The Best Free Museums To Visit Across The US

With more than 37 million people of Mexican origin living in the United States today, Mexican heritage and culture are an integral part of the American story. Sharing the vibrant beauty of that heritage and highlighting the contributions of Mexican and Chicano artists to America's story is the focus of Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art. Located in Chicago's predominantly Mexican neighborhood Pilson, the sprawling 48,000 square-foot institution boasts more than 18,000 pieces of art dating from ancient Mexico to the modern day.

One of the things that stands out about this museum is the variety of offerings that show Mexican-American culture not as a monolith but as a rich tapestry of experiences. The museum's permanent collection gives a look into a hauntingly beautiful past with artifacts dating back to pre-Cuauhtémoc Mexico during the Aztec period. The collection also takes visitors through the art of Colonial Mexico, Revolutionary-era Mexico, present-day Mexico, and present-day Mexican-American art. "Nuestras Historias: Stories of Mexican Identity from the Permanent Collection" emphasizes the diversity of Mexican identities and experiences in the United States and North America. Here, visitors can experience many presentations of cultural identity through the lens of different communities and regions, highlighting everything from folk art to modern Mexican art.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum is one of those massive museums with a little of everything for folks who appreciate history and art. Unless you're content with speed-browsing, it's the kind of place you could easily spend an entire day. The museum was built from the estates of a Kansas City businessman and a retired schoolteacher who wanted to see Kansas City get its own world-class art museum. Here, you'll find all sorts of treasures from the kid-friendly (and Instagrammable) giant badminton shuttlecocks to an extensive European art collection highlighting paintings from the likes of Edgar Degas, Caravaggio, Claude Monet, Rembrandt, and Vincent van Gogh.

The museum features an expansive collection of global art including an extensive Asian art collection. The celebrated collection includes many works including Chinese antique furniture (one of the best in the country), Japanese screens and scrolls, textiles, ceramics, sculptures, and hundreds of woodblock prints. Or take a stroll through the ancient world with an ancient art collection that includes Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman works. Other highlights include an African art exhibit featuring art from across Africa including Mali, Ghana, and Gabon, just to name a few, and Native American art galleries with hundreds of art pieces from thousands of years in the past, up to modern Indigenous art. The museum also features American, Modern, Photography, Contemporary, and Design and Decorative Arts galleries, as well as the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park.

If you're interested in contemporary art, the Bronx Museum of the Arts is one of the best in the country — and it's completely free to visit. Located on the culturally diverse Grand Concourse near the Bronx Walk of Fame, the museum was initially launched in 1971 as a collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Bronx Council of the Arts. Although the Museum originally featured only a small collection, the popular spot has expanded significantly through the years and now features a permanent collection with more than 800 works of art.

With an emphasis on social justice and cultural heritage, the museum features contemporary art from American, Asian, Latin American, and African artists while highlighting the way art intersects with culture. It's a good way to cut through the touristy New York spots and get a sense of real life in this diverse New York community. Featuring exhibitions on everything from pop art to hip-hop, the Bronx Museum has a laid-back, more approachable vibe than many art museums you'll visit. Here, you'll also find photography telling the stories of life in the Bronx and depicting some of the major changes this community has seen through the years.

If you're the type of person who finds 19th-century academia one of the dreamier aesthetics or finds taxidermy and other natural oddities pleasing to the eye, then you'll fall in love with the Wagner Free Institute of Science. Stepping into this gorgeous museum is like stepping into a page from a history book. Virtually unchanged since it was first founded in the mid-1800s, Wagner Free Institute is a Victorian-era natural history museum complete with a library and research center.

Everything within the collection is displayed in Victorian glass cherry wood cabinets and presented in its original Victorian "systematic" arrangement, giving an authentic look at the world of 19th-century science. The museum itself includes around 100,000 specimens of taxidermy, mounted skeletons, and other preserved animals — an English draft horse, the first American saber-toothed tiger, dinosaur bones, and many small animals, insects, and birds are among the collection. The exhibit hall also features many small fossils, rocks, shells, and minerals. It's a favorite spot for artists to practice their craft, and the museum regularly hosts drawing sessions, so there's a good chance you'll catch some folks sketching out their take on a favorite moth or bird species, which only adds to the dark academia of it all.

For art lovers looking for an overwhelming sensory experience, the Broad is a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Broad is a contemporary art museum featuring a dynamic collection of art from the 1950s to today. With its cave-like interior that feels like it's straight out of Tatooine, the building itself is art. A smaller collection that packs a lot of punch, the Broad features more than 2,000 works from over 200 artists and is notable for maintaining one of the premier contemporary art collections in the world.

One of the museum's biggest draws is its collection of Yayoi Kusama's two "Infinity Mirrored Rooms." These heavily-instagrammed rooms feature countless pulsing points of light reflected in water and mirrors to create a sense of infinity as if you've lost yourself in time and space. You'll also find Jeff Koons' "Tulips" and "Balloon Dog (Blue)," two large sculptures meant to resemble mylar balloons. You can relive the feeling of hiding under a table as a kid with Robert Therrien's "Under the Table," a giant dining room furniture set. Other featured artists include Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami, Andy Warhol, Mark Bradford, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among many others. Guests are also invited to access a selection of digital resources to enhance their visit, including a mobile museum guide and free audio tours.

If you've always dreamed of exploring the ruins of Pompeii or Herculaneum to imagine what life was like in the Roman Empire, you may be surprised there's a piece of the Roman Empire in Los Angeles — or at least a replica of one. Located in the Pacific Palisades, the Getty Villa Museum lets visitors take a stroll through the ancient world as they wander through a recreation of a Roman country home filled with Greek and Roman antiquities. The villa itself is based on a Roman home known as the Villa de Papiri, which was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The estate is one of two locations that make up the Getty Center, an expansive visual art and cultural heritage center. Expanded from the private collection once housed in J. Paul Getty's Pacific Palisades home, the Getty Center branch is located in L.A.'s Brentwood neighborhood. Upon arrival, visitors are invited to stop by the Lower Tram Station and board a tram that climbs to the top of the Getty Center. The museum's art collection features art dating back from 6,000 B.C.E., through modern art from the present day. Getty's medieval and Renaissance works include rotating manuscripts, decorative arts, and sculpture. Here, guests can also view Italian art and sculpture from the 1600s and French decorative art including furnished rooms. When you've finished taking all of that in, be sure to check out the contemporary and modern sculptures scattered across the grounds.

For anyone who loves fashion, no trip to New York should leave off a stop to the Fashion Institute of Technology's (FIT) fashion museum. Part of the State University of New York (SUNY), FIT is considered by many to be one of the top fashion schools in the world. Initially called the Design Laboratory, the FIT Museum was opened in 1969 to present a public collection of fashion-related textiles, clothing, and accessories. Today, the museum's permanent collection includes more than 50,000 garments and accessories, making it a must-see for the sartorially inclined.

Inside, guests will find three galleries to explore. On the main floor, a rotating collection presents around 200 pieces from FIT's permanent collection as part of the Fashion and Textile History Gallery. Explore how fashion has evolved over time beginning with 18th-century Rococo fashions through the modern era with an insightful look at the intersection between culture, the zeitgeist, and the fashion of an age.

In the second gallery, you'll find rotating exhibitions on every imaginable fashion-related subject. A few notable examples of past exhibition topics include "The Corset: Fashioning the Body," "Dior + Balenciaga: The Kings of Couture and Their Legacies," and "Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch." There's also a third gallery dedicated to presenting fashions from FIT faculty and student collections where you may get a chance to check out tomorrow's Christian Siriano.