Free & Cheap Things to Do in Montana

Visiting Montana on a Budget

Montana's reputation as Big Sky country undersells it for budget travelers - the cost of access to the dramatic stuff is remarkably low. Bozeman is the gateway to Yellowstone's northern corridor, with free mountain trails minutes from downtown and the Museum of the Rockies. Helena, the gold-rush capital, packs a free State Capitol and the reopened Montana Heritage Center; Missoula anchors a laid-back college town along the Clark Fork; and Billings sits beneath the sandstone Rimrocks. Great Falls adds the Missouri's waterfalls, Giant Springs, and the C.M. Russell Museum, while Butte preserves a copper-mining Uptown that's a National Historic Landmark.

The money math is friendlier here than in most of the mountain West. The signature hikes - the Rimrocks, Drinking Horse Mountain, Mount Helena, the River's Edge Trail - are all free, and so are several of the state's best museums: the Montana Heritage Center and State Capitol in Helena, the Western Heritage Center in Billings, and Missoula's Smokejumper Visitor Center. One quirk worth knowing: state parks like Giant Springs, Spring Meadow Lake, and First Peoples Buffalo Jump charge out-of-state vehicles $8 at the gate but wave Montana plates through free. Save the paid-admission budget for the two heavyweights - Bozeman's Museum of the Rockies and the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, each $20 and each worth it.

June through September is the prime window, and it's also when the free calendar is fullest: Music on Main in Bozeman, Downtown Tonight in Missoula, farmers markets in nearly every city, and Montana Shakespeare in the Parks touring free outdoor performances statewide. The trade-off is lodging - rates in Bozeman and the park-gateway towns peak hard in July and August, so June or September shoulder weeks usually buy the same trip for less. Winter is far cheaper still, but many seasonal attractions close; check before building a trip around one.