pass is designed for people who already know the major attractions and would like to delve a little deeper into the city’s culture. Therefore, this city pass is worthwhile for travellers who already know Edinburgh.

  • When you’d like to do intensive sightseeing

    Most city passes are made for travellers who enjoy sightseeing and therefore want to visit as many attractions as possible in a short time. For those who want to visit a lot of sights, the all-inclusive price of an Edinburgh city pass is worthwhile.

  • When You Like Hop-on Hop-off Buses

    Tourist buses that criss-cross a city and can be boarded at any time are popular with travellers – but they are also very expensive. Often, trips with these buses are included in city passes, so that one saves the expensive tickets. The Royal Edinburgh Ticket includes 48 hours bus travel.

  • When You Know What You Want

    Before you buy a city pass, you should ideally already know what sights you want to see in Edinburgh, because then you can easily find out whether a city pass is worthwhile for you by comparing the individual ticket prices with the purchase price of the city pass.

  • When you travel unprepared

    If you don’t know which attractions you want to see in Edinburgh, there’s no way of knowing whether you can save money with a city pass. However, you could use the city pass for inspiration by simply visiting the attractions included in the pass.

  • When you don’t want to buy single tickets

    A weighty argument for city passes is that they offer many services from a single source. One does not have to buy single tickets, does not have to handle cash on the spot and often, with a city pass, one does not have to line up in the queues that form in high season in front of many attractions. In short: an Edinburgh city pass is very comfortable.

All Edinburgh City Passes at a glance

In the following section we briefly introduce the four most important tourist cards for Edinburgh.

Please click on the respective icon.