What is one of the coolest museums you've visited?
Curious to know what museums people have visited that really left them thinking, "this was worth it" (time, money, whatever "worth it" means to you).
I will start.
Minneapolis, MN
Mill City Museum
This museum really shocked me with its breadth and depth! The location and setting are really cool as well. It has parts of the ruins of the historical building, integrated with some beautiful architecture of the new building.
The museum aims to explain how the grain industry was established and blew up in the Midwest, and what special role it had in shaping Minnesota. It goes all the way back to discussing WWII up to the advent of convenience foods like Betty Crocker and Pillsbury. There is even a Betty Crocker test kitchen in museum, complete with all the smells pumped into the air.
The displays are cool and I think are kid friendly, while also not boring the shit out of adults. My favorite part of the museum is the elevator, I truly believe it's one of the coolest displays(?) I've seen in a museum before, but I don't want to give away anymore, lest I make anyone's expectations too high and spoil it lol.
City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. In many ways it's a children's museum, but it's so playful and explorable I had fun feeling like a kid. For 6 hours. I still wonder what's in the middle of the crawling labyrinth. I almost got there but was just a bit too hefty.
I went to a conference several years hosted in St Louis and they rented out that museum the night before the start every year. It was always a fantastic time, especially when some people had a bit too much to drink and started getting stuck in places they clearly are not meant to go as adults.
I remember exploring this as a kid! I want to bring my own kids there someday, but the museum itself isn't a good enough excuse to drive the 6-8 hours down there.
I went there with my brother and his family one time! That place is awesome!
Went there as a kid and loved it. When I was a teenager, my friends drove across the state (we were from Kansas City) to visit. And it was just as cool then as it was when I was a kid.
I was in Berlin recently, and had a fantastic time at the Technikmuseum (Berlin museum of technology). It was such an interesting mix of different things: looms and lace machines, computers, trains, sailboats, planes, etc. They had a jet engine cut in half so you could see the inner workings. They also had one of the first planes in commercial service flown by Lufthansa. It looks like a box made from corrugated sheet metal. Very fun museum.
I also went to the Berlin Story Bunker and saw the « Hitler - how could it happen » exhibit. It was absolutely fantastic, but not very fun. I learned a lot about the Holocaust and WWII, but it turns out I never learned much about the politics around nazi germany. That exhibit covers the politics very well. It’s especially poignant having gone through it right now, with all the trump bullshit. If you are in Berlin, I highly recommend you go. If you are an American citizen, I think that museum should be a requirement in order to vote.
Since I have lived here for months now, I think I have to mention the Bordeaux wine museum. If you have any interest in wine, it is worth a visit. Even with my quite extensive experience with wine (compared to a consumer), I learned quite a lot.
Some of the absolutely most impactful museums I have been to would be described this way. Though I haven't been to the particular museum you're talking about (added to my list for if I'm ever in Berlin), the United Stated Holocaust Memorial Museum was powerful enough to break me to tears - as a 14 year old in front of friends, nonetheless. While not exactly fun I think it's an important role that museums play to deeply challenge ourselves, which is in some abstract sense "fun-adjacent," at least for myself.
I'll also have to add the Bordeaux Wine Museum to my list if I ever make it there. I, too, have extensive experience (from being in industry, not from being particularly skilled or intelligent or passionate about the topic) and find I can't go on winery/distillery tours anymore due to hearing the exact same beginner presentation everywhere. It would be refreshing to get to learn new things at a museum/tour!
Add the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC to the list of "fantastic, not very fun."
Yup, can confirm! Mentioned it in a previous thread as well. If you are still in the area, the former Stasi headquarters have been turned into a museum as well and are also worth visiting.
I'll give another endorsement of the Stasi museum. Really fascinating, even more so because our tour guide was telling us stories of growing up in East Berlin and finding out later that his uncle was an informant on him and his brother.
I've gone to the Technikmuseum twice and really enjoyed both times -- and I still haven't seen half of the place! It's really a great museum.
If you're ever back in Berlin, I recommend the Schwules Museum. It's in the gay district of Berlin (Schöneberg near Nollendorfplatz) and has got phenomenal exhibits dedicated to queer history in Berlin from a bunch of angles. They also offer guided tours in English, German, and German Sign Language -- free public ones on certain days (you just need to show up and pay the normal cost of admission) and paid private ones are available as well.
