If you’re planning a visit to San Francisco—or already live here—you’ll want to learn about the NARM card. Here’s how it works: Purchase an annual membership at a participating museum (even if it’s in your hometown somewhere else in the U.S.) and you can visit all 16 NARM locations in San Francisco for free.
Some NARM locations, however, have a fun little quirk: You cannot enter another facility within 15 miles of the facility where you purchased your membership. But fortunately, none of the NARM locations in San Francisco have this restriction.
NARM stands for North American Reciprocal Museum Association, a network of 1,380 art and history museums, zoos, gardens, cultural sites, and more. When you purchase a membership at a NARM participating museum, you automatically receive free admission to all other museums in the network (including museums in Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico, and Mexico!). New sites are added every week. Your “NARM card” is really just your membership card to your local museum—in fact, you may already be a NARM member without knowing it.
We think this is a godsend if you just want to stop for an hour on a road trip and see something interesting without spending any money. And while you might think that NARM sites have to be the “B-list” of museums, that’s really not the case: We’ve found that top-notch museums and attractions appear on the NARM list.
Bonus in addition to the bonus? NARM also offers members discounts in museum shops and cafes as well as on concert/lecture tickets.
Here are the 16 NARM locations in San Francisco in alphabetical order:
Asian Art Museum
San Francisco Chinese Cultural Center
Chinese Historical Society of America
deYoung Museum
GLBT History Museum
Grey area
Legion of Honour
Letterform archive
Italian-American Museum
Museum of the African Diaspora
Museum of Crafts and Design
Gallery for women artists in San Francisco
Tenderloin Museum
USS Pampanito
Walt Disney World
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
And for nearby NARM locations in the Bay Area:
Oakland:
Camron Stanford House
Chabot Space and Science Center
Junior Center for Arts and Science
Oakland Museum of California
Berkeley:
Doug Adams Gallery
Kala Art Institute
UC Berkeley Botanical Garden
UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Alameda:
USS hornet museum
Richmond:
NIAD Art Center
Richmond Art Center
