My family just recently returned from a trip out to visit our family and friends in Vancouver. We love going back to my hometown and hitting up all of our favourite spots. Despite going back to the west coast at least once, usually twice, a year this trip we discovered something new! Thanks to a tip from an amazing Ottawa mom friend, I learned about the awesome benefits our Ottawa museum memberships have in other cities! Forgive me if you are all already in on this secret, but if like me, you knew nothing about it, this could be a major game changer on your next holiday! As it turns out, our Ottawa museum memberships (particularly the Ingenium membership which includes the farm, space and aviation and science and tech museums) can get us into dozens of other museums across Canada and the United States for FREE!

This revelation was pretty huge for us as it meant our Ingenium membership could get us into Vancouver’s Science World at no cost. Science World is a favourite spot for kids of all ages. It’s also in an amazing location alongside the sea wall, Olympic village and right next to an awesome newly built playground. But getting into Science World isn’t cheap, so free admission actually prompted us to go back twice over our time in Vancouver, and we didn’t feel rushed to see it all in one day. I want to give you an idea of how much money this saved us…our Ottawa museum family membership costs around $125 for the year, Science World one-time admission for two adults and two children above the age of 3 would have come to more than $90! That’s a huge savings!

The Ingenium membership has a ton of other partner museums with reciprocal agreements that will get you and your family in for free. There are too many to list them all but some of the highlights include the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto (I admit I have paid to get in here before I knew I could use my Ottawa membership!), Telus Spark in Calgary, Telus World of Science in Edmonton, the H.R Macmillan Space Centre in Vancouver (totally visiting here on our next trip to the B.C.), the Manitoba Children’s Museum in Winnipeg, the Montreal Science Centre and Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium in Montreal, and the Discovery Centre in Halifax. And, that’s not all! There are more Canadian locations, and HUNDREDS more amazing museums and planetariums across the United States and even internationally! For a complete list of the reciprocal agreements visit the Ingenium website HERE. Before heading off on your next family vacation it is so worth seeing what is on the list.

The Ingenium museum membership isn’t the only one to have some reciprocal agreements, although it is the best. If you have a membership to the Canadian Museum of Nature there are some benefits to make note of. In some of the following Canadian museums you can use your Nature Museum membership to get in for free, in some cases however, it just offers you a discount. Here is the list of museums:

• Beaty Biodiversity Museum (Vancouver) – discount admission
• Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History (Halifax) – free general admission
• The Manitoba Museum (Winnipeg) – free general admission
• The New Brunswick Museum (Saint John) – free general admission
• Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) – free general admission
• Royal Saskatchewan Museum (Regina) – %20 discount at museum shop
• Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre (Whitehorse) – free admission

It just goes to show that it’s always good to read the fine print and find out everything your museum memberships can do for you!

A few other things worth noting about Ottawa’s museums:

• memberships give you a discount on food and gift shop purchases.
• memberships at the Museum of History/War Museum give you parking discount.
• memberships at the Museum of History/War Museum give you 50% a guest admission, and two guest admissions with a family membership (a great way to bring along a friend or grandparent for cheaper).
• The Ingenium museums (farm, science and tech, space and aviation) offer FREE admission every day between 4 pm – 5 pm. Good for a quick, free visit.
• Thursday evenings the Museum of History, Children’s Museum, War Museum, Nature Museum and National Art Gallery are open late and from 5 pm – 8 pm admission is FREE! It’s a great time to try out a new museum and see how you like it.