Museums on Us

Friday freebies: Free admission to parks and museums nationwide

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Courtesy Art Institute of Chicago

Museums are great, but admission fees can sometimes make you think twice about checking out the exhibitions.

That’s why we love free museum days such as the Museums on Us program sponsored by Bank of America.

The program offers free general admission at more than 225 museums nationwide during the first full weekend of each month to anyone with a Bank of America, Merill Lynch or U.S. Trust credit or debit card.

This weekend, the first full weekend in September, you can get free admission in Chicago at the Alder Planetarium and the Art Institute of Chicago; in Atlanta at the Atlanta History Center and the High Museum of Art; and in San Francisco at the de Young Museum.

Check out the full list of museums offering free admission this weekend here.

Another year-round free entry program to keep in mind is the Every Kid Outdoors Program.

The program provides fourth graders with free, multi-use vouchers to national parks, wildlife refuges, marine sanctuaries, and forests and is a collaboration between the Department of the Interior, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and U.S. Forest Service.

The bonus here is that because fourth graders aren’t likely to drive themselves to these sites, the vouchers not only provide free entry for fourth graders, but to all children under 16 in a group and up to three accompanying adults – or an entire car for drive-in parks.

Find details about getting the pass here. Vouchers are valid now through August 31, 2020.

Freebies + cool offers to take advantage of now

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Like the free ice water that made South Dakota’s Wall Drug famous, free stuff is a great treat when you’re on the road or out and about in your own town.

Here are few free offers and cool deals to take advantage of this weekend and into next week:

Free Museum Admission

On the first full weekend of each month, anyone who has flashes a Bank of America, Merrill Lynch or U.S. Trust credit or debit card and a photo ID gets free admission to more than 200 museums, science centers, gardens and other attractions participating in the Museums on Us program around the country.

Free food 

PotBelly Sandwich Shop is offering a bunch of free food items to members of its free-to-join Potbelly Perks program August 6-12.

Air fare deal

Need to bring a few suitcases of cash to the Cayman Islands? Or just want a great deal on a flight to this vacation destination?

From August 3 to 11, Cayman Airways is celebrating its 50th anniversary with some great discounted fares, plus extra perks such as 3 checked bags and lounge access, for flight from Miami, Tampa and New York booked for travel September 7 through November 7.

Fun hotel package for Pearl Jam fans

Not free – but fun: In Seattle,  The Edgewater over-the-water hotel has put together a package with the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP). The Rock the Suite package includes tickets to the museum’s Pearl Jam: Home and Away exhibition, overnight accommodations at the hotel’s Pearl Jam Suite, and signature Pearl Jam cocktails in the  Six Seven Restaurant & Lounge.

Pearl Jam fans should also note that there’s a free Pearl Jam exhibit put together by the Museum of Pop Culture in the-presecurity area of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Know of a great freebie for travelers? Please send it along.

Free museums this weekend

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When I’m not in an airport, I’m checking out museums – especially on the first weekend of each month when the Museums on Us program gives Bank of America cardholders free access to more than 150 museums and cultural institutions around the country.

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Ivory telescope from the Alder Plantarium

If I could zip around the country, I’d use my bank card to gain free access this weekend to the Alder Planetarium in Chicago (general admission: $12), to see the telescope collection and the temporary exhibition that explores the post-Pluto question: What is a Planet?.

Alder image

I’d also head to American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore to see the Big Hope Show – which is closing soon – and to Morristown, New Jersey to see the Toothpick World exhibition and the fortune -tellers, gambling machines and other early coin-operated entertainment machines at the Morris Museum.

1_Intro_assorted machines_courtesy Morris Museum

Pull-tab cars & portraits made of bugs

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Courtesy Fairbanks Museum_Bug Art Mosaic

 

Smithsonian magazine’s 11th Museum Day Live! event is coming back around on Saturday, September 26 and this year there are more than 1300 museums around the country that will be offering free admission on that day.

In my first piece for Mashable Travel, I’ve got a round-up of some of the fun and – of course – offbeat museums and special exhibits to go see that day, including portraits made of thousands of bugs at the eclectic Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vermont and the Grassroots Arts Center in Lucas, Kansas, which has outsider art galore.

Courtesy Grassroots Arts Center, Lucas, Kanas_Car and motorcycle made of pop-can pulltabs by Herman Divers

Read the full story here.

And if you’re out and about over the Labor Day Holiday, keep in mind that it is the first weekend of the month and that means Bank of America and Merrill Lynch credit or debit card holders can get free admission to more than 150 museums around the country, courtesy of the long-running Museums on Us program.

