The World’s 3 Hottest Attractions — and How to Make Sure You Get In

Wednesday 25th Jun 2025 |

Booked solid! How early do you really need to book the world’s hottest attractions

A look into some of most popular tourist attractions reveals they need to be booked at least 3 months in advance

Almost half of travelers claim to like being spontaneous on their journeys. However, the longstanding tradition of winging your holiday may soon be over as tourism continues to increase globally. Tickets to some of the hottest tourist attractions around the world are sold out until the end of summer, according to research by the travel eSIM app Saily. 

The Saily team reviewed tourist attractions that appear on various “top 10” and “best tourist attractions” lists and searched for the earliest available tickets by visiting the official ticketing sites. They looked for tickets for two people.

As it turns out, visitors booking today would have to wait at least until August to get into popular sites like the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka or the Harry Potter Studios in London. Historic and cultural sites are also busy: The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has tickets available from the end of July, while visitors would have to wait until the end of October to see Leonardo’s The Last Supper in Milan.

world’s hottest attractions
  • The Louvre, Paris, France. Wait time: Less than a week.
  • Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, Poland. Wait time: Less than a week.
  • Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain. Wait time: 2 weeks.
  • Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. Wait time: 4 weeks.
  • The Big Ben, London, England. Wait time: no available tickets for 4 weeks. Tickets are released on the second Wednesday of every month at 10:00.
  • Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Wait time: 6 weeks.
  • Harry Potter Studios, London, England. Wait time: 6 weeks.
  • The Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan. Wait time: no available tickets for 6 weeks, tickets sold on a monthly basis.
  • Statue of Liberty tour, crown access, New York, USA. Wait time: More than 2 months.
  • The Last Supper by Leonardo, Milan, Italy. Wait time: More than 4 months.
  • The Catacombs, Paris, France. Wait time: No available tickets. Tickets sold every week on a first-come, first-served basis.
world’s hottest attractions

“It’s a good reminder that once you start planning your holiday, you should also start booking your tickets to places you want to visit,” says Vykintas Maknickas, CEO of Saily. “Start booking even earlier if the attraction is seasonal, like tours to see the northern lights in Iceland or Norway or Keukenhof during tulip season. The tulip season starts mid-March, but tickets for the 2026 season are available now and will likely sell out.”

Other tourist attractions commonly found on “best” lists, such as the Acropolis in Athens, the Colosseum in Rome, Milan Cathedral, Chichen Itza in Mexico, or Machu Picchu in Peru, have greater availability. For most of these sites, you could get a ticket for the same or next day. Some of these attractions are outdoors, which can help to explain their more flexible capacity for visitors.

world’s hottest attractions

To make sure you get tickets to places you wish to visit, consider these tips:

  1. Book indoor attractions early in your travel planning. Open-air attractions, for example, the Taj Mahal in Agra, tend to have greater ticket availability, although the most sought-after timeslots may be sold out very far in advance – like the sunrise timeslots for the Taj Mahal. 
  2. Buses and boats reduce availability. If you need to take a special bus, a boat, or another means of special transportation, fewer tickets will be available, so book your visit to such places well in advance. 
  3. Research which attractions release tickets on a schedule. For example, the Ghibli museum releases tickets on a monthly basis, and you need to be ready to snatch one up at the right time. Setting a reminder in your calendar can help.
  4. Use travel communities. Sign up for newsletters or visit travel forums to read people’s first-hand accounts about scoring tickets and their recommendations on what attractions to book early.
  5. Continue to check booking websites. Ticket cancellations and changes happen, but you must keep a watchful eye on booking websites to take advantage of openings.
  6. Be cautious about the resale market. You can find tickets through resale, but there’s a risk of overpaying or falling victim to a scam. Instead, stick to official ticketing portals and trusted tour guides.

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Saily is an affordable and secure travel eSIM app that helps people to manage mobile and internet connections from anywhere in the world. Saily offers 24/7 instant customer support, flexible plans, and coverage in 200+ destinations. Saily was created by the experts behind NordVPN — the advanced security and privacy app.

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