Free Museum Days in Maine

Maine's two standing free-museum deals are both worth planning around. In Portland, the Portland Museum of Art — the state's flagship, with a deep collection of Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, and American art — is free to everyone every Friday from 4 to 8 p.m. (and free year-round for visitors 21 and under, thanks to a gift from Susie Konkel). Two hours up the coast in Rockland, the Farnsworth Art Museum opens free to all on the first Friday of every month, 5–7 p.m., through the Art Bridges 'Access for All' program — part of Rockland's lively First Friday Art Walk, when galleries and the nearby Center for Maine Contemporary Art also open their doors. Rockland residents get into the Farnsworth free year-round. Every deal below was checked against the museum's own website.

Maine's real free-museum strength is its college and university art museums, which never charge admission: Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum in Brunswick, the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville (home to Maine's largest art collection), the Zillman Art Museum in Bangor, and the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine in Orono. A few more bargains worth knowing: the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland is just $10 (free for visitors under 18, with free memberships for Rockland residents, and free admission during the summer First Friday Art Walk); the Maine State Museum in Augusta is only $3 ($10 max per family); and the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath is free for visitors 17 and under through 2026. Many Maine public libraries also lend free museum passes, and SNAP/EBT 'Museums for All' admission of $1 is widely available.