I'll share a similar question I asked a while back that has some great replies in the comments! Tons of great museums in there. I have a whole bunch that come to mind, so it's hard to choose just one.
Pompeii - Incredible site and museum, the place that has most made me feel like I've stepped backwards in time.
Versailles - Amazing scale of rooms and artworks, gave me a similar feeling to seeing the Grand Canyon.
Louvre - So so so much to see, in terms of bang for your buck, this is it.
Guggenheim NYC - Coolest layout of any museum I've been to. You start at the top of a spiral and work your way down.
Smithsonian Air and Space and National History Museum - All the Smithsonians are great, but these two are the classic two that exemplify what they're all about.
Museum of Science, Boston - There was a Tesla coil show there that blew me away. They started off slow, teaching you bits about safety and electricity, then by the end of it they were playing Super Mario music on giant balls of electricity.
This place I can spend hours in there, make sure to go to the one outside DC, in VA. For those who enjoy aviation, it's a cool place to go.
The Udvar-Hazy Center. It’s the best worst-kept secret Smithsonian.
It’s also the only one in the DC metro that costs money to park at (but admission is still free) unless you catch one of the shuttle buses from the National Mall.
They have the space shuttle Discovery, an SR-71 Blackbird and a Concorde (and hundreds of other planes). It is very easily the coolest museum I've been to.
On one of my trips I didn't make it to Pompeii, but went to the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, which many people claim actually has more Pompeii artifacts than the museum at Pompeii.
It was a beautiful museum with many amazing things to see. I'd recommend it if you get the chance to go there.
Definitely on my bucket list! The artifacts and human remains are fascinating, of course. But for me it was just the actual site itself that was so mesmerizing. Really felt like I was back in time given how well preserved everything was. I could really picture myself living there 2000+ years ago while walking through those streets and entering those buildings, seeing the public infrastructure still intact and the graffiti still present.
I went once at the Louvre with my family when I was a kid. There's literally too much to see in a single day, you have to prioritize the sections you absolutely want to visit (and the Mona Lisa is absolutely overhyped)
Boston Museum of Science is great. When I first saw it, it was before ArcAttack was a thing, so no music from the Tesla coils. It's cool that they've updated the show. I also saw a cool laser show in the planetarium back then too.
Aw dang didn't even know they had a planetarium. I was there with some friends, and we decided to check out the Tesla coil show and it was incredible. I've tried listening to it through online videos since then and it just doesn't sound the same as in person, where the actual electricity is creating the sound waves that make it to your ear drums. Really gives it that extra oomph that's hard to replicate in recordings. If you get a chance to see a show, definitely check it out!
I especially loved the pacing of the show. It starts of super educational about how the coils work and how electricity works and how safe they are, and then they essentially just go 'here watch this' and just dial it up to 11 with crazy visuals and silly music. I can't help but to imagine what some medieval person would think if they were in the crowd, lol.
The National History Museum is excellent, unfortunately when I went the Air and Space Museum was closed for renovations but I've desperately wanted to get back to D.C. and would definitely have to check it out.
While probably not as impressive looking as others mentioned here I got to go to the Computer Museum in Seattle before it shut down. They had everything from ancient room sized behemoths to personal computers from the 70s and 80s. But it wasn't just displays, they were all running and anyone could use them. They even had a room decorated to perfectly match a living room from the early 80s with a working Atari and a couch to sit and play on. Such a nostalgia trip for anyone who grew up in that era, a shame they couldn't re-open after covid.
I came here to mention the English version. Bletchley Park is rightly famous and very cool in itself, but the National Museum of Computing was much more fun.
The Corning Museum of Glass in New York state - they had so many cool interactive exhibits of optics, beautiful contemporary and historical art pieces, live demos, and hot shops where you can participate in doing basic glass-blowing.
Back in the early nineties I visited that museum with my family. I saw two things that blew my mind:
A short film explaining how they were going to make cables out of glass that could somehow send information very quickly, and that this would result in the whole world becoming informationally interconnected.
A glass sword.
Ooh, I went through a period of watching of glass videos they post. It's such a mesmerising process, I can only imagine how fun it'd be in person.
Have you watched the Blown Away series on Netflix? It was pretty neat to have watched that, then go to the museum and see some of the pieces in person. My experience is that glass has a lot of subtlety to it that video and pictures can't really capture, so it is one of those things that I enjoy seeing in person.
No, I've not seen it. ty for the recommendation, next time I have access to Nextflix!
