When it comes to traveling, visiting museums is basically the main interest. You take your most practical shoes out of the closet and start walking and walking and walking, until your knees go stiff. But the mirage of discovering unique cultures apart from our own is always rewarding. If an unconventional visiting trip is what you are looking for, maybe some stranger museums would be your cup of tea. So let’s take a look at 7 of the world’s strangest museums.
1. Parasite Museum, Tokyo
A visit to Japan, Tokyo’s Meguro Parasitological Museum can change the way you generally see parasites forever. Probably because it offers you the unique occasion to actually take a look at what crawls on your inside and outside. This research facility is the only one in the world that invites guests inside to explore exhibits on parasites and their life cycles with over 300 actual specimens on display. The piece de resistance is a 30-foot tapeworm pulled out of a woman who had reportedly picked it up eating sushi. It has no entrance fee whatsoever, so there’s more to spend on posters with intestinal parasites.
2. Museum of Funeral Carriages, Barcelona
The vehicles used to transport the deceased have always intrigued many due to their unusual energy, but they definitely have grandeur, as you can simply witness by exploring the Funeral Carriage Museum in Barcelona, Spain. The exhibit consists of 13 beautiful funeral carriages and six coaches that were used to transport departed citizens to their eternal resting place.
3. Phallus Museum, Reykjavik
According to its website, it houses more than 215 penises and penile parts belonging to almost all the land and sea mammals found in Iceland. Ranging from displays of blue whale members to those from mice and shrews, the museum also has a section on folklore with examples it claims are from elves, trolls and sea monsters.
4. Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, New Delhi
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak offers a unique perspective regarding the history of toilets for the past 4,500 years. It underlines the historic evolution of the toilet and looks at how toilets vary around the world.
5. The Garbage Museum, Stratford
The Garbage Museum features a huge dinosaur made from a ton of trash, which is the average amount produced per year by a single person. Visitors can gain unique perspective on Connecticut’s garbage by walking through a giant compost pile and following the recycling process from start to finish. In other words this goes out to the ecologist in you. It’s rather educational for kids, who can actually learn what garbage is, how much it actually is, and how one can help save the world. Go Planet!
6. The Museum of Human Disease, Sydney
The Museum of Human Disease offers a bird’s eye view on a huge variety of diseases as well as their effects on the human body. It’s the best way to understand death in a unique perspective due to the fact that you can take part dissection workshops or explore some of the large number of vital organs on display. It is a somewhat successful attempt to explain the phenomenon of death in an unusual, yet practical manner.
7. Leila’s Hair Museum, Independence
The Hair Museum proves that hair can be used when creating works of art. It contains thousands of wreaths and various creative jewelry pieces made out of real human hair, very popular in the Victorian period. There are also multiple pieces containing hair from famous people, including the likes of Queen Victoria.
The thing is that you can find museums on almost everything. An accurate city guide is the right thing to carry in your pocket in case you decide you want to see something else rather than the classical British Museum or The Louvre. Happy travelling!