Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield

Superb place.

Schindler Museum in Krakow – really well done.

Manchester Art Gallery.

Port Sunlight.

Tate Modern.

Henry Burton bike shop in Stafford. If you want a new mountain bike with 100mm stem (ahedset or quill) STX-RC groupset, clips & straps, that’s the place for you.
You can tart it up with an XT Sharkfin chainsuck protector too.

Mind you, I can still get 27″ tyres (not completely perished yet) there for my pub bike.

As far as real museums go, the one in Dubrovnik featuring the photos of the civil war is pretty eye opening.

In the US, the National Air and Space Museum will blow you away.

Beat me to it. The Smithsonian Air & Space museum in DC is amazing (as are all the Smithsonians really).

Italian Air Force Museum on Lago di Bracciano is fabulous and well worth a trip. Just hanger after hanger of amazing aircraft.
Pitt Rivers in Oxford is brilliant (kids love the shrunken heads)
NMS in Edinburgh is very good. I’ve been going in for 20 years and I still see something new every time.

Forgot about the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Great place!

Me and my daughter drew a massive flower there on Stara. Two bods in a little 4×4 came over to find out what we were up to.

https://www.strava.com/activities/664332384

Rescue Services Museum in Sheffield. They even have a Trabant Fire Engine from East Germany!

I haven’t been to either in the last couple of years, but the Coventry Transport Museum is good (with a bike section), especially for free, and the British Motor Museum at Gaydon is spendier but also good. Lots of additional shows there too; Gaydon Land Rover show this weekend

Our local, the Swiss Military Museum in Ruenthal and I was pretty amazed by the Museum of WWII in Gdansk.

Though not technically museums, any of the Holocaust sites in Poland… makes you think…

Any time I’m in London, I go to the British Museum and generally just check out the new stuff, look at the rosetta stone, and go and walk around the elgin marbles hall which is a pretty excellent and suitably monolithic space

The motor bike museum in Birmingham is well worth a visit.

British Museum is great for families. We borrow their activity backpacks which really get the kids (& parents) engaged with the exhibits and are great fun. There’s a room for eating your packed lunch as well!

Scince Museum in Wroughton used to be good (full of old planes and space rockets) but now appears to be closed.

I haven’t been for an absolute age so I don’t know how much has changed, but the New Gallery in Walsall was always a real pleasure to visit. I used to be a nodding acquaintance of the first director back in the day (oh god – really back in the day now I think about it)  and his friendliness seemed to infuse the whole staff – I don’t think I’ve ever been to another venue where you’d be so readily and naturally welcomed and greeted – a weird mix of uncompromising polished black concrete monolithic architecture and effortlessly friendly staff.

I was really underwhelmed by the Science Museum when I went there last year – dowdy, dark with some pretty outdated material  – in the 8 years since the space shuttle programme ended it doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone to update any labels to that effect for instance.

Grampian Transport Museum, Alford. Surprisingly good.

The Aviation Museum in East Fortune is surprisingly good, worth a look just for the Concorde bit.

I’m a sucker for the little quirky ones.

I used to love the Cars of the Stars museum in Keswick.

Telegraph Museum in Porthcurno is brilliant and all also the exhibits in Flambards in Helston.

Also the Gem Rock Museum in Creetown

Continuing on the aviation theme, you’ll enjoy the army museum of flying at middle wallop. It’s just been renovated. Also a hidden gem for the serious geek is the Berkshire aviation museum where you can see a fairey rotodyne. Not the big Fairey, but one of the prototypes.

And to cougar’s point “yes that is Chuck Yeager’s Bell X1”. “Yes that is the Wright Flyer” and repeat…. I haven’t been to the larger hanger at Dulles airport yet, which is their overflow.

Further afield, the updated aviation museum at Toulouse airport is excellent too. Go and walk through the test Concorde (they have two) and marvel at the ashtrays. It was the official presidential transport. The building is as impressive as the exhibits.

If you want tanks, Bovingdon is fabulous too.

Actually, the museum that stands out for me probably more than any other that I have visited in my life is what used to be known as the “Confederate Air Force” Museum in Harlingen, Texas.

It has since moved to another base in Texas, and been renamed the “Commemorative Air Force“, but they were AMAZING!

I visited their base many times as a kid, and got to look inside a:

B-25 Mitchell
B-29 Superfortress
B-17 Flying Fortress
P-40 Warhawk
F4U Corsair
P-51 Mustang

just to name a few that stand out in my memory. If you’re an aircraft nerd, take a look at the above link. You’ll be glad you did.

Agree with many – Duxford, British Museum, IWM but also add:

Pergamon Museum in Berlin. With the freaking gates of Babylon!!!

NASA (Johnson space center) in Houston – Saturn rocket + command centres

Air and Space museum in Chantilly (where Smithsonian puts the planes that don’t fit in DC) – like The Discovery and SR-71

Brooklands in Weybridge – amazing cars, Concorde and great feel for early motor car racing

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site – freaking nuclear missile.amd you can press the button

reykjavik phallological museum – for perspective.

