Some of us who travel are inveterate museum-goers. Whatever city we’re in, we try to find an interesting museum that will give us a taste of the country we’re visiting.

My wife Mary Pat Treuthart and I have toured torture museums in Italy, art museums in Budapest, a neon museum in Las Vegas, a bone museum in Rome (officially the Capuchin Crypt) and even a penis museum in Reykjavik, Iceland (officially the Icelandic Phallological Museum).

I’ve tried, then, to narrow down my personal favorites – or at least the ones that I have the best memories of. I list them in no particular order.

The Uffizi (Florence): Yes, getting a glimpse of Michelangelo’s The David in the Galleria dell'Accademia is one of the great experiences that Florence has to offer. But if you have to choose one museum to visit in La Città Bella, it should be Gli Uffizi (translated as “the offices). Why? Well, here’s a shortlist of the artists whose work is displayed there: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and – my favorite – Caravaggio.

The Louvre (Paris): The French capital, too, offers a number of great museum experiences. Click here and you can see what Condé Nast Traveler considers the 15 best Parisian museums. But no trip to Paris could be complete without a trek to the Musée du Louvre, which is something that some 8.9 million visitors enjoyed in 2023. What did they get to see? Some of the world’s great art works, a few of which are The Venus de Milo, Michelangelo’s slave statues, Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People,” Vermeer’s “The Lacemaker” and … Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” (yeah, it’s smaller than you imagine, but it’s still a wonder).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York): I like to joke that the first time I toured The Met, Mary Pat and I do the whole thing in just 23 minutes. It was near closing time and we did run through it, trying to see as much as we could. But the whole thing? Please. In addition to the temporary exhibits that come and go, the place has so much to offer. Even The Met itself posts on its website a one-hour itinerary of recommended highlights. But it’s best to take your time, especially when checking out such artworks as Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait With a Straw Hat or any number of other works by such masters as El Greco, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, John Singer Sargent, Cezanne, Picasso and many, many others.

Museum of Modern Art (New York): Because I have family in Brooklyn, I visit New York regularly (the last time I was there I toured the Edward Hopper show at The Whitney). But whenever I go to MOMA, I always make sure to see three specific paintings: Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World,” van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and Jackson Pollock’s “One: Number 31, 1950.” But there’s so much more. Again, temporary exhibits run on a regular basis, but the permanent collection offers works by the trio I already mentioned plus the likes of Ansel Adams, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, René Magritte, Willem de Kooning and the great Hopper.

Football Museum (Sao Paolo): Art isn’t the only thing that the best museums have to offer. During a week-long stay in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 2012, I toured the Museu do Futebol. Set inside historic Pacaembu Stadium, which dates back to 1940, the museum was inaugurated in 2008 and includes a number of interactive highlights that both teach about the sport and feature soccer history. Most impressive to me was the giant digital portrayal of the great Péle that greeted me on arrival.

Pergamon Museum (Berlin): It’s always good to have a guide to show you what a city has to offer. And we had one in 2002 when a distant relative who was living and teaching in Berlin showed us around. The Pergamonmuseum has a number of highlights, but I loved how our guide introduced us to the actual Ishtar Gate (which was moved to Berlin and reconstructed following World War I). “Behold,” he announced, “the Gates of Babylon.”

Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg): What with its war with Ukraine, Russia isn’t really a safe place to visit at the moment. But when we took a Baltic Sea cruise in 2015, we were able to spend two full days in Saint Petersburg. And while we stayed only a couple of hours in The Hermitage, which first opened in 1852, we were able to get a taste of the museum’s many treasures (an estimated three million items). Not that staircases are likely to be on any must-see list, but the Main Staircase – described as a “cacophony of gilded frescoes and ornamentation” – is particularly impressive.

Palace Museum (Beijing, Forbidden City): During a two-week 2007 visit to Beijing (just before the 2008 Summer Olympics), we spent a full afternoon exploring Chinese history in this museum set in the ancient home of China’s emperors. While the significance of the nearly two million works of Ming and Qing dynasty art is probably appreciated mostly by China scholars, the very atmosphere of the place – which dates back some 600 years – is haunting.

Jackie Chan Museum (Shanghai): If a sports museum can be a surprise addition to this list, then so is a movie-themed museum. Yet during a visit in 2014 to Shanghai, we just had to stop by this place. It’s full of the action star’s many movie moments, and several of the exhibits are interactive.

British Museum (London): One of my favorite UK standup comics, James Acaster, has a brilliant skit about all the artifacts that the Brits have stolen over the centuries (as if they’re the only ones). Whatever, the British Museum advertises itself as a place where you can “Discover two million years of human history and culture.” Among the most impressive artifacts: the Rosetta Stone.

Vasa Museum (Stockholm): It was the summer of 1628 when the Swedish warship Vasa was finally launched. Called the country’s most powerful vessel, the massive ship – weighing 1,200 tons – managed to sail just over a thousand meters before it foundered in Stockholm Harbor. And there it sat until it was salvaged in 1961. It now sits in its own museum in all its grandeur, which we witnessed during our 2015 Baltic cruise.

Final words: So many museums, so little time to see them all.