The Most Overpriced Tourist Attraction in Each State, Mapped

When you’re on a family vacation, tracking down a local tourist attraction to visit is an excellent way to spend an afternoon that hopefully keeps every family member happy. Many of us end up consulting other tourists’ online reviews when trying to decide where to go—and now, a new analysis of the words visitors have used in their reviews has uncovered what are apparently America’s most overpriced tourist attractions.

The analysis, organized by money-saving website CouponBirds, began by identifying 35,000 tourist attractions from all across the United States that are specifically flagged as “Good For Kids” on the travel ratings site TripAdvisor. Next, each attraction was categorized based on its location, and precisely what kind of attraction it is. Finally, each state’s attractions were ranked by the number of times the TripAdvisor reviews had flagged them as “expensive.”

The results were then mapped to pinpoint what are apparently the most overpriced attractions in the United States—from the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama to Wyoming’s Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

1. The Worst-Value Family Attraction by State
2. The Worst-Value Museums for Families
3. The Worst-Value Zoos and Aquariums

The Worst-Value Family Attraction by State

Because the study ranked each attraction based on the total number of “expensive” reviews rather than the proportion of its reviews, the analysis picked up on the most popular tourist hotspots in America overall, which naturally have a higher number of TripAdvisor reviews than those elsewhere. That might go some way towards explaining why the entire top four of the most overpriced attractions in the entire United States are located in Florida: Discovery Cove, Walt Disney World Resort, Universal Studios, and the Magic Kingdom Park (which topped the list with 3259 reviews that used the word expensive).

Proving just how popular a tourist destination the Sunshine State really is—and how much a day out there might set you back—nine of the top 20 most expensive U.S. attractions are all in Florida (with another five located in California).

The Worst-Value Museums for Families

If you’re more interested in art and culture than you are in rides and theme parks, the study has you covered there too. Narrowing the TripAdvisor reviews just to museums, the study found that Florida’s NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is apparently America’s worst-value museum, with nearly 1000 reviews flagging its cost of entry. It was followed by New York’s American Museum of Natural History, which came in second on the museum list with 545 reviews deeming it expensive, ahead of the California Academy of Sciences in third and Georgia’s World of Coca Cola in fourth.

The Worst-Value Zoos and Aquariums

California also came out on top when the list was narrowed again to include just aquariums and zoos: Four of the Golden State’s animal parks made the top 10. Even the highest rated of those, however—San Diego Zoo, with 1685 expensive reviews—was beaten to the top spot by the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, which more than 1700 reviewers labeling it as overpriced.

For more information on the study, as well as infographics and more highlights from its findings, head to the CouponBird blog here. And if you’re interested in terrible but hilarious reviews of iconic museums, click here.

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