A familiar sight at the airport (Courtesy niiicedave/Flickr)

There are a lot of jokes at the expense of the TSA, thanks to some ridiculous mistakes and policy misunderstandings on the part of agents. But it's no laughing matter when an agent's ignorance causes a teen traveler's life–saving medical equipment to malfunction.

When 16–year–old Savannah Barry—who is a Type 1 diabetic and wears an insulin pump—was flying out of the Salt Lake City airport last Monday, she followed the guidelines for diabetic travelers listed on the TSA website and asked for a pat–down instead. She even presented the agent with documentation that the $10,000 insulin pump should not be taken into a full–body scanner. But the agent insisted it would be fine and sent her through. Moments later, her insulin pump malfunctioned (see the video below of an interview with Savannah about the incident).

To add insult to injury, she was given a pat down—exactly what she had requested in the first place—in addition to her trip through the body scanner after TSA agents spotted her insulin and the juice she was traveling with to prevent low blood sugars.

Savannah’s mother was told by a representative of Animas (the company who made her insulin pump) to have her unplug the device as soon as she landed and rely on insulin shots until further notice. Luckily she was able to obtain another insulin pump—evidently another pump company heard her story and sent it to her after she returned home to Colorado.

“TSA has spoken with the passenger and a member of her family regarding her screening experience and we will continue to communicate directly with the family to address their concerns. TSA works regularly with a broad coalition of advocacy groups representing passengers with disabilities and medical conditions to better understand their needs. Signage posted at security checkpoints where advanced imaging technology (AIT) is used informs passengers that AIT is always optional for all passengers, including those traveling with medical devices.”

Traveling with a medical device can be complicated. This story really struck a nerve with me—I’m not a Type 1 diabetic, but my younger sister, April, is. She was diagnosed at 14 and has been living with an insulin pump ever since. On family vacations, she’s had to pull TSA agents aside and explain her situation, show them the insulin pump, and be led to the side for a pat down that ends with swabbing her hands for bomb residue. There is nothing like watching your little sister follow the rules only to have everyone else in line staring at her like she’s a criminal, wondering what she did to deserve a pat down at the airport. But this is her only option if she wants to get on that plane, since she cannot go through the full–body scanner with her “electronic pancreas,” as she calls it.

So what’s your take on all this? Do you think it's unfair to blame the entire TSA for one agent's misstep or do you think this is a sign that the entire organization needs an overhaul?

—Kaeli Conforti

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Flight+ deserves its popularity. It can do complex things in a very streamlined way. That matters most when you need help handling a snafu with your itinerary, such as a delayed or canceled flight.

Say your flight is delayed. Flight+ earns its $3 price tag because it lets you track any flight in the sky on a map in real time—at least as close to real time as is allowed for security reasons. You no longer have to take the word of the gate agent that a plane is en route.

If a delay means you might not make your onward connection, use the app to quickly look up a basic terminal map at your destination airport. The map can help you figure out how to get from Point A to Point B more quickly and catch a tight connection.

Alternatively, say the airline cancels your flight. Use Flight+ to look at the flight board at your airport, or a near by airport, to see your flight options. Check the weather at alternative airports to plan a route around a regional storm.

If you already use TripIt to manage the details of your itineraries, you can sync your TripIt account up with Flight+ easily. The app will start tracking your upcoming flights based on the itineraries you submitted to TripIt. If you choose, you can receive status alerts on your device's home screen if it looks like you will face a nasty surprises with your trip.

One drawback, the Flight+ app version for iPhone/iPod doesn't work on the iPad, and vice versa.

SEE A VIDEO OF HOW FLIGHT+ WORKS (Note: The video has no sound.):

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Rental car in Mexico (Courtesy adam_d_/Flickr)

Last year, Wade Bruleson of Enid, Oklahoma, learned the hard way what could go wrong when you rent a car in Mexico. During a vacation stop in Cozumel, Bruleson went on a quick trip in his family's rental car to pick up a map from a local shop. During the drive, he accidentally broadsided a motorcycle, which led to a few broken bones for its two riders.

