Free museum days in Boston
If you have some free time in the daytime this summer, and especially if you have kids to enlighten and entertain, keep these in mind.
"Free Fun Fridays" (sponsored by the Highland Street Foundation):
- July 3: Museum of Science
- July 10: John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
- July 17: Boston Harbor Islands
- July 24: Franklin Park Zoo
- July 31: Boston Children’s Museum
- Aug. 7: Plimoth Plantation
- Aug. 14: Stoneham Zoo
- Aug. 21: Peabody Essex Museum
- Aug. 28: Museum of Fine Arts
- Sept. 4: Springfield Museums
Museum of Fine Arts "9 in '09" once-a-month free admission days:
- Memorial Day, Monday, May 25: (with free admission to Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice)
- Father’s Day, Sunday, June 21
- Sunday, July 19
- Friday, August 28: (also "Free Fun Friday")
Institute for Contemporary Art "Play Dates": free for children 12 and under with up to 2 accompanying adults
- Saturday, May 30 (preregistration required)
- Saturday, June 27
- Saturday, July 25
- Saturday, August 29
Then there are regular free evenings or mornings by various museums:
- Wednesday evenings: Museum of Fine Arts
- Thursday evenings: Institute for Contemporary Art
- Friday evenings: Boston Children's Museum ($1 admission)
- Saturday mornings: Harvard Art Museums (under renovation)
- Sunday mornings: MIT Museum, Harvard Museum of Natural History/Peabody Museum of Ethnology
- Any time it's daylight and the main museum's closed: DeCordova Museum Sculpture Garden
And museums that are free all the time:
- National Heritage Museum, Lexington
- USS Constitution Museum, Charlestown
- Museum of African American History, Boston
- Wellesley College Greenhouses
- Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is free on your birthday. Or if your first name is Isabella.