Free museum admission

Free museum admission for military personnel and their families

Museum Monday, Museums,

As you travel around the country this summer, keep in mind that more than 1,5000 museums around the country are offering free admission to active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day, May 28, through Labor Day, September 3, 2012 as part of the Blue Star Museums program.

 

The program began in 2010 and is a collaboration between the National Endowment of the Arts, Blue Star Families, the Department of Defense and the participating museums.

On the list are museums, science centers, history museums, nature centers and more than 70 children’s museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, TX and the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.

New on the list year: the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, Va., the New Mexico Museum of Space History, San Francisco’s Children’s Creativity Museum and the World Figure Skating Museum and Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo.

You can click on a map to see what museums and attractions in your travels may be on the list.

 

 

Make it a museum weekend

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 I’m a big fan of museums and a big fan of free.

So that makes me a big fan of Bank of America’s  Museums on Us program, which offers Bank of America and Merrill Lynch debit and/or credit cardholders free admission to more than 100 museums, zoos, science centers and other cultural attractions around the country on the first full weekend of each month.

This is February’s first full weekend, so if you’ve got one of these cards – and supposedly one out of every two households does – it’s time to check the list and go see a museum for free.

The list of participating institutions recently expanded from 100 to 150 museums, so there’s a good chance you’ll find a free museum in your city or in the city you’re visiting.

Where can you go? The list includes the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, NC, the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, CA, MUZEO, Los Angeles, and the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, MO.  

And  if you happen to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and aren’t into football,  you can use your card to get free admission to the Dallas Museum of Art  and the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas  and the Museum of Science and History in Fort Worth, which includes the Fort Worth Children’s Museum, a planetarium, dinosaurs, an exhibition on energy that includes a 30-foot tall drilling apparatus and the Cattle Raisers Museum, which tells the story of Texas and Southwestern cattle raisers.

Free admission this weekend at more than 100 museums

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On the first weekend of every month more than 100 museums, zoos and attractions around the country offer free admission to anyone with a Bank of America card as part of the Museums on Us program.

Visiting one of the participating venues is a great way to stretch a weekend entertainment budget and a good excuse to get acquainted with the work of a new artist or get reacquainted with a favorite animal at your local zoo.

One place on the list this month is the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas, which is hosting a traveling exhibition from the National Air and Space Museum through the end of September.

In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight features 56 large-format photographs by Carolyn Russo showcasing the elegance and beauty of airplane design.  For example, this photo shows grooves in the exhaust cone of the North American X-15.

In Plane View Exhibit at Wichita Art Museum

Can’t make it to Kansas? When the exhibit leaves the Wichita Art Museum, it will travel to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia and then, in January 2011, to the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, Illinois.

You might also take advantage of the Museums on Us program to get free admission to the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan (Saturday only), where the 15 planes in the Heroes of the Sky exhibit includes this 1926 Fokker Trimotor used by Richard Byrd in his attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole by plane.

Ford Fokker at Henry Ford Museum

According to the museum notes:

Because Edsel Ford funded Byrd’s trip to the Arctic, the plane was named for his daughter, Josephine. Tony Fokker, the manufacturer, wanted to be sure no one mistook the plane for a Ford, so he painted the giant “FOKKER” on the wings and fuselage. There’s no heater in this plane, so temperatures inside the cabin could have easily reached -50° F while flying through the Arctic sky.


(Free) Tidbits for travelers: doughnuts, museums, zoos & more

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If you’re traveling anywhere this weekend, or just exploring your own town, here are some freebies that may come in handy.

(Photo courtesy Flickr member istolethetv)

Friday, June 4th is National Doughnut Day! The Salvation Army created this sweet holiday back in 1938 as a fundraising event, but the day is now celebrated with free doughnuts.  Krispy Kreme stores throughout the country are giving out free doughnuts (one per customer) and you’ll get a free donut if you buy a coffee drink at most Dunkin Donut stores.  Many local, independent donut shops will also be honoring the day with free donuts, so if you’re in a new town, map out a donut tour and explore.

This weekend is the first full weekend of the month and that means you can get free admission at more than 100 museums around the country if you have a Bank of America debit, credit or ATM-card.

Check the Museums on Us list to see if there’s a museum, zoo, or other local attraction near you participating in the program..  One of my favorites on the list is the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which currently has a great exhibition titled Headgear, which is all about the natural history of horns and antlers.

(Photo by Andrew Shaper, courtesy Harvard Museum of Natural History)

Also this weekend more than 100 national parks that usually charge entrance fees will also open their gates for free.

And from now through Labor Day, more than 750 museums (the list just keeps on growing) around the country are offering free admission to active duty military families through the National Endowment for the Art’s Blue Star Museums program.