At the police station, Bruleson discovered that the premium insurance policy he bought from his rental car company wouldn't cover everything. In Mexico, the guilty party in a car accident that causes injury must pay a cash settlement to victims, something that's not covered by insurance. The cash settlement is equal to the wages that injured are expected to lose because they will be out of work during their physical recovery.

Bruleson had to wait in jail while his car rental company and the family of the victims agreed on a figure for compensation. At one point, the victims wanted $6,000 for lost wages during the time they were recovering. That number was eventually talked down.

In the US, a personal auto insurance policy or credit card coverage tends to meet the requirements of car rental companies and the legal system. The same is not true in Mexico. The law requires that foreign drivers buy liability insurance from a Mexican company, such as Sanborn's Insurance.

This liability insurance is generally not included as a perk on a US credit card, but it's worth buying because it greatly reduces the chances a traveler may be jailed or face steep financial penalties. Policies typically include coverage of attorney and bail bonds.

Besides liability insurance, a traveler should also get collision and damage insurance (which more or less covers the vehicle) as well as personal accident insurance (which essentially covers the driver and other passengers).

Being fully insured is important in keeping a situation from getting out of hand. But there is no readily available insurance to pay a settlement to cover their wages. That has to come out of the traveler's pockets, and can soar to thousands of dollars, as Burleson found out the hard way. And the guilty party has to stay behind bars until the financial settlement is reached. Spending a night in a Mexican jail is no picnic, as Burleson described on his blog:

One concrete bed for two men, one concrete toilet in the center, ants and spiders crawling over the walls, feces and urine staining the floor and bed, no lights and only a small window that let an outside street lamp light shine through. I was not offered a pillow or a blanket, nor was I given any water. I would not eat or drink for the next 24 hours.

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Are you a fan of flying vs. driving this summer? (Courtesy Ceo1O17/Flickr)

A couple months ago we theorized that no one would be taking road trips this summer due to high gas prices. Turns out, we might have been wrong.

According to the Royal Bank of Canada, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, their U.S consumers are feeling better about the economy—and they want to travel. Thanks in part to a recent dip in gas prices, 67 percent of the respondents said they were planning on driving to their summer vacation spot—up 8 percent over 2010—while 34 percent plan to fly domestically (up from 26 percent in 2010). The amount of respondents planning to travel internationally was up 5 percent over 2010 for a total of 17 percent. (Chances are, those people wouldn't be driving anyway.) The price of travel is still a main concern though, with almost half of the respondents admitting to an overall scaling back on vacation plans.

I'm still figuring out my summer travel plans, but a flight to New Orleans for a girls' getaway has already been booked. Chances are I'll be flying (hopefully internationally) for another trip. So I'm part of the 34 percent and the 17 percent. But what about you: fly…or drive?

—Danielle Contray

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Biking in New York City just got easier. (Courtesy Smart Destinations/Flickr)

As New Yorkers, we like to think we set the trends. Yet there was one thing this city didn't have that most other major cities already feature: bike–sharing. But pack your helmets—starting this summer, locals and travelers alike will easily be able to take a two–wheeler for a spin.

The Citi Bike program will include 10,000 bikes in 600 locations around Manhattan and Brooklyn. The locations are still being worked out, but it looks like a good number of docking stations will be set up in high–traffic areas (like Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park) and transit hubs (outside Port Authority Bus Terminal). Of course, just like everything else in Manhattan, the rentals are not cheap, even with branded sponsorship by Citibank. A 24–hour membership is $9.95, with the first half hour of each ride free (pricing from there is $4 if you keep the bike for an hour, $13 for an hour and a half, and $25 for two hours).

Compare that to Boston, where a 24–hour membership is half the price of New York's system, with the first 30 minutes free. In Montreal, a 24–hour membership costs about $7 (the first half hour is also free). Chattanooga, Tennessee even beat NYC to the punch by launching their bike–sharing program last month, with a 24–hour membership costing $6—and the first full hour of your ride is included in the membership cost. I planned on wrapping up this list by making the point that the only place more expensive then New York, in terms of most things, is London. I was shocked to see that the cycle hire program there is only 1 GBP (about $1.60) for a 24–hour membership! It can be inferred that heavy underwriting by sponsor Barclays keeps cost down.

I've lived in New York for a dozen years and have never biked, mostly because I am petrified of car doors being flung open and taxi drivers who take red lights as just a suggestion. But I'm tempted to take one of these for a spin (bring your own helmet).