Tate Britain ,Tate Modern ,Science museum & RAF Hendon.

Jet Age Museum near Gloucester. You can sit in a Vulcan cockpit.

Brooklands in Weybridge is one of my favourites. I’d call it a living museum as there’s always an event on, and they have a history of the bicycle exhibition which is worth a look, although some of my retro bikes might be better than some they have. Kids love it too and it’s very hands on.

Hanger 1 at Salzburg airport. Owned by Red Bull and full of used Red Bull F1 cars and WW2 aircraft still in regular use. Free entry but they make their money from the drinks and food in the restaurant.

The AVRO museum at Woodford is pretty good too. Vulcan, VC10 and Nimrod cockpit access.

Tried to book a group visit though for my cub pack though and they were so awful to deal with that we gave up!

Going here https://www.fleetairarm.com/ in the summer. Looks good.

For the uber nerds there is the trolley bus museum at Sandtofts S Yorks.

https://www.sandtoft.org/

It’s only open on certain days so check the website…

On the same theme there is the Tramway Museum at Crick in Debyshire.
There is also a tram museum in Birkenhead but that only opens occasionally but well worth seeking out.

Coca Cola museum in Atlanta. Gurkha museum in Pokhara. Burping and incredible stories of men you would not want to fight.

I’m a sucker for the little quirky ones

We’ve done the Museum of Military Medicine and are lining up the Royal Logistics Corps Museum and the Royal Army Physical Training Corps Museum to do next. Trouble is, for added quikiness most are closed at weekends………….

Natural History museum in Tring is our favourite. It’s free, which is great, but massive fun and easily occupies us all for a few hours. Not hugely interactive but they have a few digital exhibits now.

Lucky to live near to Bletchley Park also, fab museum and great value.

I have not visited any of the Roald Dahl museums since I was at school; worth taking the kids to one?

In the UK: NRM york is excellent. NRM Shildon is very good too.

Abroad:
The twin Technical museuems in Speyer and Sinsheim absolutely blow away anything I’ve seen anywhere else in the world.

USS Intrepid in NYC where you can get very up close to a whol array of american aeropsace, as well as wander around a cool aircraft carrier.

Evergreen Air Museum in Oregon, home of the Huges H-4 “Spruce Goose”

The cosmonaut museum in Moscow is amazing. Even more amazing is the massive titanium scuplture outside next to the memorial.

I’d like to add the James Joyce museum in Dublin. It’s based in his old house and explains how he wrote most of his work surrounded by a wife and young family, who were no doubt tearing the place apart and causing general chaos, which goes a long way to explain why most of his output is unreadable crap.

If you’ve ever had to read Ulysees or Finnegans Wake then you’ll understand. Is it the pinnacle of Modernism and pure genius, or is it just the lunatic inner mind of someone suffering young children?

Exhibit a)

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoord-enenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livv

The David Mellor Museum of Cutlery, Traffic Lights and Bus Shelters

He’s pretty much the reason Britain looks like Britain. I also spent about £600 on cutlery.

For quirky ones, Internal Fire in Wales- the museum of the diesel engine. Nothing as exciting as a car diesel engine for them though, they’re all about the static stuff-pumps, factory engines, and loads of the little ones used for electrical generation before Wales was connected to the national grid (in 2017). Very nicely straddles the line between a museum and a life-ruining hoarding issue. Absolutely loved it.

(there’s a merlin engine stuffed in a corner that has a wee sign that more or less says “Was in some plane or another, I forget which. Whatevs.”. And one of the exhibits was bought on ebay while drunk.

Brooklands – if for no other reason than the sheer heritage of the place, and the nostalgia of the sheds/hangers etc
+1 for Te Papa, where else can you check out the brilliance of a Britten V1000!

What about the Lawnmower Museum in Southport?

Yes it does exist….I’ve been there – twice!!!

I’ll happily agree with so much of the above, especially the Science Museum, V and A and British Museum- my God those gold torcs leave me breathless.

I spent time studying for my thesis in the Natural History Museum, their collections are just stunning, jaw-droppingly awesome. They are just properly amazing things. The exhibits in the Cadogan Gallery at the top of the stairs include some of Banks’ specimens, Moon rock, Dodo remains and more. And to my mind, the most wondrous object, the London Archaeopteryx.

I love Beamish. I like museums where you get to touch and climb on things. Not sure my kids like it as much as me… 🙂

Has anyone been to the Dornier museum at Freidrichshafen?

Going to the rail museum in York on Saturday for the first time. Be with the wife and kids so said I’ll keep it down to 5 or 6 hours, come back for a proper visit at a later date.

I’ve been to the Philadephia museum of art quite a few times – a museum better known for the steps outside than the artwork is pretty unique – but its top level inside. Steps are better though, tbh.

Thirded the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. In many ways the building is more interesting than what’s in it. Just the place in which to build a Steampunk time machine

Hancock ..Newcastle (it’s free to get in !)
also visited Carlisle Airport / Museum a few years back and got to climb inside a Vulcan Bomber ..unbelievable as to how little space was given to the cockpit / crew ..compared to the overall size of the aircraft ..