Museums in Miami worth your time, and the free days that make them cheaper

PAMM

The art museum next door to the Frost, on the waterfront in Museum Park, showing modern and contemporary international art. Doing both in one day is the easiest museum plan in Miami: one Metromover stop, one walk across the park, science in the morning and art in the afternoon.

Mind the odd schedule: closed Tuesday and Wednesday, open 11 am to 6 pm Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and until 9 pm on Thursday, the best evening slot of any museum in this guide. It rates 4.5 from almost eight thousand Google reviews. Check current shows and ticket prices on pamm.org.

Vizcaya

A historic estate on the bay with a mansion from around 1914, formal gardens, sculptures and grottos. It has more Google reviews than any other museum in this guide, more than sixteen thousand at 4.7, and much of the visit is outdoors in the gardens, so plan for the sun as much as for the rooms.

Open 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, closed Tuesday. Go in the morning, before the heat and the summer afternoon storms. If you would rather see it from the water, the Mizner's Dream sunset cruise from Miami Beach Marina sails out to Vizcaya. Ticket prices are on vizcaya.org.

Freedom Tower

If you want to understand Cuban Miami in one stop, this is it. The 1925 tower was built for the Miami News, and from 1962 it was the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center, where hundreds of thousands of exiles were processed. The galleries tell the exile story and Operation Pedro Pan, with rotating art shows.

$18 general, $14 for seniors 62 and up, $12 for youth 7 to 18 and students; kids 6 and under, veterans and active military free. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm, and it sometimes closes for events, so check the site. The Metromover stops across the street. An hour to 90 minutes is enough.

600 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132

Museum of Miami

The city history museum long known as HistoryMiami, now renamed, a Smithsonian affiliate on the downtown Cultural Plaza. The permanent galleries run from the Tequesta through Spanish Florida, the railroad and boom years, to the Cuban, Haitian and Latin American arrivals. On a first trip it puts every other stop in context.

Open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5 pm, last entry 4:30. Adults $15, seniors and students $10, kids 6 to 12 $8, under 6 free. The Government Center Metrorail and Metromover station is a block away. Allow 90 minutes to two hours, and expect the block outside to feel empty on weekends.

Rubell Museum

A private contemporary collection built by Mera and Don Rubell over decades, in dozens of galleries in a converted industrial complex in Allapattah, at the western edge of Wynwood. Large paintings and installations, early-career artists next to big names. It leans challenging rather than pretty, and that is the reason to go.

Adults $18; seniors, students and youth 7 to 18 $14; 6 and under free. Open 11:30 am to 5:30 pm Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and until 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday, closed Monday and Tuesday. Superblue, the walk-in light and digital art space, is directly across the street, from $34 on weekdays.

Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach

Public art that stays with you. Architect Kenneth Treister built the memorial around a huge bronze arm covered with sculpted figures, reached through a narrow passage and ringed by a reflecting pool, with a granite wall of names and a photo history. Admission is free, and a visit takes 30 to 45 minutes.

We have no posted hours and listings disagree, so check the memorial's site before going. Treat it as a memorial, not a photo stop: keep voices low, and talk to younger kids first, since the sculpture can upset them. It sits next to the Convention Center, and the Miami Beach Botanical Garden next door is a calm walk afterward.