Canberra hides its bargains in plain sight: nearly every national institution charges nothing, the bush reserves ringing the suburbs are free to climb, and a $3 farmers market feeds you for days. Three days here can cost less than one night out in Sydney.
The riverside garden opens dawn to dusk with no ticket at all — Bert Flugelman's mirrored Cones and Fujiko Nakaya's fog sculpture, which fires at 12.30pm daily. The main galleries open free at 10am, including Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly series.
Cook's Endeavour journal, Tasman's map and the Eureka flag fragments sit in a free gallery open 10am-5pm. Ground-floor exhibitions cost nothing, and a free reader's card gets you into the domed Main Reading Room and its wifi.
Forty hectares of native-only planting on Black Mountain's lower slopes, free daily 8.30am-5pm. The misted Rainforest Gully boardwalk and the Red Centre Garden's built sand dune are the highlights, plus free volunteer-led walks at 11am and 2pm.
A 4km climb from behind Remembrance Drive to the 843m summit, with campaign plaques set along the steps. The terrace frames Walter Burley Griffin's land axis straight down Anzac Parade, and the sealed road up is free to drive or cycle.
Saturday mornings 7.30-11.30am, roughly 200 stalls of Riverina and Monaro produce in the EPIC pavilions. Entry is $3 cash, seconds boxes of fruit go for about $5, and the bacon-and-egg rolls are the cheapest hot breakfast in the city.
Canberra's Little Asia is two blocks of Vietnamese, Malaysian and Sichuan kitchens where pho, laksa and rice plates land between $14 and $18. Au Lac cooks entirely vegetarian, and Dickson Asian Noodle House has poured laksa here since the 1990s.
The old warehouse and panel-beater strip now runs on cheap coffee and happy hours: filter brews around $5, schooners from $8 at BentSpoke Brewing, and the Hamlet yard behind Elouera Street where food trucks plate meals under $16.
The university's food hall has the inner north's cheapest full meals — $12-15 noodle and curry bowls, subsidised pints at the ANU Bar, and free outdoor films and live music on the Kambri lawn through the warmer months.
Ninety-four forests of rare and symbolic species planted on land burnt out in the 2003 firestorm, free daily 6am-8.30pm with free parking. The Village Centre terrace looks down the lake axis, and the national bonsai collection costs nothing to enter.
Free electric barbecues, shaded tables and a lake beach on the western arm, backed by pine and eucalypt lawns full of cockatoos. Stock up at the Yarralumla shops 2km east; the miniature railway runs weekends for a few dollars.
Twenty-five kilometres west, the Cotter's dammed swimming hole has free gas barbecues, toilets and river flats under the casuarinas. Casuarina Sands and Pine Island downstream are equally free, with the same clear water and no gate fee.
A 15-minute climb through casuarina scrub reaches the 720m terrace above Deakin, looking across the parliamentary triangle to Black Mountain. Eastern grey kangaroos graze the slopes at dusk and the access road never charges.