Oslo: Kon-Tiki Museum Entrance Ticket & Raft Tour

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1/13

Duration1h

Mobile ticketAccepted

The Raft That Crossed the Pacific Is Still Standing in Oslo

You get entry to see the original Kon-Tiki raft and Thor Heyerdahl's other expedition vessels, plus access to the cave tour, underwater whale shark exhibit, and his personal library. The Oscar-winning documentary screens daily at noon. Book ahead to skip the entry line and arrive whenever works for your day.

Step-by-step itinerary

Visit Kon-Tiki Museum exhibits

Enter Kon-Tiki Museum
Explore original vessels and exhibits
Watch Kon-Tiki documentary at noon
Visit Thor Heyerdahl’s library
See underwater whale shark model
Shop at museum souvenir store

The Experience

The Kon-Tiki is smaller than you'd expect. You walk into the museum and there it is—the actual balsawood raft Thor Heyerdahl built in 1947 to prove ancient peoples could have crossed the Pacific. It's not in a glass case. It's just there, logs lashed together, looking like it could still float. That moment of seeing something you've only read about in history class, suddenly real and right in front of you, is worth the ticket alone.

The museum spreads across multiple levels, and you move through it at your own pace. There's the original Kon-Tiki raft, then the reed boats Ra and Tigris from Heyerdahl's later expeditions. You'll find exhibits on Easter Island, Galapagos, and Fatu-Hiva—places Heyerdahl studied to understand how ancient navigation might have worked. The 30-metre cave tour winds through a recreation of an archaeological site, and downstairs there's an underwater section with a 10-metre model of a whale shark that's genuinely unsettling in the best way. His personal library is there too, thousands of books and notes from someone who spent his life asking "what if?"

At noon every day they screen the original Kon-Tiki documentary—the one that won the Oscar in 1951. It's about 55 minutes, and if you time your visit right, you can catch it. Watching the film after standing in front of the actual raft changes how you see it. The grainy footage of the crew on the ocean, the storms, the sharks circling—it all lands differently when you've just touched the wood they sailed on. The museum also has a souvenir shop if you want to take something home, though honestly the memory of that raft is enough.

The museum is in Oslo and accessible by public transport. Book your ticket in advance so you don't waste time at the entrance—just walk in and start exploring. There's no time limit, so you can spend an hour or half a day depending on how deep you want to go into Heyerdahl's world.

What’s included

Museum entrance.
original Kon-Tiki raft and reed boats Ra and Tigris.
30-metre cave tour.
underwater exhibit with whale shark model.
Thor Heyerdahl's personal library.
access to daily documentary film screening at noon.
souvenir shop.
local taxes.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearby

Operated by The Kon-Tiki Museum

Is this one for you?Right for anyone curious about maritime history, ancient exploration, or Thor Heyerdahl's life work—you get to see the actual vessels and artifacts without needing a guide to explain what you're looking at, so you move through at your own speed and focus on what interests you most.