Bruce Lee & 150+ museums free this weekend

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If you’re home or on the road this weekend, and have a Bank or America or Merill Lynch credit or debit card, you’re eligible for free admission at more than 150 museums, science centers and gardens around the country, courtesy of the Museums on Us program, which makes the same offer the first full weekend of each month.

Kiss V, 1964, Roy Lichtenstein, courtesy Seattle Art Museum. Collection Simonyi, © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, Photo: Eduardo Calderon.

If you’re in Seattle, that means you can get free admission to the Seattle Art Museum (regular admission: $19.50), which is currently showing a great pop art exhibition.

Another great option: The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, which is the only place outside of Hong Kong to have an exhibition about martial arts and film star Bruce Lee, who had deep connections to Seattle and is buried at Lake View Cemetery

Bruce Lee - Wing Luke Bruce Lee on the set of ‘Way of the Dragon’ – courtesy of The Wing and Bruce Lee Enterprises.

City break: free dinos and glittering gems in Dallas

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If you’ve flying somewhere this weekend and have a free afternoon, check your wallet. There may be free dinosaurs or art treasures in there.

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If you’re a Bank of America or Merrill Lynch credit or debit card holder, you’re eligible for a free admission at more than 150 museums around the country – a perk that returns on the first weekend each month as part of the long running Museums on Us program.

If you’re near Dallas, for example, you’ll get free entry at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science , where general admission is $15.

As I learned during an all-too-short visit this week, the museum has five floors filled with 11 interactive permanent exhibits offering everything from dazzling gems and minerals to a bird hall, a dinosaur-filled then and now exhibit and the opportunity to learn about and explore sport, science and space.

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Free museums & expensive luggage delivery

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Photo courtesy Harvard Museum of Natural History via Flickr

I’m a big fan of “free” and a big fan of the Museums on Us program that offers free admission on the first weekend of each month to more than 150 museums around the country to anyone who has Bank of America or Merrill Lynch credit or debit card.

The list includes museums, zoos and attractions such as Chicago’s Alder Planetarium, where general adult admission is usually at least $12, and the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Mass. where adult admission is usually $9.

With the money you save, you might want to fly down to New Orleans and hop on one of the new riverboats  now cruising up the and down the Mississippi or buy yourself a meal at the new full-service Wolfgang Puck Express restaurant in Terminal 7 at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), where things like bacon-wrapped meatloaf and oven roasted salmon are now on the menu.

Or use your saving towards the new baggage delivery service being sold by American Airlines and BAGS VIP Luggage Delivery. Beginning Monday, Aug. 6, you can pay ($29.95 for one bag, $39.95 for two bags and $49.95 for three to 10 bags) to have the bags you check at more than 200 U.S. airports delivered to your home, office or hotel instead of having to go pick them up at baggage claim and tote them with you.

Passengers can purchase the service on-line up to two hours prior to departure and, for delivery locations within 40 miles of the airport, expect their bags to be delivered to their destination within one to four hours of arrival.

A good deal? For some, maybe. But keep in mind that the price for Baggage Delivery Service is in addition to the regular bag fees that need to be paid at check-in. And for bags that need to be delivered between 41 and 100 miles from the airport, there is an additional $1 per mile charge and an estimated delivery time between four and six hours instead of one to four hours.

No word yet on whether all fees are returned if your luggage goes missing or if delivery times are not met.

Free admission at 150 museums, courtesy of Museums on Us

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Banks don’t give out toasters anymore. But at least the Bank of America is continuing its Museums on Us program.

On the first weekend of each month, more than 150 museums, science centers, zoos and cultural attractions around the country offer free admission to anyone who shows their photo ID and a Bank of America or Merrill Lynch credit or debit card.

Because some museum admission prices hover around $20 now, this is a great way to extend your travel budget while you’re on the road. And it may be a good excuse to see a museum in your town that you’ve always been curious about.

If you’re anywhere near Dearborn, Michigan this weekend, keep in mind that your Bank of America card gets you free admission at the Henry Ford Museum, where the regular admission is $17 ($35 for the Henry Ford/ Greenfield Village combo) and where the Driving America exhibition is the latest attraction.

1955 Chevy Corvette Roadster, courtesy the Henry Ford

Among the many other exhibits inside this 13-acre museum building is a Heroes of the Sky section focusing on the pioneers of aviation.

1928 Ford Trimotor

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.