The most impressive museum i have ever been to is the Vasa museum in Stockholm.
https://www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/vasa-history
It hosts a 17th century ship - a really big ship - in its own atmosphere so it won't deteriorate further.
I went to this museum and I just couldn't get into it!
Possibly because it was super crowded, but mostly, I wanted to get oh so much closer lol.
How was your experience? What did you like?
As fun as famous museums are, I really like stumbling upon random museums that end up being great.
I love quirkly little museums about some random topic. Of course the Smithsonian museums are incredible, but what about the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum in Leesburgh, GA?
The Dali Museum was one of my favorite local museums when I lived in FL.
Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Cleveland has an incredible museum complex that doesn't get enough exposure, in my opinion.
The Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, the Botanical Gardens, and the Museum of Contemporary Art are all together in the same walkable area, with plenty of hotels nearby as well as light rail connections into downtown.
One could truly spend an entire week there and not run out of things to see and do.
Oh yeah as a born-and-raised Clevelander people are really sleeping on it as a city in this respect. Its museum and arts scenes are both incredible for its size.
I already posted something, but I had another idea so here we go. I was wondering about how many people were thinking about art museums and I was thinking about how much I really didn't care for them when I realized there actually was a category of them that I really do enjoy.
Meow Wolf.
Yeah, I didn't think of them as museums at first, but then I realized "it's an exhibition of art pieces that you pay for admission to view. Of course, they're museums."
I've only been to Omega Mart, and it was so much fun that I ended up going more than once. It's in Area15, which also has a number of other art installations, including some that are free. I also really enjoyed Wink World, so if you plan on going there, you should do that one too. My husband actually has an MA in installation art (which is the term for the category of artpieces these displays are) so he loves the places too.
Omega Mart is incredible! One day I'll make it to the other Meow Wolf installations. I feel like they're popping up in a ton of places across the US.
Another cool thing about Wink World (that they don't advertise well enough) is that it was designed by a co-founder of the Blue Man Group. I feel like that gives good insight into the quirkiness of it without spoiling anything.
I really want to see a Meow Wolf exhibit!
I love the Omega Mart commercials on YouTube. Has a very similar vibe to the Control video game. I'd love to see something like that in person.
Two museums jump out:
The Mütter Museum is a medical history and science museum located in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It contains a collection of anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment.
It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh
I went to Orsay a month ago, I've been before but it's always nice. They also have a lot of Courbet.
More on the quirky spectrum, but these are some museums that have really stood out to me:
On the final point the turbine hall gallery of the Tate Modern is always worth poking your head in if you're walking past. Sometimes it's worth a specific trip but it changes fairly regularly and is always a big temporary installation so it's often fun just to see what's going on at the moment if only for a few minutes. (And it's always free so I don't feel bad when it's sometimes a let down)
It's not as big or impressive as some of the others that are listed, but I love the Halton County Radial Railway which was long known as the Halton Electric Train Museum. They have a lot of electric trains that they lovingly restore to working condition and on any given day there's usually 3 of them running. You can explore the ones that aren't running as well, and you can get ice cream. It's a wonderful little half day excursion that I recommend for anyone who wants to keep their kids occupied for a while if they're in Southern Ontario.
One of my favourites that I have ever visited is the Royal Tyrrel Museum which is a fantastic dinosaur museum. I mean, there's more than dinosaur skeletons there, but honestly, it's a dinosaur museum.
Art museums aren't really my jam, but I did enjoy the Museum of Modern Art the last time I was in NYC.
The Musical Instrument Museum is amazing. For most of the exhibits, you wear a provided headset that plays music performed with that instrument when you get close to the individual areas. I believe they all have videos you watch along with as well.
But be warned, it is huge. If you see and listen to everything, you will be there the entire day.
I really liked the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester NY. If you are into games, they have everything from the first board game to Halo.
And it's not just board/video games, it's the history of basically all forms of play! Obviously plenty of interactive exhibits, including a whole pinball room. The recent Dungeons & Dragons exhibit was awesome as someone who has played off and on for the last 20 years. And if you don't really like going to a museum with a bunch of kids, they do "after-hours" events fairly often where they have bars set up and you can explore the whole place, including the elevated ropes course (before drinking of course) without kids running around. Conversely, if you have kids it's a great way to keep them distracted. And if you have kids with sensory trouble, they have events specifically tailored around that!
