Affordable Europe: Head to London's "seaside"

Passes for discounts of up to 35 percent off major attractions in Boston and Chicago become available today from Smart Destinations. These Explorer Passes are a spin-off of their popular Go Cards. Here's how the passes work: You buy the business-card sized smartcards in advance online, selecting the tours, museums, and other attractions you want to see (with unlimited admission per person). You then either pick up the card when you arrive in your city, or have the card be mailed to you in advance. The Boston Explorer Pass Valid for 30 days (compared with nine days for, say, the typical City Pass) You're given two lists of attractions, and you can pick one item from the first list of "premier" attractions and two items from the list of "signature" attractions. Overall, there are 27 attractions to pick from, including the Beantown Trolley Tour; Mass Bay Lines Whale Watch; the Freedom Trail Foundation Walking Tour; Paul Revere's House, Boston Harbor Cruise’s 45-Minute Constitution Cruise; and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Museum of Fine Arts; Bay State Cruise Company/Provincetown Ferry; Liberty Fleet Tall Ship Adventures; and Plymouth Plantation & Mayflower II (which are a drive outside of the city). If bought online, the passes will be mailed to a home or office, but not area hotels, for a fee. Or you can avoid the fee by picking your passes up in-person at the Mass Bay Lines ticket desk, 60 Rowes Wharf, next to the Boston Harbor Hotel. The price is ordinarily about $45, but there's a sale from now until Aug. 7. for tickets for adults and children 13 years and older for $39.59 each. (Younger children qualify for a deeper discount.) Details at explorerpass.com/Boston. The Chicago Explorer Pass Same deal as above. Possible attractions you can choose to add to your pass (up to three)include: two-day Hop-On, Hop-Off Trolley Pass; Shoreline Sightseeing Architectural River Cruise, Adler Planetarium, and the Field Museum. (Full list of 24 attractions, here.) Pricing starts at $44.99 for adults, but there's a sale of 12 percent off now through July 31. Smart Destinations already offers Explorer Passes for Las Vegas and New York. [explorerpass.com]

Hate having to take out your laptop for TSA inspection? We do, too. As we anticipated, manufacturers are racing to sell laptop bags that can meet TSA standards and allow screeners to catch a clear scan of the laptop without needing to remove it from a bag. Targus, manufacturer of laptop computer cases and other travel products, has previewed its Zip-ThruTM 15.4” Corporate Traveler Laptop Case, the first announced checkpoint-friendly laptop case. The bag will be divided with the laptop on one side in a cushioned pouch and your other belongings in the other half. This morning, the Detroit Free Press described how the bag works: Open it up, lay it on the conveyor belt and let it pass through. Pick it up at the other end, secure it shut and you're on your way. The bag will be black (surprise!) and made of an impressive-sounding "durable ballistic 1680 denier nylon." It measures about 17 inches by 6.5 inches by 14 inches, and weighs less than pounds. It will sell for around $99 when it goes on sale in October. EARLIER Gear: Laptop bags that will pass the TSA test