Traveler’s Choice: The world’s best museums for 2016

CNN  — 

Museums have been keeping bored travelers occupied for so long there should be a museum dedicated to museums.

But while some are just dusty collections of old fossils where folks go to soak up the aircon and feel weary, others can blow minds.

Review site TripAdvisor has been sifting through its annual barrel of good and bad write-ups to find out which of the planet’s museums are currently the most praiseworthy.

Blockbuster collections

Its Travelers’ Choice awards, released Tuesday, offer little love for Asian and African institutions, but have good news for many scene stalwarts in Europe and the Americas.

It’s hard to argue with the winner: Top of the heap is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the vast New York institution that houses ancient artefacts alongside a who’s who of classical and modern art.

Likewise, the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Paris’s art-crammed Musee d’Orsay and London’s British Museum are all blockbuster collections that keep the crowds returning year after year.

Not for the first time, there’s no place in the top 10 for Paris’s Louvre, even though it regularly clocks in as one of the world’s most-visited attractions.

The top 10

Here’s the top 10:

1. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

2. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

3. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

4. Musee d’Orsay, Paris

5. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

6. National September 11 Memorial & Museum, New York City

7. Prado Museum, Madrid

8. British Museum, London

9. Acropolis Museum, Athens

10. Vasa Museum, Stockholm

TripAdvisor also lists the top museums in the United States:

1. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

2. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

3. National September 11 Memorial & Museum, New York City

4. National WWII Museum, New Orleans

5. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC

6. USS Midway Museum, San Diego, California

7. Getty Center, Los Angeles

8. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Titusville, Florida

9. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

10. American Museum of Natural American History, New York City