Top 10 Strangest Museums: we're diving headfirst into a vortex of the wildly weird, the unbelievably real!

Cancel your Louvre selfie—this ain't your grandma's dusty relics; it's a ten-stop freakshow of mummified parasites, love-axe lore, and enough questionable taxidermy to haunt your dreams! 🤯—Welcome back to GO FACT YOURSELF, the podcast that's more addictive than reality TV and stranger than your uncle's internet search history! This week, ditch the velvet ropes and prepare for a deep dive into the TOP 10 STRANGEST MUSEUMS YOU CAN ACTUALLY VISIT (YES, EVEN YOU, CHAD)! Forget oil paintings and dinosaur bones—we're plunging into the gloriously grotesque corners of human curiosity, ranking the most niche, bizarre, and utterly real museums on planet Earth. Get ready to question everything you thought you knew about culture, history, and whether that tickle is just lint or a 29-foot tapeworm! This episode is your all-access pass to the absurd, so grab your barf bag and let’s GO FACT YOURSELVES!First up at #10: The Museum of Broken Relationships (Zagreb, Croatia & LA, USA)! It's a shrine to heartbreak where your ex's toaster gets the spotlight! Think divorce lawyer meets sad poet on Etsy, showcasing physical remnants of failed relationships from around the globe. One exhibit features an axe used to chop up an ex-girlfriend's furniture, while another LA outpost displayed a dead scorpion titled “He said I was his everything. This was his everything.” 💀. This museum, born from the pain of two exes, now receives submissions from over 100 countries, featuring everything from stuffed animals to wedding dresses, and even a garden gnome thrown through a windshield. Each item has a QR code unlocking the submitter's raw story—it's Reddit's r/relationships with actual props.Creeping in at #9 is The International Cryptozoology Museum (Portland, Maine, USA)! Prepare to believe (or at least snort with amusement) at this haven for creatures that maybe-kinda-definitely don’t exist! Bigfoot believers and Mothman maniacs, this is your Graceland! Founder Loren Coleman's obsession has filled this Ripley’s-esque museum with "evidence" of legendary beasts: footprint casts, blurry photos, and a taxidermied “Feejee Mermaid” that’s a monkey glued to a fish. They even have a hair sample that's "absolutely not a bear" according to the founder, and a life-sized replica of a coelacanth. Coleman's been at it for over 50 years, amassing a fever dream of fringe science that's somehow a registered nonprofit. Wake up, sheeple!Flushing its way to #8 is The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets (New Delhi, India)! Yes, you heard that right—it's 5,000 years of human poop logistics, and it's surprisingly informative! Forget potty humor; this is potty HISTORY! Founded by sanitation superhero Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak (aka the Toilet Gandhi), this museum dives deep into humanity’s number one (and number two) obsession. Discover ancient chamber pots, Japanese robo-toilets, and medieval European loos that were basically just holes in the wall. The crown jewel? A replica of Louis XIV’s gilded toilet disguised as a chair so the Sun King could multitask his royal duties (if you know what we mean 😉). You'll even find a section on toilets in space! It’s the only museum where you leave feeling relieved.Taking a dark turn at #7 is The Museum of Death (Los Angeles, California, USA)! It's where the gift shop sells actual toe tags! Dedicated to humanity’s ultimate mic drop, this museum offers a one-way ticket to the macabre, from serial killers to embalming techniques. Founded by two art weirdos turned death enthusiasts, its mission is to educate on death with zero sugarcoating. Brace yourself for graphic crime scene photos, antique funeral ephemera, real letters from Charles Manson, and a full replica of the Heaven’s Gate bunk room. Oh, and did we mention the wall of serial killer artwork and autopsy footage screenings? It's Disneyland for your nightmares!Sliding into #6 is The Icelandic Phallological Museum (Reykjavík, Iceland)! Prepare for the world’s largest penis collection—no ifs, ands, or tiny buts about it! Home to over 280 penises and penile