What about you? Would you be intimidated by renting a bike in a strange city, or does that sound like a great way to see the sites?

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If a hotel like this is unusually cheap for your travel dates, given its pricing history, DealAngel will let you know. (Courtesy Fr Antunes/Flickr)

DealAngel is a new website for travelers who want an independent source to vouch for the value of a hotel deal. It promises to tip you off when there's a chance to stay in a four-star hotel at deep savings or see hotels that are surprisingly available for under $100 a night.

DealAngel ranks available hotel deals in major cities as a "Great Deal," a "Good Deal," an "OK Deal," "Not a Deal," or a "Rip-Off" when compared with the hotel's rate history, the going trend for comparable hotels in the neighborhood, and other factors. The site also provides the standard information, such as a star rating and a review-based rating.

If you see something you like, you can click through to buy from one of about 30 booking engines. Recent find: In Dallas, the Warwick Melrose was available in mid-June for $135 a night, after taxes and fees, via booking site Hotel.info.

DealAngel spotlighted the rate, ranking it as one of the best in Dallas for that travel date, calculating that travelers could save $56 off by booking the deal in light of historical rates and the going prices of other comparable hotels in the market. A quick glance showed that the four-star hotel had high user-ratings from travelers (4.5 out of 5 stars from more than 400 reviews) and many promising amenities.

While helpful, DealAngel does have a major drawback: The site is new and doesn't cover enough cities yet, sticking mostly to the largest US destinations. But the company says it will expand to other cities abroad as well as smaller towns in the US.

Another problem: The site partners with some lesser known hotel booking companies, such as Hotel.info. Not all travelers will feel comfortable booking a hotel stay through a site they may not have heard of. But no one says you have to follow through on the booking link. You could use DealAngel's information to see if you can find the same price deal at your favorite travel booking site instead.

Lastly, a word about DealAngel's concept of sorting deals by "value" according to data. It isn't the freshest idea. Bing Travel has had a Rate Indicator for about five years, and year-old Google Hotel Finder lets you sort hotels on a map to find ones that are priced 50 percent below the norm. That said, DealAngel does a much better job than Bing or Google at making it easy to understand its ranking of the best hotel values at a destination. You can easily find your way around the site, grasp what you're seeing, and quickly book a hotel.

All in all, it's nice to see another website try to do the "heavy sifting," so to speak, for travelers.

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(Courtesy Holiday Inn)

Jacki Penn and her mother, Marcy, know all too well that booking a hotel room can be a drawn-out affair. Marcy, 66, qualifies for senior discounts and member rates from AAA, the American Automobile Association. On her recent search, Expedia fetched a short list of deals for an overnight from their Worthington, Ohio, home, but then Marcy then had to check with each hotel see if any might have a better deal for seniors and AAA members.

Jacki intervened when she heard about Room 77, a hotel-booking engine. A month ago, Room 77 added a tool that lets users compare the going online rates for hotels with AAA-member rates and senior rates. She found Expedia offering a night in early June at the Hilton Chicago O'Hare Airport for $159, while AAA listed the same room for the same night for $129—18 percent less.

Room 77 is the first site to clearly and thoroughly list AAA rates and senior discounted rates alongside prices available to the public. The site covers tens of thousands of hotels without annoying pop-up ads or other gimmicks. The discounts it quotes are provided by other organizations, not itself. For instance, many senior discounts are available to members of AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons. Other senior discounts are provided by hotel chains directly.

Don't assume that AAA-member rates and senior discounts will always give you the best deal. In a dozen trial searches, Travelocity recently delivered better rates for the same room on the same day than the AAA-discount rates as seen on AAA's own website. Interestingly, AAA members may qualify for money back from the auto club in such situations. AAA touts a 110 Percent Best Rate Guarantee on selected "Save Rate" hotels are the lowest available. AAA says:

"If you find a lower rate on another website for the same room, at the same hotel, on the same dates, within 24 hours of making your booking with us, we guarantee you that we'll match it plus pay you 10 percent of the difference in price."

