Kon-Tiki Museum

The Kon-Tiki Museum holds the actual balsa-wood raft on which Thor Heyerdahl and five companions drifted four thousand miles across the Pacific in 1947 to test how ancient peoples might have crossed oceans. Beside it stands Ra II, the reed boat he sailed the Atlantic, monuments to one of the great adventurers of the twentieth century.

Background

The museum opened in a provisional building in 1949. Its present building, by the architects F. S. Platou and Otto Torgersen, opened in 1957, and Torgersen designed the extension added in 1978. It also keeps a library of about 8,000 books. The Kon-Tiki raft follows a pre-Columbian design and carried Heyerdahl from Peru to Polynesia. A model of the whale shark the crew met lies under the raft. Ra II was built of reeds after Heyerdahl's idea of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat, and he sailed it from North Africa to the Caribbean once an earlier attempt in Ra had failed. Since 1986 the museum has returned items collected by Heyerdahl to Easter Island, most recently in 2024.

Source: Wikipedia, "Kon-Tiki Museum"

What you'll find

• The Kon-Tiki raft - the original balsa raft of the 1947 Pacific voyage.
• Ra II - the papyrus reed boat that crossed the Atlantic.
• The Heyerdahl story - the theories and expeditions of the explorer.
• Easter Island section - Heyerdahl's work among the moai statues.

When to go

Year-round; a compact indoor museum, easily combined with the Fram next door. Any weather suits.

Good to know

It is small and focused on one man's expeditions, so it is a shorter visit than its neighbours. Heyerdahl's theories are now much debated by scholars, which the museum acknowledges. It is a charming, offbeat stop, best paired with the Fram museum alongside.

Nearby

The Fram and Viking Age museums are next door on Bygdoy; central Oslo is a short trip.

Key facts