Yale Peabody Museum

We had such a great experience visiting the Yale Peabody Museum! The museum has three floors, and the first floor made the biggest impression on us-especially since we were there with our 3-year-old daughter who absolutely loves dinosaurs. She was amazed, and honestly, so were we! The other two floors we went through more quickly, which makes sense when you’re traveling with a little one, but the overall visit was wonderful. To our surprise, admission was free-and it turns out it’s now permanently free for everyone, which is amazing. After the museum, we took a stroll around the Yale University campus, which was the perfect way to end the day. Highly recommend this experience!

My fiancé took me to the Peabody because he knew I loved dinosaurs and Ancient Egypt. I loved this little museum! Our first encounter, however was with parking. Visitor parking is ONLY in LOT 22V and it's very tiny at the moment due to construction. Do take your parking ticket with you - parking is free when you validate your ticket at the front desk. It was also a bit confusing for us to find the museum - we ended up going in two different directions before finding the dino footprints on the sidewalk at the far front corner of the lot (we arrived from a direction where we couldn't see the sculpture out front until we were walking toward it.) It is a three minute walk from the visitor's parking lot to the museum. There are three floors in the museum. My first bit of advice is to give yourself plenty of time to see it. The museum closes at five p.m. We arrived around two in the afternoon and only got to see the first floor and the Egyptian exhibit - there are a LOT of informational signs, some videos and an app to see, especially in the dino and early mammal exhibits. The dino exhibit is incredible! Several of the exhibits feature real dino bones, not casts. When you first walk in, you're met by a HUGE brontosaurus towering over the entire room. There are several other dinos and bones to be seen as well. (Part if me wants to start gushing over the dinos and another doesn't want to spoil it for anyone!) There is one bit of the exhibit that was the inspiration for the triceratops sculpture that stands out front. There are two actual triceratops skulls in an exhibit of other skulls - TRex, Lambeosaur, Hadrosaur...the triceratops skull on the left was the one that inspired the sculpture. Upstairs is the Ancient Egypt and Sumerian exhibits. It is a relatively small one, but an interesting one! While it does have some other things, the main stars of the exhibit are the funerary items. They are mostly in the center of the floor and can be seen from most sides. The Sumerian part of the exhibit includes a copy of the world's first known cookbook. I intend to go back one of these days to see the exhibits on the third floor and to revisit the dinos. It was a great experience!

You can’t beat free! Really lovely museum that’s much larger than you’d think. I recommend setting aside 3-5 hours to be able to see all of the exhibits. Lots of fun topics for children and adults alike! My personal favourite highlights are the living lab and dioramas on Floor 3. They do close fairly early at 5pm on Friday, so be aware of the time when you go!

What a great museum that has stood the test of time. It's free to the public and offers so many great learning opportunities. Incredibly well maintained, clean, and interactive for all. The post remodeling looks awesome. A true gem of New Haven

A must visit if you are in nearby areas. Such a beautiful, well maintained and free-admission museum. The stone section is stunning. We also enjoyed the science section. Recommended for all age groups. This museum is having a parking area adjacent to it but will suggest to do roadside parking if you get free space nearby before reaching its own parking lot. Because, it’s difficult to get space in the Peabody parking on weekends. There’s no time restrictions until it closes at 5 pm. Please note- MONDAY is CLOSED. The museum have 3 floors and you will spend good time for 2 to 3 hours. If you are museum lover, you can also visit the Yale museum, very near to it.

We visited on a Friday in mid-June 2025 around 3PM. Parking was rough on the street. We actually parked near the Yale University Art Gallery and walked over here. It was about a 20 min walk and there are many homeless folks on the street. The best part is that admission is FREE. It's also much more kid friendly than the Yale University Art Gallery. Food is allowed in large atrium hall but not in the galleries. The merch store is a good size with many unique items that I haven't seen else where. The dino hall was very large and amazing. The fossils were cool and the gem stones and rock were amazing with really large specimens. The live animal area was small but kept kids entertained for a bit. Dioramas were less interesting and reminded me of Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. We spent 2 hrs total at this museum and it was just about perfect with a ADHD kid running around. The mind exhibit was their favorite as it was very interactive. Without kids could have maybe spend 3-4 hrs really looking at everything and not running through exhibits. Overall great place to visit with kids and we would visit again if we were in town. As an adult I think I'd pick the Yale University Art Gallery over this museum but that's personal preference.

Even though relatively small, this is an excellent museum in New Haven which is 100% recommend. The presentation is very well done, the building’s architecture is intriguing and the exhibitions are super interesting. The pre-historic collection is fabulous and the gem stone collection is one of the most fascinating I have ever seen (see photos) and can be seen as a strong competition to the one in the New York museum of natural history. The varying special exhibitions are also worth seeing and very entertaining. The building and its facilities are completely wheelchair accessible which is great.

Wow, this place absolutely blew me away. The renovation is amazing and I loved all the minerals and gold specimens. The fossils and the story as you walk around are incredible too.. some of the animals exhibits seem a bit disjointed but not terribly so. Also found out that Yale was a big player in the eugenics movement as well! They definitely could have made that a bit more prominent to atone for their awful history, but at least they addressed it?