Best Museums in Australia

The Art Gallery of New South Wales sits in the Domain, a 15-minute walk from the city centre, and since late 2022 it has had two buildings: the sandstone original with its colonial and European collection, and the new SANAA-designed building down the hill, linked by a public art garden. The new wing has a former naval fuel tank converted into a gallery for large installations, and the Yiribana gallery, devoted to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, sits at its heart. Entry to the collection is free; the Archibald Prize for portraiture, shown every winter, is ticketed. It stays open late on Wednesday nights.

Across the Domain, the Australian Museum on College Street is the oldest museum in the country, founded in 1827. Its general entry is free, and it is strongest on natural history, minerals and Pacific cultures, with dinosaur skeletons and a long gallery of Australian animals that suits a rainy day with children.

At Circular Quay, the Museum of Contemporary Art has free entry, changing shows and a rooftop cafe looking across to the Opera House. Up the hill in The Rocks, Sydney Observatory runs night telescope sessions that need booking. On Macquarie Street, Hyde Park Barracks tells the convict story through an audio tour, the Sydney Mint and the State Library with its reading room and free exhibitions are next door, and the Museum of Sydney stands on the site of the first Government House. The Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst, with Holocaust survivor testimony, is one of the most affecting small museums in the country.

At Darling Harbour, the Australian National Maritime Museum has free general galleries and paid entry to the ships moored outside, including a destroyer, a submarine and a replica of Cook’s Endeavour. The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney’s museum of design and technology, has its Ultimo site closed for renewal, reopening in about 2027, and a new campus in Parramatta opening in November 2026, so check what is open before you go.

Melbourne is the strongest museum city in Australia, and it is easy to walk. The National Gallery of Victoria has two sites. NGV International on St Kilda Road, behind the famous water wall at the entrance, holds the European, Asian and design collections; lie on the floor of the Great Hall to look up at Leonard French’s stained-glass ceiling. A few minutes north, the Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square is NGV Australia, with Australian art from the colonial period to the present and a large Indigenous collection. Both are free for the collection. The NGV’s winter blockbuster, the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series, is ticketed and draws long queues on weekends, so book a timed slot.

Also at Federation Square, ACMI is a free museum of film, television and video games, where you can play arcade machines and remake scenes on green screens. In Carlton, the Melbourne Museum has a living indoor forest, the racehorse Phar Lap and Bunjilaka, its Aboriginal cultural centre; it charges adults and lets children in free. Guided tours of the Royal Exhibition Building next door leave from the museum.

History in the centre is concentrated around Russell and Flinders Streets. The Old Melbourne Gaol holds Ned Kelly’s death mask and stages a mock arrest in the old City Watch House. The Immigration Museum in the old Customs House on Flinders Street covers who came and why, and the Old Treasury Building has free exhibitions in vaults built for gold. Out of the centre, Scienceworks in Spotswood suits families and Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen shows modernist Australian art in the former home of the collectors John and Sunday Reed.

Canberra was built to hold national institutions, and most of them line the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. Two full days covers the best of them; a car or bike helps, because they are spread out and the city is built for driving.

The National Gallery of Australia is free and holds the country’s most famous purchase, Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, bought in 1973 amid outrage over the price. More important is The Aboriginal Memorial, 200 painted hollow log coffins from Ramingining in Arnhem Land, displayed near the entrance. Next door, the National Portrait Gallery is also free. The National Museum of Australia on Acton Peninsula covers social history, Indigenous cultures and the land, and keeps Phar Lap’s heart.

The Australian War Memorial is the one not to miss even if military history leaves you cold: a shrine, a museum and a hall of aircraft in one, all free. Arrive by mid-afternoon and stay for the Last Post Ceremony at 4.30pm, held every day, when the story of one name on the Roll of Honour is read out. Across the lake, Parliament House has free tours and a public gallery when Parliament sits, Old Parliament House is now the Museum of Australian Democracy, the National Library has a free Treasures Gallery with Cook’s Endeavour journal, and Questacon, the science centre, is the paid choice for families.

MONA is about 12 km north of Hobart at Berriedale. The best way there is the museum’s own fast ferry from Brooke Street Pier, about 25 minutes, with a top deck that sells drinks; book the ferry and entry together in summer. Inside, you descend a spiral staircase into the cliff and wander with a handheld device instead of wall labels. The collection mixes antiquities with deliberately provocative contemporary works on sex and death, so it is not for everyone or for young children. Tasmanian residents get in free; everyone else pays. Allow at least three hours, and add lunch at the winery on the grounds. In June, MONA’s winter festival Dark Mofo fills Hobart with night-time art and music.