What about Room 77? Yes, you may want to add it to the list of sites you check for deals. That said, it's not perfect. Case in point: Expedia, the country's biggest travel site, has a much broader selection of properties in the US and abroad than Room 77, among other differences. As always, you need to check out than one travel site to boost your chance of nabbing the best deal.

Clarification, added May 15: Room 77 is both an online travel agency (meaning it will book a hotel room on your behalf) and a metasearch site (it will refer you to other companies for booking the room). About 150,000 hotels are bookable through both Room 77 directly and referrals to other sites. In comparison, Expedia offers more than 200,000 hotels directly through itself. But Room 77 also offers an additional 50,000 hotels only through referrals to partner companies, giving what it says is a comparable breadth of listings to Expedia.

The bottom line: "tens of thousands" on Room 77 offer AAA and Senior rates, according to the site.

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I don't know about you, but I certainly do place more trust in my friends—as you might expect, I tend to have a fair amount in common with my friends, and if they say a restaurant or a hotel is good, I'm likely to agree. That said, while I do have a pretty well-traveled, international set of friends, they haven't been everywhere I want to go, so I find myself relying on a combination of strangers and friends to plan my itinerary.

Last year, Bing partnered with Facebook so that when you sign in and search for a city it shows you all of your friends who have lived in city (and what they like in that city).

As you can see, it's getting easier to find friends who could provide advice. My question is: which of these types of networks do you find more useful? Are you more likely to trust advice that comes from your friends? Or do you think that hundreds of people can't be wrong? Or do you use both networks? Vote in our poll or tell us below.

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3 New Websites Help Organize Facebook Travel Photos

Sure, Facebook, people upload 250 million pictures to you every day on average. You're far and away the most popular place on the Internet for storing and sharing photos. But that huge mass of photos is part of the problem. It makes for too many images to sort through.

One pet peeve: Why oh why, Facebook, do you organize photos by album? To track down a photo, users have to click through lots of albums, or else scroll down the full "photos and videos of you" section, ordered by year. You really need to come up with smarter and more flexible ways to sort through photos.

Luckily, there are some free tools out there to help people find, organize, and show off their favorite travel shots—plus the photos of one's friends and family.

(Courtesy Pictarine)

Jetpac
Problem it solves: Seeing travel photos shot by you and your friends in a pretty format, like a travel magazine that only features photos and travel tips from your friends and family members.
Biggest perk: No commitment. You can get full use of the service almost instantly.
Details: Jetpac collects, for your eyes only, the public travel photos and locations that you and your friends have shared on Facebook and displays them on the iPad in a stunning way. Beyond photo viewing, Jetpac's other features include a summary service that estimates how many countries your friends have visited and other interesting facts.

Pixable
Problem it solves: Photos your friends upload on Facebook can get lost in the shuffle
Biggest perk: It requires no commitment, no sign-up, and it works quickly and seamlessly with your existing Facebook account.
Details: Pixable aims to become your "photo inbox." Just as you check your email for written messages and check your Facebook "top stories" feed for quick updates, Pixable hopes to become the site you check to see photos from people you like.
The site pulls the photos of people you follow on Facebook onto a separate page in a Pinterest-style format. The format allows you to easily comment on the photos, with your comments and likes showing up on your friends' Facebook pages. But the advantage of using Pixable is that photos you may have missed because they didn't appear in "top news" or you missed your news feed for a few days are all collected here. Pixable also works for following shots from friends and contacts who use Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, and other services.

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(Courtesy Greyhound Express)

Traveling between cities by bus is classier it used to be, thanks to new premium lines like Greyhound Express, BoltBus, and Megabus. In good news, Greyhound Express and BoltBus are expanding their route maps to California and Washington State this month, after having begun to cover Texas on February 28.

These buses offer reserved seating, free Wi-Fi, additional legroom, and plusher seats. These perks have become standard on intercity routes in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

On Wednesday, Greyhound Express coaches began service on routes connecting L.A., San Francisco, and other Californian cities. Tickets rarely cost more than $45 each way, and occasionally can be bought for as little as $1. To compare, a bus ticket between L.A. and San Francisco at $45 is much cheaper than a plane ticket between those cities purchased three-week in advance, recently starting at $79.

