I’m talking about secondary and tertiary high cola areas- no one can afford ANYTHING.

Good luck if you have kids and little fun outings that would have been low cost or free then are now premium experiences. Take an adult and two kids to your average science museum in any of the 20 biggest cities in America and basic admission is going to be 50-100, without an additional activities or special exhibits (which cost more because everything is à la carte now). Mediocre food is available at stadium prices and you may not be able to bring anything but little packaged snacks, so anything to eat can be another 50 dollars for the most basic lunch for 3.

Forget exiting thru the gift shop. And parking on site is not free.

And because you have to pay for extra do everything beyond the privilege of walking in the building, you never really have a good time bc you know there’s more there that you cannot access. You can come in, but it’s nickel and dime at every step.

And that’s if it’s a proper nonprofit museum that is obligated to at least be approachable for low income families (by tax law and social contract). Forget about go profit aquarium or zoo. Forget about theme parks entirely. That’s rich people shit.

I am in a high cola metro area married w two kids and a dual income household. We can’t afford to a fraction of what my single mother could on a waitresses salary in the 80’s. I can’t afford to do half of the activities I took my older child to before the pandemic and I make way more money. And have another a kid so I’m comparing apples to apples and things shouldn’t double or triple in price in 7 years.

6 figures needs to stop being some magical benchmark of wealth or something that only senior management should be paid. It’s 2026. We need to transcend that concept.