Funny, I didn’t expect to see Mill City Museum as the conversation starter, but it’s one of my favorite local museums— I even recently recommended it to @RheingoldRiver for their trip to MPLS.
At some point in my early 20’s, the museum was part of my “first date” plan which I did a few times. I’m glad to be done with dating, but it was a fun route: meet at the Guthrie Theater for the cantilevered bridge view (no show ticket needed), Mill City Museum, walk across the Stone Arch Bridge, eat at Pracna, get a show at the Main movie theater. At any point we could part ways, and all of the things were things I wouldn’t mind doing myself if it was a no-show, and had a wide variety of types of activities.
Anyway, this is all noise.
Not noise at all! That's a fantastic itinerary for an afternoon/evening in MPLS! I mean, you'd have to swap in something for Pracna, maybe Owamni or Sanjusan (or go upstairs to Kado No Mise if you really like your date!). I miss the city and think MPLS is slept on hard.
I'm a bit hesitant to recommend it because it's basically completely funded by Walmart but the Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville, Arkansas is one of the most beautiful places I've been to. Their art collection is fine but the museum itself and the grounds are worth the visit.
Kinda Surprised no one has mentioned The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Detroit. It's really cool! Tons of cars but other thingskle railcars, old machines, art and more.
Another great museums is the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton. You like anything space or aircraft? It is ABSOLUTELY the spot for you.
Finally in Cincinnati, one of my favorite is the American Sign Museums. If you like old neon signs this is the Mecca of neon. They collect old signs from all over the US fix them up and put them on display. Such a fun and unique spot in Cincinnati.
I absolutely love visiting museums, they’re always a top priority when I travel. While I’ve found every museum I’ve visited interesting, a few have left a lasting impression due to their uniqueness and emotional power.
House of Terror (Budapest, Hungary)
Located in a historically significant building, once the headquarters of the Arrow Cross Party (1944) and later the secret police (1945–1956), this museum documents Hungary’s darkest periods. It also serves as a memorial to the victims, including those who died within its walls. The permanent exhibition is deeply moving, with interactive elements that make the history feel hauntingly real.
Paris Sewer Museum (Paris, France)
This museum explores the city’s underground sewer system, showcasing its history, engineering, and even its cultural references (like mentions in literature). Walking through the tunnels and learning about this place is oddly fascinating.
MASP — São Paulo Museum of Art (São Paulo, Brazil)
The museum itself is a masterpiece designed by architect Lina Bo Bardi. Every detail, from the striking suspended structure to the unconventional way artworks are displayed, is unique. Spending a day here is an immersive and inspiring experience. Definitely one of my favorites.
Senzala Negro Liberto Museum (Redenção, Brazil)
One of the most impactful and heartbreaking museums I’ve ever visited. It tells the story of slavery in Brazil, highlighting Redenção’s role as the first city to abolish slavery in 1883, five years before the rest of the country. The site includes a plantation house, an underground slave quarters, a sugarcane field, and a mill. Visitors can see learn about the lives of enslaved people in the 19th century. It’s a harrowing but essential place for reflection, I left deeply moved.
These are just a few of the most remarkable museums I’ve had the privilege to explore.
A plug for a museum I go when I get to the city of Charlotte, NC. Miracle on the Hudson US Airways Flight 1549 residence. Great stuff, in comparison to what happen yesterday in the Hudson, but ok. Here is my plug for that museum.
Sullenberger Aviation Museum
One of my favorite museums was the Newseum in Washington DC. Unfortunately, it's no more. I ended up spending an entire day that and is well worth it. They had a large section of the berlin wall, a monument to reporters that lost their lives while on assignment, and much more.
Hands down, The Science Museum in South Kensington, London. I spent a good 4 or 5 hours there and would have stayed longer if I could. It's a tech nerds delight.
The Royal Ontario Museum is great if you want to see a mix of everything a museum can have. Natural history, history, art, and it's from a variety of time periods and places. After a while it's somewhat overwhelming, in a great way.
Also in Toronto, the Bata Shoe Museum is really unique. It has exhibits on not just shoe related fashion, but history, production methods, and cultural influences as well.
My favourite museum of all time is the "Collection de l'Art Brut" in Lausanne (Switzerland). It was started by a French painter, Jean Dubuffet, who got interested in art works done by people who were not "officially" artists. That means people with no art education no art diploma and often outside of the societal norms.
