Free Museum Days in Virginia

Virginia quietly out-frees almost everyone when it comes to art museums. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond is open 365 days a year with free general admission; the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk and the Taubman in Roanoke are free too, as are the university museums in Charlottesville and Richmond's ICA at VCU. So most of the marquee names below charge nothing, ever. On top of that, two of the best museums that do charge have generous free windows: the Virginia Museum of History & Culture opens its galleries free on the first Friday evening of each month, and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art is free every day for any Virginia resident. Every entry was checked against the museum's own admission page.

A couple more budget moves: the Mariners' Museum in Newport News charges just $1 for admission — one of the great deals in American museums — and its surrounding 550-acre park and five-mile Noland Trail are free. The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond runs several free community days a year (around Juneteenth, the Fourth of July, and a Genworth-sponsored day near Labor Day). For ticketed museums like the Science Museum of Virginia, most Richmond-area public libraries (Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield) lend free or discounted museum passes, and EBT/WIC cardholders get free or $1–3 admission widely through the Museums for All program.