Since its opening a few years ago, the Museo Inchin Cuivi Ant (Ladrilleros 225) has failed to improve promising exhibits dedicated to traditionally improvised Chilote technology such as apple presses, flour mills, and woven living fences, but first-time visitors will still appreciate it, more so if they understand Spanish well enough to read the accompanying panels. On the northern approach to town, the museum is open 10 a.m.–1 p.m. and 2–8 p.m. daily in summer only. Admission costs US$1.

Coyhaique makes a great base for activities like hiking, fly-fishing, rafting and even winter skiing. Fishing probably tops the list, as the season runs November–May in the numerous lakes and rivers.

Benefiting from exterior restoration, Ushuaia’s evolving historical museum contains improved exhibits on the Yámana, Selknam, and other Fuegian Indians, and on early European voyages.

There remain permanent exhibits on the presidio, the Fique family’s general store, the original branch of Banco de la Nación (which occupied the building for more than 60 years), and natural history, including run-of-the-mill taxidermy. Its celebrity artifact is a rare copy of Thomas Bridges’s Yámana-English dictionary.

Misleadingly named, Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia (Yaganes and Gobernador Paz, tel. 02901/437481, museomar [at] satlink [dot] com) best tells the tale of Ushuaia’s inauspicious origins as a penal settlement for both civilian and military prisoners. Alarmed over the South American Missionary Society’s incursions among the Beagle Channel’s indigenous peoples, Argentina reinforced its claims to the territory by building, in 1884, a military prison on Isla de los Estados (Staten Island), across the Strait of Lemaire from the Isla Grande’s southeastern tip.

Both the Museo del Fin del Mundo and Museo Marítimo do a creditable job on Tierra del Fuego’s indigenous heritage, but the small, private Museo de Maquetas Mundo Yámana (Rivadavia 56, tel. 02901/422874, mundoyamana [at] infovia [dot] com [dot] ar) consists of skillfully assembled dioramas of life along the channel prior to the European presence, at a scale of 1:15.

Historic Harberton dates from 1886, when missionary pioneer Thomas Bridges resigned from Ushuaia’s Anglican mission to settle at his new estancia at Downeast, later renamed for the Devonshire home of his wife, Mary Ann Varder. Thomas Bridges, of course, authored the famous English-Yámana dictionary, and their son Lucas continued the literary tradition with The Uttermost Part of the Earth, his memoir of a boyhood and life among the indigenous Yámana and Ona (Selknam).

Improved in many ways, but not without shortcomings, Hanga Roa’s anthropological museum sets the stage for Rapa Nui by dividing the South Pacific into “Near Oceania” (the area from Australia and New Guinea up to the Solomon Islands), settled around 40,000 years ago, and “Remote Oceania” to the northeast (Micronesia, Eastern Melanesia, and Polynesia), colonized from about 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1000.

Visitors with a passion for Southeast Asian art are in the right place, as nowhere else in the world can you see better collections and, if you’re willing to spend a bit, buy art, too.

Museums

• The National Museum: The best and biggest collection of Southeast Asian sculpture and stonework in the world could keep you busy for days.
• The Silpa Bhirasri Museum: Understand the beginning of Thailand’s modern art movement at this small museum in the Old City.

The fabulous Museo de Jade (Calle 9 and Avenida 7, tel. 506/2287-6034, http://portal.ins-cr.com/Social/MuseoJade, 8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m. Mon.–Fri., 9 a.m.–1 p.m. Sat., $7), adjoining the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS), displays the largest collection of jade in the Americas, including pre-Columbian carved adzes and pendants, backlit to show off the beautiful translucence. The museum also displays pre-Columbian ceramics and gold miniatures organized by culture and region. It has excellent signage in English.

Na Phrathat Rd.
pier: Chang Pier
02/224-1333
www.thailandmuseum.com or www.museumvolunteersbkk.net

HOURS: Wed.-Sun. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

COST: 200B

Just south of the National Gallery and north of Thammasat University is the National Museum, housing the largest collection of Buddhist art in Southeast Asia. Murals and sculpture provide the backdrop to learn about the Buddhist, Hindu, Vedic, and Animist traditions that combine to form Thai Buddhism.