What are the busiest days in the week for visiting museums?

We'll be hitting the road again in May! Another epic road trip for me and my family. This time, we'll be going from NYC to Alaska and back. I know it's not a short drive but we have four months, so we should be ok and not too rushed.

I'm currently working on fine tuning our itinerary, which I'll post here soon, and I have a question for those of you who live in the US -

We want to visit a certain children's museum in St. Louis (City Museum). As it happens, we'll have a day in town on June 23rd, a Sunday. I am sitting here wondering if the place won't be too crowded on a Sunday? Do you think visiting on a Saturday would make a difference? Or are Sundays and Saturdays about the same, in terms of people taking their kids to the local museum?

Anne, I work in Washington, DC., where of course there are lots of museums.

I would think Saturdays have more families visiting museums than Sundays.  Hours tend to be shorter and some people/families attend church on Sunday.  This would be particularly true were you visiting during the school year.

That said, keep in mind holidays and special events near the museum(s) where you want to visit. For example, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival draws tons of people to the area, including museums (for the bathrooms, if nothing else).  It runs for around two weeks concluding the July 4th weekend.   Some museums/art galleries have free days if there is some kind of special anniversary coming up.

And keep in mind whether the museum is free:  many museums in DC are free; some are not (notably, International Spy Museum and Newseum).  That will have a large impact on whether the family can afford to visit the museum on its own or wait until the kids go there on a field trip.

During the school year, because a field trip to the DC area is practially a right of passage, museums would be busier on the weekdays.

June in St. Louis.  Hmmm.  Ok, baseball season will be going strong, so will car racing season.  I would think Sunday would be the best day to go.  I don't know if you have looked at their webpage, but here it is.   citymuseum.org/site/?cat=3

I would think Sunday is quieter.  Winding down/day of rest.  What I have done is call the aquarium up and ask.  They may be willing to help you  Also look into prebuying tickets/parking to save time and money.

Thank you so much for the info! I'm relieved to hear Sunday is quieter than Saturday, because Sunday actually works better for us. We have visited City Museum before. It's the one place the kids insisted on going back to!

Cindy, we'll be in DC in mid-June. I'm not even sure if that's still considered school year per se? I imagine schools wind down their activities towards the end of the year? Not sure though. We have a total of five days in DC, so we get a fair choice of week days and weekend days for the museums. I'm not sure just how many of them we'll actually visit. We have a week in London, in late May, and there are some awesome free museums there as well. We then have a few days in NYC too. DC is going to have some tough competition There are only so many excellent science and natural history museums you can see in the same two weeks