Brisbane’s main museums share the Cultural Centre at South Bank, across the Victoria Bridge from the city centre. The Gallery of Modern Art and its older sister, the Queensland Art Gallery, run together as QAGOMA, with free entry to the collections. GOMA’s specialty is contemporary art from Asia and the Pacific, shown in depth at the Asia Pacific Triennial, held every three years over the southern summer, with a strong children’s art centre alongside. Its riverside lawn and cafe make an easy break.

The Queensland Museum next door is free for the main galleries and covers dinosaurs, Queensland wildlife and the Torres Strait, while the attached SparkLab science centre charges. The Museum of Brisbane, in City Hall in King George Square, tells the city’s story and runs tours of the clock tower.

Adelaide puts its cultural institutions side by side along North Terrace, so you can do the lot in a day on foot. The Art Gallery of South Australia is free and has one of the best collections of Australian colonial painting, plus a strong Aboriginal collection; the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art is held here in autumn of even-numbered years. Next door, the South Australian Museum, also free, has the Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery, holding one of the largest collections of Aboriginal cultural material in the world, and a Pacific gallery of canoes and carvings.

Further along, the State Library’s Mortlock Wing is a 19th-century reading room of iron balconies and wood, and the Migration Museum on Kintore Avenue tells how South Australia was settled by free migrants rather than convicts. Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute on Grenfell Street is an Aboriginal-run arts centre with exhibitions and performances. The Adelaide Botanic Garden at the eastern end of North Terrace is an easy finish.

In Perth, the Perth Cultural Centre, a short walk from the main station, holds the Art Gallery of Western Australia, free, with a rooftop bar, and the WA Museum Boola Bardip, which reopened in 2020 after a full rebuild and has free general entry. The museum’s Wild Life gallery shows Western Australian animals, and Otto, the skeleton of a blue whale, hangs in Hackett Hall.

Half an hour away by train, Fremantle is the better museum day. The WA Shipwreck Galleries show the reassembled stern of the Batavia, the Dutch ship wrecked off the coast in 1629, whose survivors suffered one of the most infamous mutinies in maritime history. The WA Maritime Museum on Victoria Quay holds Australia II, the yacht that won the America’s Cup in 1983, and a submarine you can tour. Fremantle Prison, built by convicts and in use until 1991, runs guided tours, including night tours and a tunnels tour by boat and ladder underground.

Some of the most memorable museums are far from the capitals. Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, 90 minutes from Melbourne, is a recreated 1850s gold town with costumed staff and gold panning, and the Art Gallery of Ballarat owns the original Eureka flag from the 1854 miners’ rebellion. Bendigo’s art gallery stages international fashion and design shows that pull visitors from Melbourne, and the Golden Dragon Museum covers the town’s Chinese gold rush community.

In Darwin, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory is free and has a gallery on Cyclone Tracy, which levelled the city on Christmas Day 1974, with a dark room playing the sound of the storm. It also hosts the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards each August, and keeps Sweetheart, a stuffed 5-metre saltwater crocodile. The Defence of Darwin Experience covers the 1942 Japanese bombing raids.

Outback Queensland has a museum trail of its own. Longreach has the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders Museum, where you can walk out on the wing of a Boeing 747, and Winton has the Australian Age of Dinosaurs with fossils found on surrounding stations. In New South Wales, the Temora Aviation Museum flies its vintage warbirds on regular flying days. For Aboriginal culture in the Red Centre, the cultural centres in Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Kakadu are covered on our national parks guide.

Entry details below are as of 2026; check the official sites before you go, since special exhibitions and hours change.

Free entry means you can drop in for an hour and leave, which is the best way to handle the big galleries. Most open daily from about 10am to 5pm, a few open late one night a week, and many smaller museums close on Mondays or have shorter winter hours. Most close on Christmas Day and Good Friday, and the Australian War Memorial opens later on Anzac Day after the dawn service.

Blockbuster exhibitions at the NGV, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, GOMA and the National Gallery of Australia sell timed tickets. Book online a few days ahead for weekends and school holidays. Free guided tours of the permanent collections run at most state galleries, usually late morning and early afternoon; they are the quickest way into the Aboriginal collections if you know little about them. For travel between cities, see our getting around guide, and for when the festivals fall, the best time to visit Australia.

Photography without flash is allowed in most permanent collections, but often banned in ticketed exhibitions and for some loaned works; look for the camera symbol. Large bags and backpacks go in the cloakroom, which is usually free, and food and drink stay outside the galleries.