Museums. For some people they lead to a feeling of anticipation while others picture an hour’s worth of yawns. Whichever camp you fall into, there’s no denying museums are treasure troves of interesting information that can give you insight into the destination and culture you’re visiting. To help you enjoy your next museum visit, here are some tips on how to make visiting a museum more exciting.
Tailor The Experience To An Interesting Facet Of Local Culture
When visiting a new destination, think about a particular facet you’re interested in learning more about. Maybe it’s fashion, the coffee culture or the Native tribes. Take a look at local museums you can visit that pertain to this and, from there, focus your exploration of the museum on exhibits, events and collections that are relevant. It will make the museum experience feel much less overwhelming than if you simply went in and tried to take in absolutely everything, while also giving the visit a focus.
Visit When There’s An Event Going On
Most museums host regular events and demonstrations, whether it be cultural dance performances, concerts, lectures, festivals, film screenings, gallery talks or something else entertaining and informative. Attending a museum during one of these events can help make the experience come alive, which also means it will be more interesting to you.
Opt For A Tour
When touring a museum on our own the many artifacts and textual descriptions can begin to bluer together, with your tired eyes unable to really process what you’re viewing. To help the collections and exhibits make more sense, opt for a tour with a knowledgeable guide who can explain what it is you’re looking at.
Usually these people know interesting facts and stories that can help personalize the information you’re learning about and make it more interesting. Seeing a piece of Mayan pottery is neat, but hearing about how it was used during religious ceremonies and when making offerings to the gods will have your interest perked without having to strain your eyes reading the information cards.
Mayan ruins at the Temple of the Foliated Cross in Pelanque, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Dennis Jarvis.
Make A Plan To Explore Further
Don’t just visit a museum, look at a few exhibits and leave, forgetting about what you’ve learned — put it into practice and explore it further. For example, browsing a local art museum might lead you to take a local handicraft class, or learning about an ancient culture might lead you to make a day trip to nearby ruins. Allow what you see at the museum to mentally move you in a way that leads you to take action.
Make A Game Out Of It
Instead of just looking around without a goal, challenge yourself. See how much you can learn about a historical figure, how many interesting facts you can find on 16th-century artwork or if you can seek out a bizarre historical story. You can even play some Eye Spy and try to find certain colors, figures or words. The catch is, once you’ve spotted something you must memorize one interesting tidbit about it.
Take Notes
One habit some people have when visiting a museum is roaming around in a distracted fashion, looking at exhibits but not really taking them in. Taking notes on what you see forces you to pay attention to what you’re seeing and retain information, making your museum experience more interesting and worth your time.
Only Visit Museums That Interest You
Most importantly, don’t just go to a museum to say you’ve gone. Only visit institutions that actually hold your attention. If you have no interest in airplanes, visiting an aviation museum will probably be boring; however, if you find aircrafts fascinating an aviation museum will be an enlightening experience.
Top photo credit: Photo courtesy of Papalars.
Jessica Festa is the editor of the travel sites Jessie on a Journey (http://jessieonajourney.com) and Epicure & Culture (http://epicureandculture.com). Along with blogging at We Blog The World, her byline has appeared in publications like Huffington Post, Gadling, Fodor’s, Travel + Escape, Matador, Viator, The Culture-Ist and many others. After getting her BA/MA in Communication from the State University of New York at Albany, she realized she wasn’t really to stop backpacking and made travel her full time job. Some of her most memorable experiences include studying abroad in Sydney, teaching English in Thailand, doing orphanage work in Ghana, hiking her way through South America and traveling solo through Europe. She has a passion for backpacking, adventure, hiking, wine and getting off the beaten path.