Budget Travel wishes the new service well. A couple of years ago, Megabus tried to take on the California market but failed. Hopefully Greyhound Premium can succeed where Megabus failed. It hopes to soon launch a route between L.A. and Las Vegas, which would be great for out-of-town visitors.

On May 17, BoltBus begins running four daily departures both ways between Seattle and Portland, Ore, as MSNBC has reported, with fares typically between $12 and $26 roundtrip. Amtrak's fares on the same route are roughly double that, booked three weeks out. BoltBus hopes to add a service linking Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.

Two months ago, Greyhound Express started service between Dallas and Houston. Expansion to San Antonio is now in the works.

All in all, good news for budget travelers!

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(Courtesy Explore The Bruce/Flickr)

In theory, travelers today have more information and booking capability at their fingertips than ever before. So there's less need than ever to pay someone else to book your trip. In theory. But with all of this possibility comes added complication, especially given the dizzying, often counterintuitive ways that travel purchases (flights especially) are made nowadays.

The "unbundling" of airline travel, in which a long list of possible fees cost extra in addition to the cost of a flight, is one complication. We're not talking about chump change either. Spirit Airlines just announced it is charging up to $100 per carry-on bag. Fee-tracking tools from services such as NerdWallet can help clue travelers in on fees, but it's still a chore trying to figure out which airlines charge what fees, and how much.

This week, Joe Sharkey's New York Times column, meanwhile, covers the scenario in which, as odd as it may seem, booking a circuitous series of one-way flights can be cheaper than a simple round trip. While some travelers love strategizing and searching to beat the system, many understandably don't want to be bothered.

Presumably, most Budget Travel readers are DIY travel planners. Ditto for the independent-mind backpackers who travel around the globe with Lonely Planet guides in tow. And yet, in a recent Lonely Planet poll, more than half of those who responded said that they'd happily pay an agent either "a small fee ($30 - $50) to save the time and hassle" or "whatever they ask! I'd rather chew my arm off than sort through all the many online travel options."

So maybe a sizeable portion of BT readers now feel the same way: that after a couple decades of booking their own trips, it's now time to give the responsibility back to the pros.

Would you pay a travel agent a fee to book your trip? Have you done so recently? If the answer is yes to either, tell us why, and under what circumstances.

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Look for a Digiboo kiosk in an airport near you (Courtesy Digiboo)

Digiboo, which launched in March, has come up with a solution: what if you didn't have to worry about disks at all? Instead, the service allows you to download a film file to a USB flash drive at airport kiosks and then put it directly on your laptop's hard drive. The touchscreen kiosks are currently available in three domestic airports (Minneapolis–St. Paul, Portland and Seattle–Tacoma) with plans to expand. Digiboo features 700 titles, which you can rent for $3.99 for 48 hours (after that, the file no longer works) or buy for $14.99. And unlike iTunes movie downloads, which can often take surprisingly long to finish, especially on slow airport wifi, the download speed should be manageable for even the most in–a–rush traveler—30 seconds for newer flash drives and up to five minutes on older ones.

The service is not without its kinks. Currently, the downloads are not compatible with Apple products, and videos are not HD. In addition, USB devices must be pre–registered on their website before you can use them. But the company has stated there will be many updates in the coming months.

So what do you think? Does this sound like a service you would use?

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This polished site asks for your confirmation number for a flight on one of the major domestic airlines—namely, American, Delta, Southwest, United, or US Airways. Then it monitors any seat changes on your flight prior to departure. If it finds a seat that more closely matches your preferences (such as window or aisle), it promises to book it for you on your behalf. As frequent fliers know, seat availability changes up until the last-minute of the typical flight.

(Courtesy MySeatFinder)

Whether the service is worth using depends on how much you dread being assigned the middle seat—or how much you covet an exit row, with its roomy legroom.

If you've used MySeatFinder, or the similar service ExpertFlyer that we've mentioned before, please share your experience by posting a comment. Thanks!

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As far as ideas go, there have probably been better ones than a cruise with a slasher-movie theme.

Especially in light of real-life cruise horrors like the Costa Concordia fiasco that occurred in January off the coast of Italy, it might seem odd for a cruise operator to actively try to freak out its passengers.