These are people who create, they don't care why or how nor seek money. Some of the exhibits are daunting as they were made by prisoners or people suffering from dementia or people unable to tend for themselves. The art really tells a story, you don't have to analyse it, just look at it, take a few steps back and think; it's amazing.
The Galleria Borghese in Rome
mostly because it has some amazing Bernini sculptures
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_Borghese
The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago is probably my favorite museum. I went a few years back as an adult. I'd been as a kid when my family lived in Chicago or after we moved, when we'd visit. But I didn't really remember much. Anyway, they have SO many exhibits. When I went a few years ago, I thought I'd spend a couple hours there at most. No, I spent literally the whole day there. I looked at and read EVERYTHING and it was all so fascinating. I loved the section on PNW native tribal art.
Parents and I recently went to the National Museum of Natural History here in Washington, DC -- which is part of the Smithsonian -- and it was awesome, too. Their gemstone and minerals collection is absolutely amazing. Who doesn't like shiny rocks and crystals?
Not to discourage people from responding, but I remembered there was a similar thread last year with a lot of cool places mentioned as well.
Seriously? The Lied Children's Museum in Las Vegas. But it is no more, at least not in it's original form. When I was there as a kid, it was attached to a library and was filled with interactive science exhibits with an emphysis on physics. There were things like tubes to yell into to demonstrate the speed of sound, a big space shuttle thing to pretend to fly, a play marketplace for younger kids to learn basic economic math, and a big pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. Entry was very cheap and it was practically a big playground for kiddie me. Way better than the Adventuredome.
The building is no more, but I think the people involved in it are responsible for the newer DISCOVERY Children's Museum, which by all accounts is better than the original by quite a lot. I wonder if it's related in any way to the Discovery Cube in Los Angeles? Probably not, but from my understanding it's pretty simelar. I found this blog post about a trip to the old one, in case anyone's interested in something that's not there anymore.
There's probably two I can think of as being very memorable from a couple of trips within Europe.
The DDR museum in Berlin, which acts as an interactive showcase of life in east Berlin before reunification. Personally, I found it really interesting to see the examples of all facets of life, from kitchenware to the secret police.
Secondly the Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego in Warsaw, a much more serious experience covering the Warsaw Uprising. Very highly recommend it for anyone remotely interested in the time period it took place.
Edit: added links
I'll second the DDR museum. When there on a whim, ended up being one of the most interesting museums i have ever been to. Such a well kept reference for a very unusual time
The Natural History Museum at Harvard has an exhibit (a large one) of hand-made glass flowers made by a German father and son during the early 20th century. They were made as anatomical references for research so they are very precise and they are amazing, and we are so lucky the pieces survived WW2. One of the coolest sets of things I've seen made by human hands.
The family
The flowers
a funny quote from the father: Many people think that we have some secret apparatus by which we can squeeze glass suddenly into these forms, but it is not so. We have the touch.[5] My son Rudolf has more than I have because he is my son and the touch increases in every generation. The only way to become a glass modeler of skill, I have often said to people, is to get a good great-grandfather who loved glass; then he is to have a son with like tastes; he is to be your grandfather. He in turn will have a son who must, as your father, be passionately fond of glass. You, as his son, can then try your hand, and it is your own fault if you do not succeed. But, if you do not have such ancestors, it is not your fault.
I missed them when I visited... My favorite part of that museum was taxidermy of various extinct species and the surprise whale skeleton (it was the first time that I really appreciated how large they were).
Off topic, but one of my surprise amazing experiences traveling, was a whale watching excursion in either Cabo San Lucas or Mazatlan Mexico. We happened to be there in January which is when the whales are chilling in the bay with their calves. Getting close to whales is thrilling and many 'whale watching' experiences don't provide that. This one did and it was about being in the right place at the right time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji-mura
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3353.html
Meiji mura (Meiji town) is a vast architectural museum where they have physically relocated about 60 entire buildings from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Hospitals, banks, houses, bath houses and more.
So it's not a reason to visit in itself, but if you happen to be in the Seattle area and like aviation, you should check out the Museum of Flight. I used to take my kids all the time when I lived nearby. They have a lot of interesting exhibits covering military, commercial, and space craft. But by far my favorite is the Aviation Pavillion where you can step inside iconic aircraft like Air Force One and the Concorde jet.
My wife has been wanting to visit the Mill City Museum, I guess we'll be going once it warms up a bit more.
The computer games museum in Berlin, Germany: https://www.computerspielemuseum.de/