A month or more. The Anne Frank House (annefrank.org, about €16) releases each week’s tickets on the Tuesday six weeks before at 10 a.m. Amsterdam time, online only. The Ghibli Museum (¥1,000) sells a whole month at 10 a.m. Japan time on the 10th of the month before, through Lawson Ticket’s English site. The Statue of Liberty crown ($26.30 with the ferry) sells out months ahead; only Statue City Cruises sells it. The Reichstag dome is free, but you register at visite.bundestag.de up to about three months out; summer middays go six weeks ahead; bring your passport.
Two to four weeks. The Vatican Museums (tickets.museivaticani.va, €25 online) go on sale about two months ahead, and the early slots are gone weeks before a spring or summer date. The Colosseum (ticketing.colosseo.it, about €18) puts each date on sale 30 days ahead, so check the site when your date comes into range. Sagrada Família (sagradafamilia.org, €26, €36 with a tower) opens sales about two months ahead; Park Güell is online only and timed. The Casa Azul in Mexico City (boletos.museofridakahlo.org.mx) is online only and goes weeks ahead for weekend mornings, as does Casa Luis Barragán. Nijo Castle’s Honmaru Palace in Kyoto (¥1,000 plus the ¥800 castle ticket) is web ticket only, sold from 30 days out.
A week or so. The Louvre (ticket.louvre.fr; €22 for EU residents, €32 for everyone else since January 2026, closed Tuesdays), the Uffizi (tickets.uffizi.it, €29 booked ahead or €25 on the day, €16 for entry after 4 p.m., closed Mondays), the Accademia for the David, the Borghese Gallery’s two-hour slots, Sainte-Chapelle on tickets.monuments-nationaux.fr, the Van Gogh Museum (€25, timed) and teamLab Planets in Tokyo (from ¥3,800, date and time fixed). All sell out for weekend mornings and have space midweek.
Days, not weeks. Changdeokgung’s Secret Garden tour in Seoul puts half of each session’s tickets online six days ahead at 10 a.m. Korean time; the rest are sold at the gate that morning. Gardens by the Bay’s conservatories, the Prado, Prague Castle and the Tower of London can be booked the evening before.
The 2026 changes. The Louvre now charges non-EU visitors more, the Uffizi has a cheaper afternoon ticket, and the Pergamon in Berlin is still closed for refurbishment, with only Das Panorama open. Waystop’s hours check flags a closed day, but it cannot see a sold-out slot, so book first.
Plan around the slot. A timed ticket is the fixed point of the day; arrange the rest around it. Take the earliest slot you can get, before the groups, and let the afternoon be the walk and the market that need no ticket. Never stack two timed entries in different districts on one morning; one late train ruins both.
Arrival. Keep every QR code in Waystop’s Documents and screenshot it too. Arrive 15 minutes before the slot, not 45; doors will not open early, and most of these scan from the phone screen.