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Travel bucket list ideas:

Last updated: 20 July, 2023

The Louvre, The Met, Tate Britain – for art-lovers and aficionados, the best places to see the world’s greatest masterpieces, amid a sea of galleries in cities the world over, are well known. For the rest of us mere mortals, however, the choice can be overwhelming.

So here’s our round-up of the must-see galleries and museums around the world that should be on everyone’s travel bucket list, home to many of the world’s must-see masterpieces.

Table of Contents

Accademia Gallery

Florence, Tuscany, Italy

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Bucket List Experience

Along with Florence’s other headline gallery, the Uffizi, the Accademia has a world-class collection of 14th- and 15th-century art, but those endless queues of people are really here to see one thing: Michelangelo’s 4m-high marble statue of David.

Other highlights include more Michelangelo sculptures and two Madonnas by Botticelli.

Best for ages: 18+ | £10

Art Institute of Chicago
Experience

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

Founded in 1879, the US’s second-largest art museum is the place for world-class Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Home to 300,000 works, it also regularly hosts unmissable temporary exhibitions.

Highlights include Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait and Bedroom in Arles, Monet’s Water Lillies, plus works by Cezanne, Picasso, Magritte and Gaugin.

Best for ages: 18+ | £17

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Getty Center

Los Angeles, California, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

Stunningly designed by Richard Meir, this marble-clad modernist complex tucked into California’s Santa Monica Mountains houses the late billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty’s impressive art collection.

Highlights on show include works by Titian and Van Gogh, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, Louis XIV-era furniture and decorative arts.

Best for ages: 18+ | Free

Guggenheim Museum

Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain

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Bucket List Experience

This is the building that transformed a city and started an architectural revolution. Ever since Frank Gehry’s swirling, titanium-clad Guggenheim opened in this Basque region city in 1997, it has been acclaimed as one of the greatest buildings of our time.

Its collection of contemporary art, and annual special exhibitions, draw art lovers from around the world.

Best for ages: 18+ | £22

Hermitage

Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

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Bucket List Experience

A 17th-century retirement home by the Amstel River has been converted into exhibition spaces to display exquisite treasures from the vast collections of St. Petersburg‘s State Hermitage Museum.

Two blockbuster exhibitions take place each year – some of the collections focus on Russian history and culture, others on wider European art.

Best for ages: 18+ | £22

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Los Angeles, California, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

West-coast USA’s pre-eminent art museum is a 20-acre compound of galleries and pavilions housing more than 100,000 works – from ancient Mayan bowls inscribed with bat heads to Japanese sculptures dating from 3,000 BC, via paintings by Rubens, Cezanne and Degas.

The recently-added Broad Contemporary Art Museum has strengthened LACMA’s contemporary art offering, too.

Best for ages: 13+ | £17

Metropolitan Museum

New York, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

‘The Met’, as it’s fondly known, is one of the largest art museums in the world, hoarding more than two million artworks, artefacts and decorative arts spanning thousands of years of human civilisation.

Its focus is historical and classical art – Ancient Egyptian, Islamic, Asian, Oceanic, Greek and Roman amongst others – as well as a fine collection of contemporary paintings and sculpture.

Best for ages: 8+ | £20

Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)

Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

Founded in 1870, this comprehensive museum of over 450,000 works showcases a wide variety of styles and cultures.

Collection highlights include works from the Dutch Golden Age, the French Impressionist and post-Impressionist eras, 18th- and 19th-century American art, the largest collection of Japanese art outside of Japan and the Rockefeller collection of Native American Art.

Best for ages: 13+ | £25

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

New York, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

This boxy, glassy building in the heart of Midtown takes you through the contemporary art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries in a pleasingly chronological display, touching on Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Impressionism, and Pop Art.

Do not leave without marvelling at Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Matisse’s Dance, and Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles D’Avignon.

Best for ages: 8+ | £22

National Gallery of Art
Experience

National Gallery of Art

Washington DC, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

Originally a private art gallery, America’ second most popular museum showcases a history of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present day.

The permanent collection includes European and American paintings, including works by Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso, plus sculpture, photographs, and decorative arts.

Best for ages: 13+ | Free

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National Gallery of Australia

Canberra, Canberra ACT, Australia

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Bucket List Experience

The largest art gallery in Australia and indeed Oceania, the NGA holds over 170,000 works of art housed in a striking Brutalist-style building.

While relatively small on the world stage, it’s the place to go for Australian art and is home to some icons of Western art. It also holds the best collection of Aboriginal and other indigenous Oceania art.

