9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York Tickets and Tours

Ground Zero and the 9/11 Memorial are two visits that are awe-inspiring, but provide a context for New York's more recent history that will change your view of the event that shocked the world, as it explores in greater depth its social and political consequences.

In memory of the 9/11 attacks, today you can visit the Museum, the Memorial, Ground Zero and the World Trade Center. I'll tell you how to visit the 9/11 Memorial and the 9/11 Museum.

Queue-free entry

New York 9/11 Memorial and National Museum Tickets

Skip the queues at the 9/11 Museum

The most convenient and economical way to access the 9/11 Museum is to purchase these tickets online and in advance.

From £30 at Hellotickets

One thing you should know before you go to Ground Zero is that the 9/11 Memorial and the 9/11 Museum are different things. The 9/11 Memorial is a memorial located on the foundation of what used to be the Twin Towers, and the 9/11 Museum is an underground facility below Ground Zero that houses an exhibit about the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.

To visit the 9/11 Museum, you only need to purchase this ticket. When booking your tickets for the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, you will need to select a time slot in which to visit the Museum. The average time of the visit is two and a half hours.

With the Museum's app, as well as accessing interactive parts of the exhibition that you cannot see in any other way, you will be able to listen to a complete audio guide in Spanish so you won't miss anything.

Recommended if... you want to learn in depth about the events of 9/11 that marked the history of the United States and the world. With this combined ticket you won't have to worry about anything and just focus on the experience.

With this ticket for the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum you will be able to visit both the outside grounds, which today is the Memorial, and access the 9/11 Museum. What used to be the World Trade Center is now a park of oak trees in the centre of which stand the twin fountains that make up the 9/11 Memorial. In tribute to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the names of those who lost their lives that day are engraved on the outer edges of the fountains.

The fountains and the names of the victims are illuminated at night, giving the place a special atmosphere. If you book your tickets for the 9/11 Museum and Memorial, you can get an in-depth look at the details of what happened on that day.

Afterwards, you can complete your tour by visiting the National 9/11 Museum at your leisure and spend as much time as you like. If instead you prefer to do it with an expert guide to help you contextualise everything you see, I recommend this tour of the 9/11 Memorial and Ground Zero.

To get to Ground Zero, located at 180 Greenwich Street, I recommend taking the underground to the World Trade Center train station, or going to the Chambers Street station.

Remember that admission to the 9/11 Memorial and National 9/11 Museum is included in all major tourist passes in the city:

• New York Pass.
• New York CityPASS®.
• Go City: New York City Explorer Pass.
• New York City Sightseeing Flex Pass.
• New York Sightseeing Day Pass.

If you purchase one of these passes, you will have access to the museum, although you will not have the depth of commentary from a local guide that you will have if you take a tour of the 9/11 Memorial and Ground Zero.

You can also purchase this combo tour of the National Museum and 9/11 Memorial with admission to One World Observatory, which will allow you to go up to the best observatory in the area for the most breathtaking views of the financial district and lower Manhattan.

With a ticket to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum you will take the following tour:

• You will enter the 9/11 Museum through a pavilion located in the Memorial.
• You will descend into the underground facility where the first thing you will see is Virgil's quote, "No day shall erase you from the memory of time " in the room known as Memorial Hall.
• As you proceed through the space beneath the World Trade Center, you will pass into Foundation Hall, the Museum's main hall, the most prominent feature of which is the "Last Column". It was the last piece of the building to be removed during the removal of the rubble from the Twin Towers, and is covered with inscriptions and signatures of those involved in the recovery effort at Ground Zero.

If you book your ticket for the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum you will have access to the two main exhibits:

• In Memoriam, which pays tribute to the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and those of the 1993 attack that also took place at the World Trade Center.
• September 11, 2001, a minute-by-minute chronology of what happened that day and a reflection on how the world we live in today has been shaped by the attacks on the Twin Towers.

Throughout the museum, you will find a collection of 60,000 objects salvaged from the rubble of the Twin Towers, telling the story of 9/11 from various perspectives, including first-person accounts, documents, and belongings.

In order to enjoy your ticket to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, you should know that they are open every day of the year (except on September 11th, when they are closed to the public for a memorial service for the victims). The 9/11 Memorial and 9/11 Museum hours on Fridays and Saturdays are 9am to 9pm (last admission at 7pm), while Thursday to Sunday they are open from 9am to 8pm (last admission at 6pm).

I recommend thatyou visit the Museum at opening time to experience the solemnity and intimacy of the exhibition. If there is one criticism of the Museum, it is that its minimalism and the atmosphere it tries to create are not entirely compatible with the tourist crowds.

It will be hard for me to forget that Tuesday in September when, having returned home from school with my brother, we turned on the television as usual to play the video game console, but never got round to changing the channel: we were absorbed in watching the images of the Twin Towers collapsing in a cloud of black smoke, which the news repeated over and over again.

We had not long returned to Madrid after living in New York for nearly seven years, so these images came from the place we still considered home.

Chances are that if you are reading this, you too have a story to tell about 9/11. If you weren't in New York, chances are you were caught at home watching the news in complete shock like me. If you lived in New York, your story will be very different, and it is precisely this story that is told at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York.

Being in the middle of the Financial District, there aren't too many restaurants in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum area, but there are a couple of places worth visiting:

Speaking of The Oculus, I recommend you stop by while visiting the World Observatory. It's a building with a very particular design that houses the World Trade Center train station and a shopping centre where you'll find shops, restaurants and cafes.

If you love photography or are looking for the best photos for your Instagram, it's the perfect place to add to your list of New York must-sees. The Oculus is open from 10am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 7pm on Sundays.

If you want to broaden your knowledge of New York's history, culture and most interesting places, I recommend you take three of its most outstanding tours: Harlem, Contrasts and Upper and Lower Manhattan.

Here are the practical guides I've written for each of them in case you'd like to take a look at them before organising your visit: New York Contrasts Tour, Upper and Lower Manhattan Tour y How to go to a Gospel Mass in Harlem, New York City.