 If you are traveling, you might be considering spending a day at a museum in your destination city. You can learn a lot from a museum visit, but some of them are so full of information and interesting art, ideas, or artifacts
that you can spend days or even weeks wandering the halls and still have more to see or learn. To get the most out of your visit to any museum, it pays to plan ahead.
Visit Virtually
Before you set foot out your front door, you should have an idea of what you want to do. Don’t leave home without visiting the web site for the museum that you plan to visit. Most large museums will have information on their most popular exhibits, the floor plan of the museum, and attractions that cost money. Look for links that say things like “Plan your Trip” to get the information you need.
Print out the floor plan or other information, and use a highlighter to mark the things that you are most interested in seeing. If you are travelling with your family or with friends, use a different colored marker to highlight areas that each person is interested in so that you will know who wants to see what and which exhibits are a group favorite.
Plan your Route
Start at the back of the museum when planning your route. If the museum is multi-story, you should also start on the top floor. As the doors open, people flood the museums, crowding into the first set of displays that they see. To avoid the crowding, walk past all of those fascinating displays – you can check them out later – and start as far back and as far from the crowds as possible.
Use your markers to create a route plan for your visit based on everyone’s interests. Work your way forward and down, and make sure to hit exhibits on parallel routes that might have been missed were you just wandering through. Take your map with you when you go, so you can be sure that you are following your route and hitting all of the marked stops.
Expect a Long Day
If you don’t have sleepy toddlers along, you might want to plan for a full day. Arrive as soon as the museum opens, and allow yourself time to really study each display that interests you. No one should hurry anyone else along! Lunch, if you haven’t already scoped out a nearby eatery, will be extremely expensive. It may be worth the money in terms of convenience. Do not forego eating in favor of exploring.
Once you have made your way to the front, consider attending some of the pay exhibits, or ask the group if there was any area that they developed an interest in while passing through. Feel free to go back through the museum for a better look at something, but don’t feel bad if you think you’ve seen enough. You may just want to go home or wander through the gift store for a while, and this period of mental relaxation is just as important to getting the most out of your museum visit.
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