Susan Barnes and USA Today have provided a great service in compiling a list of year-round butterfly houses, festivals, and preserves, starting with the capital for native butterflies in the continental United States–the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The National Butterfly Center will host the Texas Butterfly Festival there November 1  4. The lower 48 is home to 575 species of the more than 20,000 species of butterflies in the world. 

Other opportunities to see living native and exotic butterflies include the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium in New Orleans; the Smithsonian Gardens’ Butterfly Habitat Garden on 9th Street  in Washington, DC; the Magic Wings Butterfly House at the Museum of Life + Science in Durham, North Carolina; the Day Butterfly Center at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia; the Butterfly House at the St. Louis Missouri Botanical Gardens; the Christina Reiman Butterfly Wing at Iowa State University’s Reiman Gardens; the Butterfly Pavilion between Denver and Boulder, Colorado; and the Tropical Butterfly House in Seattle’s Pacific Science Center.