The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum, Gatlinburg, Tennessee - click image to view more
Regardless of your feelings toward any given subject matter, there’s likely someone out there who is fascinated by it.
So much so that they’ve channeled their obsession into a brick-and-mortar museum. You can do an internet search for “museum of _______” and probably find an example of someone who is, or was, curating a collection around that theme. Bananas, hammers, parasites, lunchboxes, funeral carriages… These are just a tiny handful of topics that people have been interested in enough to declare them worthy of a shrine. Here are a few that might just make you want to plan your next vacation around them:
- Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum (Yokohama, Japan): Here in the states, ramen is usually associated with poor college students and their staple meal of choice. In Japan, it’s as common as the hamburger and revered enough to have ramen masters that perfect the creation of the noodle like an art.
- Hair Museum (Avanos, Turkey): Collecting hair is a wee creepy in my book, but I think it’s the fact that these specimens are displayed hanging from the walls of a cave ups that feeling times ten.
- Butter Museum (Cork, Ireland): This would be my dog’s museum visit of choice, given his affinity for licking butter stick wrappers. Learn all about how this culinary staple is one of Ireland’s top contributions.
- Vacuum Cleaner Museum (St. James, Missouri): One of the greatest inventions for domestic housekeeping has a home in the Midwest. Find out how people cleaned their floors before electricity and then pick up your very own contraption at the factory outlet.
- The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets (Delhi, India): While the first thought of this museum is one of giggles, there’s actually a deeper purpose behind it. Not only does it showcase unique loos, it also serves to educate about the history and manufacture of the device and address the importance of well-functioning sanitation systems in the world.
Tina Jett is an artist, writer, photographer, and world-explorer. Her husband describes her with the phrase, “It’s like she lives in a coloring book.” See how that vision influences the work on her 
I tried to visit the Butter Museum and it was closed when I was in Cork. I do hope to make it to the Bunny Museum in Pasadena soon.
Oh, I did not know about the Bunny Museum! http://www.thebunnymuseum.com/
The Elijah Wood ad… High. Larry. Us. http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e84316bcda/the-bunny-museum-tv-ad-with-elijah-wood
Once we pulled off the road to see the biggest fry pan in the world…that wasn’t really a museum though. One of my favorite unusual museums is the Hand Fan museum in Healdsburg, CA
http://handfanmuseum.com/
Cynthia
http://coffeeonthepatio.com
http://www.cynthiasblog.com
I’m sure I’ll come across the fan museum on one of our road trip days, but I would totally pull off the road for the largest fry pan. I love that stuff.
OMG! Ramen museum, really? That’s so awesome!
About 15 minutes from where I work, there’s a lumberjack museum! So sad, they don’t have a website!
Are you in Maine? I see there’s a “lumbermen’s” museum there… http://www.lumbermensmuseum.org/
There is a pencil museum in the Lake District, UK. I have never been, but really want to go. Apparently it houses the worlds first pencil!
http://www.pencilmuseum.co.uk/
That museum is so cute! Pretty sure I’d visit just because I like their colorful logo.
The Warther Museum in Dover, Ohio is one of my favorites. The museum is centered around Mooney Warther, a man with a second-grade education who was “considered by many to be an artist, mechanical genius, philosopher, inventor…” For the price of admission you get to tour the grounds and beautiful gardens of his workshop, see his immense collection of hand-carved working model trains and his wife’s button room featuring her collection of 73,000 buttons! If you’re in Ohio, it’s definitely worth a look. I went once as a child and again a few years ago. A definite must for all ages!
http://www.warthers.com/Ernest_Warther.htm
I’m from Ohio and I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of the guy. His carvings are amazing!