But that's the premise behind "SAW at Sea," a special cruise itinerary traveling round trip from New York to Canada on the Carnival Glory. The "SAW" refers to the franchise of twisted horror flicks featuring the "Jigsaw Killer," a maniac who physically and psychologically tortures victims before killing them.

If this sort of thing sounds fun, then "SAW at Sea" may be for you. The sailing takes place this summer from August 11 to 16, with prices from $779 per person (taxes and fees additional).

The package includes lodging and meals like any cruise, as well as special dances and pool parties with a handful of actors and actresses who have starred in one or more of the films. There is also a "SAW" trivia contest, as well as a competition to see who has the best "SAW"-themed tattoo.

Another horror movie star, Dan Yeager, who plays "Leatherface" in the forthcoming 3D remake of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" will also be on board and available for autographs and pictures at various events. Perhaps he'll grab his chainsaw and man a carving station at one of the ship's restaurants.

At least this isn't a "Titanic" themed cruise, right?

Speaking of which, just such a cruise is in the works. Actually, it's an entire ship rather than a single trip: It's recently been reported that Australian billionaire Clive Palmer is having a replica of the original "Titanic" built at a Chinese shipyard. The first sailing is expected to repeat the original (and only) voyage from England to New York in 2016.

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The Trevi Fountain in Rome (Courtesy dmg33/myBudgetTravel)

Tracking down amazing Real Deals is a big part of my job here at Budget Travel, and involves breaking down the details to make sure travelers are really getting the most for their money. I decided to apply the same logic when planning out my family’s first vacation to Italy—especially when we kept running into deals that sounded too good to be true. Take the city cards and passes for Florence, Venice, and Rome. The basic idea behind them: pay a lump sum and get access to museums, historic sites, and galleries—and sometimes city buses or metro—for a discounted price rather than buying all those tickets separately. Discounts and the ability to skip enormous lines? Sounds good to me. But are they really a good deal? I looked into it and here is what I found:

Firenze Card (The Florence Card)
Price: $66 per person.
Where you can buy it: Through the website or at any of these participating attractions.
How it works: The Florence Card covers admission at 50 of the city's museums, galleries, historical villas, and gardens as well as a three–day transit pass. It remains active for 72 hours, and the clock starts when you visit your first sight. One caveat: You can only visit each place once. So savor your time with David.
The breakdown: Florence's two most popular museums, the Uffizi Gallery and Accademia Gallery, cost $20 each to visit. A three–day transit ticket costs $16 per person, so entrance fees to the two must–see museums plus the transit pass already brings you to $56. For just $10 more, you get free access to 48 more sights.
The verdict: Deal!

Venice Connected (The Venice Card)
Price: $53 per person over age 30; $40 for those ages 14 to 29.
Where you can buy it: Any of these Hello Venezia ticket offices, at tourism agencies in the Mestre and Santa Lucia train stations, or at Marco Polo Airport.
How it works: You’ll get admission to the Doge’s Palace, Jewish Museum, 16 Chorus Churches, and the city’s 10 Civic Museums, plus discounts on parking outside the historic center, tours, concerts, and at shops. Plus you can take your time—the card stays active for seven days.
The breakdown: A regular ticket to the Doge’s Palace costs $26 and includes admission to the other 10 Civic Museums if you purchase the Museum Pass instead. A Chorus Pass will give you entry to 16 churches for another $13. Admission to the Jewish Museum is a mere $4 more, bringing your total to $43 without the Venice Card.
The verdict: No deal.

Roma Pass (The Rome Card)
Price: $40 per person.
Where you can buy it: Through the website or at any participating attraction.
How it works: The Roma Pass covers entrance fees to your choice of two participating museums or archaeological sites, discounted admission to more listed sites, and free use of city transit. Most of the city's attractions are covered, but note that the Vatican Museums are not part of the deal.
The breakdown: One regular ticket to the Coliseum works for two days and includes admission to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill for $24, while a three–day transit pass will set you back $15. For $1 more, you might as well take advantage of the discounts and access to another free museum. And you won't have to wait in line at the Coliseum and other typically overcrowded attractions. Which is priceless.
The verdict: Deal!

*Prices are based on one adult and include taxes and fees when purchased online. Euro–dollar conversions are shown on xe.com from April 27, 2012, and may vary over time.

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