Something I love doing when I travel is visiting museums. It’s a way to see famous artwork, get a sense of local culture and help to fill time between meetings. But if you travel a lot, the $15 here, $30 here, $25 here can add up quickly.
One way of saving money is reciprocal museum memberships. You donate to a museum and you get access to dozens or hundreds of museums across the country.
For me, one of the nice things is that I don’t feel guilty popping into a museum to see one exhibit or for just 30 minutes. I don’t feel like I need to “get value” out of each visit.
The best value I’ve found is the reciprocal membership at the Walker, which gets you access to more than 1,200 museums in the U.S. and Canada for $125 a year. If you don’t live in Minneapolis, you can get an out-of-town member rate of $120 year. The membership is tax deductible. The card covers two people.
Of course, with 1,200 museums, not all of the museums will be world-class. Some of the best museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA aren’t on the list. But there are some great museums.
There are also some that are just fun to check out because of their offbeat nature. I really enjoyed the International Towing & Recovery Museum.
This is an especially good value if you live in New York City or San Francisco because of the selection of museums there alone.
Some of my favorite museums from the list:
San Francisco area
Asian Art Museum
de Young Museum
Charles M. Schulz Museum (Santa Rosa)
Legion of Honor
SFMOMA
Walt Disney Family Museum (although it’s named after Disney, kids would be bored here.)
New York City area
Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Museum of Arts and Design
Museum of the City of New York
Solomon R Guggenheim Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art
Upstate, I love the Corning Museum of Glass
What are your favorite museums around the world? Leave them in the comments below.
A must-have card for your wallet... not a credit card pitch
Great tip.