Best for ages: 13+ | Free

National Portrait Gallery

London, United Kingdom (UK)

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Bucket List Experience

Founded in 1856 as a visual hall of fame for the country’s great and good, today this Trafalgar Square landmark is still a vital part of British culture.

The form may be traditional but the collection of 175,000 portraits range from stiff-upper-lipped royals and Victorian politicians to modern-day celebrities and Olympic heroes.

Best for ages: 13+ | Free

Rijksmuseum

Amsterdam , North Holland, Netherlands

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Bucket List Experience

One of the world’s great art collections, the Rijksmuseum is the Netherlands’ premier museum. It’s packed with Dutch Golden Age masterpieces, showcasing the finest works of Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer alongside memorable dolls’ houses and Delftware.

A total of 8,000 exhibits are displayed in 80 rooms tracing 800 years of Dutch art and culture.

Best for ages: 18+ | £16

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)

San Francisco, California, United States of America (USA)

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Bucket List Experience

One of the top modern art museums in the USA, SFMoMA was the first West Coast museum to be entirely dedicated to 20th-century art.

The Mario Botta-designed building is a sight in itself, but inside you’ll find Picassos and Pollocks galore, as well as works by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol’s self-portraits, and photography by Ansel Adams.

Best for ages: 13+ | £20

Sao Paulo Museum of Art
Experience

Sao Paulo Museum of Art

Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo Region, Brazil

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Bucket List Experience

Founded in 1947, South America’s greatest museum features a collection of over 10,000 pieces from across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

It’s the largest collection of European Art in the Southern hemisphere, including works bv Picasso, Rembrandt and Van Gogh. It’s all housed in one of the city’s most iconic buildings, an architectural stand-out designed by Lina Bo Bardi in 1968.

Best for ages: 13+ | £6

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Shanghai Museum
Experience

Shanghai Museum

Shanghai, China

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Bucket List Experience

For the world’s greatest collection of Chinese Art, China’s premier art museum established in 1952 is a must-visit.

There are over 120,000 works spread over 11 galleries; it’s an absorbing mix of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts and many rare cultural artefacts of national importance.

Best for ages: 18+ | Free

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State Hermitage

St. Petersburg , Northwestern Region, Russia

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Bucket List Experience

Founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, and originally built as a private gallery for the Empress’ vast art collection, today it’s an extraordinary showcase of human cultural history.

The world’s second-largest art museum exhibits everything from Egyptian antiquities, to French Renaissance Art and Russian military history across six different museum buildings.

Best for ages: 13+ | £5

Tate Britain

London, United Kingdom (UK)

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Bucket List Experience

This grand Portland stone building on the Thames, the original Tate Gallery, has lately been eclipsed by its edgier younger sibling, the Tate Modern.

This is the more classic of the two – come here to see evocative landscapes and striking portraits by British greats such as Gainsborough, Freud, Bacon and Constable, as well as Turner, whose works number into the thousands.

Best for ages: 18+ | Free

Tate Modern

London, United Kingdom (UK)

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Bucket List Experience

Like the MoMA in New York or the Pompidou Centre in Paris, London’s Tate Modern is an energetic and uniquely site-specific art space.

This former power station beside the Thames houses a permanent and rotating exhibition of contemporary art that gets London talking: from Damien Hirst to Monet, Rothko to Miro, Lichtenstein to Warhol, the treasures in this 1940s industrial construction are legion.

Best for ages: 18+ | Free

Uffizi Gallery

Florence, Tuscany, Italy

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Bucket List Experience

Florence’s most visited museum was first opened in the 16th century to house the collections of the House of Medici.

Today it houses the world’s largest and most important collection of Renaissance and Mannerist art, home to 5,400 works spanning art history from ancient Greece through to 18th-century Venetian painting.

Best for ages: 18+ | £10

Vatican Museums

Vatican City, Lazio, Italy

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Bucket List Experience

This complex of museums, in the home of the Catholic Church, house one of the greatest hoards of treasures, antiquities and art anywhere.

The star exhibit is the frescoed Sistine Chapel, with Michelangelo’s famous ceiling – arguably the world’s greatest masterpiece – plus there are exceptional collections of Roman sculpture and Renaissance art.

Best for ages: 13+ | £15

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (MOCAA)

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

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Bucket List Experience

Cape Town is the fine art capital of Africa, and there are few better places to discover the continent’s creative powerhouses than at the Zeitz.

Africa’s leading collection of artworks, showcasing African artists exploring historic and contemporary themes, is all housed in a dramatic architectural conversion of historic grain silo by British ‘starchitect’ Thomas Heatherwick.

Best for ages: 13+ | £10