Let’s get the bad news out of the way, first: Boston travel isn’t exactly cheap.

The good news is, several innovative companies offer ways for you to save a lot of money when visiting Boston. Here are some of my favorites:

1. CityPASS Boston This highly reputable company offers the tourist the chance to see five of Boston’s best attractions at a deep discount, including the Boston Museum of Science, New England Aquarium, Skywalk Observatory, Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Harvard Museum of Natural History or The Old State House. At this writing, CityPASS is offering a 49 percent discount on admission to these fabulous Boston attractions and the chance to skip ticket lines. I know of a local Girl Scout group whose moms felt that CityPass “saved the day” when offering such a heavy discount to attractions that they might have not otherwise been able to afford.

2. Huge Savings on Boston Restaurants at Restaurant.com   I’m not sure quite how Restaurant.com does it, but they offer amazing discounts on dining out at restaurants in Boston and many of its suburbs. It’s not uncommon to find a $10 for a $25 gift certificate. What makes these deals more appealing is that Restaurant.com offers discounts to many high quality restaurants — instead of the lousy ones — and that the discounts for a given restaurant have more of a long-term availability status than those “deal of the day” sites. Last time we used Restaurant.com was for a dinner at Guido’s restaurant in Walpole, Mass., at a time where our budget would not have been optimal for dining out. However, the big discount offered allowed us to enjoy a substantial and delicious Italian meal!

3. Ace Ticket Best Value Tickets for Boston Area Sporting Events  Ace Ticket is another highly reputable company that resells tickets. I have spotted incredible “Best Value” ticket deals, especially for Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics games. Sure, sporting tickets are not a cheap endeavor, but if you choose to attend a game you need any edge you can get when it comes to pricing. Once arriving at the Ace site,  I recommend clicking on the sports teams links and scrolling down to find “Best Value” tickets. FYI, Ace Ticket is the preferred ticket reseller of the Boston Red Sox, so you can be confident that this is a very solid company.

4. Discounted Boston Events and Attractions through LivingSocial We’re not crazy about many of the deal sites that present a short window to sign up for discounted local and national offers, but LivingSocial is an exception. They seem to be well connected to some of the best well-known and lesser-known local Boston businesses — and with some hefty discounts consistently appearing on a daily basis. From restaurants to theater to kids activities, LivingSocial does the “deal site” concept the right way, in my opinion.

5. Boston Hotels Price Comparisons through HotelsCombined.com Comparing hotel prices keeps things honest as you can find, with the click of the mouse, Boston hotel prices offered by major travel sites. You’d be surprised at the prices differences. The chance to save big bucks on booking a hotel room in Boston is a reality instead of a concept!