National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum is the Smithsonian's museum of flight and space exploration, and its building on the south side of the National Mall has been open since 1 July 1976. The collection began in 1946 as the National Air Museum. The building, designed by Gyo Obata of HOK, is made up of marble-clad blocks linked by tall steel-and-glass halls, which gives the large aircraft room to hang overhead.

The museum has been through a long renovation that started in 2018. The western side reopened in October 2022 and galleries have been returning in stages since then. At the time of writing twelve exhibitions are on view, including the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall, How Things Fly, Pioneers of Flight, a First World War aviation gallery and The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age. The museum lists At Home in Space as opening on 30 October and Modern Military Aviation on 11 November, and part of the east end is still closed for work, so check the gallery map before you go.

The objects are the reason to come. The 1903 Wright Flyer, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11 command module Columbia and John Glenn's Friendship 7 capsule are among the best-known pieces in the collection. There is also a planetarium and an IMAX theatre, both of which are worth adding if you have children with you.

Entry is free, but every visitor, whatever their age, needs a free timed-entry pass. You can reserve up to nine passes at once, and the pass sets your arrival time rather than how long you stay. The museum is open from 10am to 5:30pm and closes on 25 December. Everyone enters through the doors on Jefferson Drive and goes through a security check, so allow time for a queue at busy periods.

It suits families, school-age children and anyone with an interest in engineering or history. Allow two to three hours for the open galleries. The Mars Café and the shop are on the bottom level, which makes it easy to break up a long visit.

The museum is a short walk from L'Enfant Plaza Metro, and the National Gallery of Art sits directly across the Mall. If you want to see more of the collection, the museum's second site, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, is out near Washington Dulles airport in Virginia and includes a large restoration hangar.