What happens when a Norwegian explorer decides the best way to test an academic theory is to build a wooden raft and sail it across the Pacific?
You get one of the most famous
adventures of the twentieth century, a bestselling book, an Oscar-winning documentary, and eventually a museum on Bygdøy that holds the actual vessels.
This is not a museum of scale models behind glass. The star attractions are the real balsa raft and the real Ra II reed boat, both of which crossed entire oceans.
As locals, we think it’s one of the easiest museums in Oslo to underestimate. The building looks compact from outside, and people assume it’s a quick stop about one famous raft. Inside you get tropical islands, dangerous reefs, improvised engineering, ancient navigation, environmental activism and a fair amount of scientific controversy.
Where |
Bygdøynesveien 36, Bygdøy — next door to the Fram Museum |
Getting there |
Bus 30 year-round; Bygdøy ferry from the City Hall piers in the warmer months |
Opening hours |
Jun–Aug: 09:30–18:00 | May: 10:00–18:00 | Sep–Apr: 10:00–17:00 |
Admission |
180 NOK adult · 140 senior · 70 child (6–17) and student · 400 family · free with Oslo Pass |
The documentary |
The 1950 Oscar-winning film screens daily at 12:00 in the museum cinema |
Time needed |
1 hour focused; 90 minutes if you watch the film or read the displays |
Born in Larvik in 1914, Heyerdahl became an explorer, writer and experimental archaeologist — though his unconventional ideas often placed him outside traditional academic circles.
Long before the raft, he and his first wife Liv travelled to Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas Islands, trying to leave modern civilisation behind and live close to nature. That experience shaped his interest in Polynesian culture, plants, winds and ocean currents, and left him wondering whether people from South America might have reached Polynesia in prehistoric times.
Most scholars believed Polynesia had been settled primarily by people travelling eastward from Asia. Heyerdahl argued contact from South America might also have been possible. The theory met scepticism, partly because critics believed a basic pre-Columbian raft could not survive a Pacific crossing.
His answer was impractical and extremely Norwegian: rather than continue arguing from behind a desk, he would build the raft and find out.
In 1947 Heyerdahl and five companions left Peru on a raft built from balsa logs and traditional materials. They named it after Kon-Tiki, a name associated with the pre-Columbian god figure Viracocha.
There was no engine and nothing resembling a modern sailing boat. The expedition depended on winds and currents to carry them west. The raft had a small bamboo cabin, a sail, steering equipment and very little private space. Imagine sharing a floating wooden platform with five other people for more than three months, with no shower, no internet and nowhere to storm off to after an argument.
After 101 days and roughly 8,000 kilometres, they reached the Tuamotu Islands. All six survived.
The distinction that matters: the voyage demonstrated that such a crossing was technically possible. It did not prove that South Americans were the original settlers of Polynesia. Modern archaeological, linguistic and genetic research generally supports an Austronesian origin for Polynesians, while also indicating that some contact between Polynesians and Indigenous South Americans may have occurred before Europeans arrived.
So parts of the larger theory remain disputed. But the central practical question was not absurd: could ancient people have crossed enormous stretches of ocean in simple vessels? The raft showed that they could.
This is the main reason most people come, and photographs don’t prepare you for the strange feeling of standing beside it.
At first it looks surprisingly simple: thick balsa logs, rope lashings, a wooden deck, a tiny shelter. Then you remember six people lived on it while crossing an ocean.
Don’t treat Ra II as the supporting act. It’s one of the most impressive objects in the building.
After the Pacific, Heyerdahl turned to the Atlantic, wanting to test whether reed boats resembling vessels shown in ancient art could complete long-distance sea journeys.
The first boat, Ra, was built from papyrus and began breaking apart before completing the crossing. That failure would have ended the project for most people. Heyerdahl studied what had gone wrong and launched Ra II in 1970.
Built with help from traditional boatbuilders from the Lake Chad region, Ra II sailed successfully from Morocco to Barbados. The crew was deliberately multinational, which gave the voyage an additional message about international cooperation.
Standing beside it, you may find it looks even less ocean-worthy than the raft — an enormous bundle of reeds tied together with heroic optimism. Yet it crossed the Atlantic.
Heyerdahl ran archaeological expeditions on Easter Island, known locally as Rapa Nui, during the 1950s and again in the 1980s. The museum presents material from those expeditions, the island’s moai, and his attempts to understand how the monumental statues were carved, transported and raised.
This section adds real archaeological depth, and it also needs a thoughtful approach. Some of Heyerdahl’s interpretations remain controversial, and it’s worth not viewing Rapa Nui solely through the achievements of a European explorer.
The best way to take it is as a meeting point between exploration history, experimental archaeology and Indigenous knowledge — rather than as the final answer to every question about Easter Island.
One of the more unexpected features is a cave-like passage connected to the Easter Island work, running about 30 metres and leading toward a children’s area. There’s also an underwater environment that gives families a break from information panels.
Younger visitors can follow their own storylines, complete quizzes and meet characters from the exhibitions. Between the large objects, the atmospheric spaces and the visual detail, there’s enough here to hold a child’s attention well before they’re ready for a discussion about prehistoric migration.
Heyerdahl and his crew filmed the expedition with equipment carried on the raft, and the resulting documentary won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
That sounds polished until you remember the footage was shot by explorers in the middle of the Pacific — not by a film crew with stabilised cameras, multiple takes and a production boat alongside.
It screens daily at 12:00 in the museum cinema. The full film runs over an hour, so build your visit around that time if you want to see it. If your schedule is tight, prioritise the vessels. If you have the time, the documentary turns an interesting museum visit into a much more human story.
The museum opened almost immediately. It was founded in 1950, only three years after the expedition. Public interest was so great that the first simple building was soon replaced by a permanent museum, completed in 1957, and later expanded to house Ra II.
One crew member was a wartime saboteur. Knut Haugland, who sailed on the raft, had also taken part in the Norwegian heavy-water sabotage operation during the Second World War. He helped establish the museum and guided it for decades.
Heyerdahl was an early voice on ocean pollution. During the reed-boat voyages the crews encountered visible pollution far from land. His later expeditions increasingly combined archaeology and adventure with environmental concern and calls for international cooperation.
His archive is UNESCO-listed. Photographs, diaries, private letters, manuscripts and expedition plans covering most of his working life were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2011.
And the most useful one: the voyage was never meant to prove that a single theory explained the settlement of Polynesia. At its most convincing it was an experiment in possibility — a demonstration that ancient materials were not the barrier people assumed.
Go earlier in the day for a quieter visit, especially in summer.
Plan around noon if you want the documentary. It’s the one fixed point in the day.
Walk around the raft properly. Several angles, and don’t rush past Ra II.
Ask about the children’s quiz if you’re visiting with kids.
Check the Oslo Pass maths. Entry is included, and the Fram Museum next door is too — which is where the pass starts paying for itself on a Bygdøy day.
Come with curiosity, not a hero story. Heyerdahl was bold, charismatic and capable of turning scientific questions into global adventures. He was also controversial, and several of his conclusions were challenged by researchers. That tension is what makes the place interesting: it isn’t only about whether he was right, but about what happens when someone tests an idea with rope, logs, reeds and a willingness to drift toward the horizon.
Bygdøy makes more sense once you understand why Norway put its expedition museums on one peninsula, and how a seafaring country turned exploration into part of its identity. That’s much of what we cover on our free walking tour — 90 minutes, daily, meeting by the Tiger statue outside Oslo Central Station.
Tips-based: free to join, and you decide at the end what it was worth.
