The Textile Museum

Travel with The Textile Museum

The Textile Museum sponsors educational travel tours to destinations around the world, primarily to areas with vital textile traditions. All tours are led by experts in their fields and are accompanied by a tour operator and a representative of The Textile Museum. Past trips have included tours to Central Asia, Japan, Peru and Bolivia, Syria and Jordan, India, St. Petersburg, Russia, and Madagascar, among more recent destinations listed below.

Participation in the Study Tour program is open to Textile Museum members at the Supporter ($250) level and above. You may upgrade your membership level when registering. Textile Museum members at the Patron ($1,000) level receive advance notice of domestic and international study tours. Depending on space availability, tours are subsequently marketed through our eFriends newsletter. For more information about membership levels and benefits, click here.

Past Study Tours

Transylvania and Bucovina: Carpets, Kilims and Castles
May 31-June 10, 2012

This study tour introduced participants to Ottoman carpets, Romanian folk kilims, and historic embroideries through visits to royal palaces, castles, churches, and monasteries of Transylvania and Bucovina, historic regions of Romania. The trip featured behind-the-scenes access to textile collections, private tours, and personal interaction with collectors, curators, and guardians of these treasures.

Santa Fe: Historic and Contemporary
Textile Treasures of the Southwest and Beyond
May 19-23, 2010

Intersecting American Indian, Spanish Colonial and other influences, Santa Fe in 2005 became the first U.S. city to be designated a UNESCO Creative City. A vibrant center for arts and culture, Santa Fe boasts more than a dozen museums and hundreds of galleries. This study tour included special behind-the-scenes access to the exquisite collections of the Indian Arts Research Center, the Wheelwright Museum and the Museum of International Folk Art, as well as several private collections.

Uzbekistan: Heart of the Silk Road
September 20 - October 2, 2010
May 9 - May 21, 2011

Uzbekistan has been a bustling center of trade and cultural exchange for millennia. Inspired by The Textile Museum’s exhibition Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats, this tour offered access to remote centers of textile production with an expert tour guide. Participants enjoyed the rich heritage of this vibrant nation—home to colorful bazaars, splendid mosques and breathtaking landscapes—in the company of fellow
textile-enthusiasts.