It seems to be a basic instinct of humankind to preserve our special treasures and share them with society. Since the days of the pharaohs we've created museums to store our history, art, science and culture (no, really, Ptolemy I, Alexandria…). And as every good traveler knows, it is our travel duty as well as our pleasure to visit museums wherever we go. When a customer came in this month asking for information on the Corrie Ten Boom Museum in Amsterdam , it got me thinking that museums don’t need to be huge, important places to show us something worth remembering. Some of my favorite museums are the small, specialized, sometimes offbeat, usually idiosyncratic kind. I decided to ask the staff and our beloved customers to tell me about their favorite small museums around the world. I wasn’t surprised by the number and variety of responses I got but I was a little startled at the intensity of attachment people displayed: the lady who remembered from childhood the smell of the flowers from the courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the “spirited debate” over the best art museum in Paris, the heated defense of local favorites. Apparently, travelers can be pretty passionate about their history and culture.

Here’s the list of our favorites so you can add them to your own travel itineraries…

Art Museums
 

Paris is the clear winner for the home of the best small art museums and the Musée Maillol got by far the most votes for the best small museum of any kind. I’m thinking about planning a trip to Paris just to see it.

In Paris:
The Musée Maillol
The Dali Museum in Montmarte
The Rodin Museum
Musée Jaquemart-Andre
The Picasso Museum
 

and elsewhere:
The Heard Museum in Phoenix (my personal contribution to the list)
The Courtauld Gallery in London
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston
The Guggenheim in Venice
Collection de le Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland
 

Cultural and Historical Museums
 

An interesting collection, if I do say so myself. I was a little doubtful about the Ice Skating Museum but almost as soon as it got added to the list another customer commented “Great museum!”

Gaziantep Archeological Museum in Gaziantep, Turkey
Cannon Beach Historical Museum in Cannon Beach, Oregon (housing, they tell me, the original cannon)
Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin
The Textile Museum in Washington DC
Friesen Ice Skating Museum in Hindeloopen, Netherlands
 

Science and Technology
 

The Antarctic Center sounds awesome. I’m totally adding it to my list.

International Antarctic Center in Christchurch New Zealand Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon Pima Air & Space in Tucson Arizona Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana

Local Favorites
 

People were a little apologetic about suggesting the local guys, but I think we’ve got some world class museums here. And I can’t wait to see the Nordic Heritage Museum’s new building going up just blocks from my house.

Frye Museum Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard Seattle Children's Museum

Oddities
 

These guys are just weird. The Satie museum turns the composer’s house into a giant avant garde art project and I’m really not sure what’s going on at that Jurassic Technology place. Still…they sound fun!
 

Musee de Eric Satie in Honfleur, France Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minnesota American Visionary Museum in Baltimore, Maryland Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles

 

Hope you enjoyed the list. Let us know if you think we missed a particularly good one!