parts from nearly every mammal in Iceland, including a human donor named “Elmo” (we wish we were kidding). The founder even received a human penis posthumously, only to find it had shriveled in transport 😱. What started as a high school teacher's oddball hobby is now a full-blown (and uncomfortably veiny) institution where you can admire sperm whale schlongs taller than your niece, and learn about the "cursed" polar bear penis that supposedly causes erectile dysfunction if touched. It’s weird, surprisingly tasteful, and a place where size absolutely does matter!Getting hairy at #5 is The Avanos Hair Museum (Avanos, Turkey)! Imagine thousands of women’s hair samples in a literal cave—soooo not creepy, right? A Turkish potter collected hair clippings from over 16,000 women over 30 years and hung them on his walls... in a dimly lit cave under his pottery shop. It started with a departing friend's lock of hair and escalated into a follicular phone book of names and addresses. Ten lucky donors are chosen randomly each year to return for free pottery classes. Guinness World Record holder? Check. Weirdly heartwarming or Buffalo Bill's arts and crafts project? You decide! Still less creepy than the hair cave.At #4, we have The Mutter Museum (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)! Get ready to come for the brains in jars and stay because you fainted (probably)! America’s premier medical oddities museum houses Einstein’s brain slices, mutant skeletons, and a colon the size of a SEWER PIPE 🤢. Run by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, it’s a Victorian curiosity cabinet meets medical school fever dream. Highlights include conjoined twins in jars, skulls labeled with cause of death, and the world's largest human colon. They also have preserved fetal anomalies, Civil War surgical tools, and the Soap Lady—a woman whose corpse turned to soap underground. Equal parts fascinating and vomitous, like Grey’s Anatomy directed by Tim Burton!Twisting in at #3 is The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum (La Crosse, Kansas, USA)! Prepare for over 2,400 types of barbed wire—yeehaw, you're trapped (literally and metaphorically)! Dedicated solely to barbed wire, this museum in a small Kansas town boasts more wire types than a CIA safehouse. Discover barbed wire used in Civil War prison camps and even one supposedly haunted by a cattle rustler. And yes, there is a Barbed Wire Hall of Fame! Learn about the "Barbed Wire Wars" of the 1870s and marvel at tools for making and repairing this "Devil's Rope". Now in the Barbed Wire Hall of Fame… which is definitely a real place and not a Mad Max fan club.Stumbling into #2 is The Museum of Bad Art (Somerville, Massachusetts, USA)! Because not everyone’s a Picasso—and MOBA proves that failure can be a gloriously beautiful disaster! This gallery exclusively showcases “art too bad to be ignored”, featuring melted faces, haunted landscapes, and anatomy that would offend a jellyfish. Their slogan? “Art too bad to be ignored”. Iconic pieces include “Lucy in the Field with Flowers” and the aptly titled “Sunday on the Pot with George”. Curators only accept accidentally awful art—it's like American Idol for oil painting! Choral Hallelujah!And finally, wriggling its way to #1 is The Meguro Parasitological Museum (Tokyo, Japan)! Get ready for thousands of parasites, one man’s obsession, and absolutely zero chill! This museum is dedicated to the slimy, squirmy kind, featuring actual worms longer than your body! Founded by Dr. Satoru Kamegai, it boasts over 60,000 parasite specimens. The crown jewel? A 29-foot tapeworm on display, donated by a man who “felt a tickle” while using the bathroom 🫠. Exhibits include parasites from animals, humans, and even parasites with their own parasites. And yes, you can buy parasite plushies in the gift shop! Nothing says “Japan” quite like turning a literal nightmare into a charming weekend activity. On a scale from 1 to Tapeworm…What are you waiting for, fact fanatics?! Subscribe now for more mind-blowing Top 10 lists and prepare to have your reality thoroughly GO FACT YOURSELF-ed! 💥 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gofactyourself.substack.com