Visiting Gettysburg National Military Park Museum

When you visit the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center, you'll have the opportunity to visit several different Civil War and Battle of Gettysburg attractions. House in one central location, you can visit and tour the following:

- Guided Tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield
- Guided Tours of Eisenhower National Historical Site
- Gettysburg Military Park Museum
- Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama
- Battle of Gettysburg Film
- Seasonal Lectures & Educational Programs

Plus, the visitor's center has an on-site cafe where you can pick up a casual bite to eat and you can do some shopping in the museum's gift shop and book store. All attractions are manged by the National Park Foundation.

Note: If you're looking to tour the Eisenhower National Historical Site, you'll go to the visitor's center to purchase shuttle bus tickets to the farm. Transportation for this attraction is provided by Gettysburg Tours Inc. The Eisenhower National Historical Site is open daily, except on New Year's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Driving Directions: The museum & visitor center is located at 1195 Baltimore Pink, Gettysburg, PA. 17325, phone (717) 338-9114 for reservations and information.

Since there is so much to see and do while visiting the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center, we're breaking down our visit into separate features here on the travel blog, so that we can adequately cover each of the offered attractions. You can check out our Pennsylvania travel category for additional reviews.

Next up, our visit to the museum. If you're a civil war military buff or just enjoy visiting museums, you'll love this one!

After paying your admission, you'll head to the museum section in the building. If you're just visiting the museum and no other attractions, it's completely housed on one floor, so you'll have no steps to climb, elevators to use, etc. We took the self-guided tour, which allowed us to walk around & view the exhibits at our own leisurely pace.

The museum does a really nice job at giving you an accurate peek at what life was like during the civil war and the 3-day battle that occurred in Gettysburg. You'll see a ton of displays of civil war military weapons (guns, cannons, swords, artillery, etc.) and we really enjoyed seeing the military uniforms of the civil war era.

While walking around and viewing all of the exhibits, you really get a feel for what the battle was like during those 3 bloody days. You learn how the Confederate and Union Armies conducted themselves, who led the fights, where and when the battles occurred, who won & who lost and all kinds of different civil war historical facts.

As you walk through, you'll want to start at the beginning and try to stay in chronological order, although you'll be tempted to run from one area to another...since there is so much to see. Throughout different sections of the museum, you can sit down on one of the viewing benches and watch mini films that give you additional information and really help the museum to come to life.

We took our leisurely time and really spent time viewing the exhibits and watching the majority of the mini films (several are offered at different spots inside the museum). It took us approximately 2 hours from start to finish, but I'm sure you could do it in less time. On the day we visited, they weren't crowded, so we didn't have to wait in any lines.

Visiting the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum was one of the highlights of our trip to Gettysburg. We learned a lot about the Civil War that we didn't know and it really helped us to put the entire Battle of Gettysburg into perspective. If you're planning a trip, we highly recommend that you stop in and visit the museum at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

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