Harvard Museum of Natural History

By Patrick Totty

The travel program at Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) began modestly in 1975 when one of its precursors, Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), offered a Baja whale-watching trip. That expedition went well and received such good word of mouth it created a clamor among travelers for more.

Harvard’s three research-oriented museums (the MCZ, the Harvard University Herbaria and the Mineralogical Museum) quickly found themselves in the travel business. When Harvard later established HMNH as the public face of the three museums, the travel program found a formal and permanent home.

Backed by the participation of members of the Harvard faculty, HMNH offers 50 tours a year to all seven continents (yes, that includes Antarctica), with themes ranging from photographic safaris of Indian wildlife, to land and sea explorations of Patagonia, to a $39,000 “Around the World by Private Jet” tour of various cultures. Most trips require only moderate physical effort and can accommodate children. The program attempts to house travelers in the best available lodgings.

HMNH’s travel program in some respects parallels that of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA). However, unlike HAA, it doesn’t require anybody taking its tours to have any affiliation with or degree from Harvard University. (However, HMNH does ask anybody who takes one of its tours to become a member of the museum.)

For travelers who don’t find anything on HMNH’s bill of travel fare that they’d like to do, they can still ask HMNH to arrange for private tours and itineraries.