Adelaide is Australia's cheapest capital for culture: the SA Museum, Art Gallery and State Library all charge nothing, the City Connector bus is free, and Colonel Light's Park Lands wrap the grid in 770 hectares of free green space. Eat for under $15 all week.
Free daily from 7:15am weekdays, 9am weekends. The 51-hectare garden holds the Museum of Economic Botany (free, 10am-4pm) and the glass Bicentennial Conservatory, Australia's largest single-span greenhouse, holding lowland rainforest species.
Free entry, 10am-5pm daily on North Terrace. The Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery holds over 3,000 objects on display from a collection of 30,000 — the world's largest. The Pacific Cultures gallery upstairs keeps its original 1895 timber cabinets.
Free, 10am-5pm daily, next door to the museum. Holds 45,000 works including the strongest colonial Australian collection outside Sydney, plus Elizabethan silver and a serious Indigenous contemporary wing. Only touring blockbusters are ticketed.
A free three-storey 1884 timber-galleried reading room voted one of the world's most beautiful libraries. Open until 5pm weekdays, 4pm weekends. Entry via the Institute Building on North Terrace; photography allowed, no bag check.
Open Tue-Sat, closed Sun-Mon. Lucia's Fine Foods has poured $5 espresso since 1957. Yiayia's, Dough and Zuma Caffe sell pastries $4-7, and the cheese and smallgoods stalls hand out free samples without pressure.
The T-Chow and Star House end of Moonta Street runs a hawker-style court where Malaysian laksa, Hainanese chicken rice and roti canai sit at $12-16. Cash discounts are common; queues at noon signal the good stalls.
Walk Peel, Leigh and Bank Streets — Adelaide's small-bar laneways, free to wander for the street art. Most bars run happy hour 4-6pm with $7 house beers and $9 local Riesling by the glass.
Several Gouger Street restaurants stay BYO with corkage around $3-5 per person, which halves a dinner bill. Vietnamese and Korean kitchens at the western end serve mains $14-18 well past 9pm.
Two free bus loops run the city grid and North Adelaide every 15-30 minutes, roughly 7:30am-7pm. No ticket, no tap-on. The 98A/99A loops pass the Oval, North Terrace, the Market and Melbourne Street — a free 45-minute city orientation.
Trams are free between South Terrace and the Entertainment Centre, covering Victoria Square, Rundle Mall and North Terrace. Beyond that a Metrocard 2-hour fare is $4.35, or $2.20 concession — validate at the door.
The 3.9km Waterfall Gully to Mount Lofty climb rises 700m through Cleland National Park to a 727m lookout over the city to the Gulf St Vincent. Trail free, car park free before 9am; bus 823 gets you within a short walk.
The statue of Colonel William Light stands on Montefiore Hill pointing at the grid he laid out in 1836. Free, always open, and the best free sunset frame in Adelaide — Oval floodlights, cathedral spires and the city skyline in one line.