Why they do not come back
A major loan exhibition assembles works from thirty owners under insurance and transport arrangements that take years to negotiate. When it closes, the pictures go home and that particular room will not exist again. This is the honest argument for travelling to see one.
How to tell a real one from a filler
Count the lenders. A serious exhibition lists thirty or more institutions in its credits; a filler recycles the museum's own storage with four loans. Read the press release, which is free on every museum website and names every lender.
Book the slot before the flight
Timed tickets for a blockbuster sell out for weeks. Get the entry first, then the travel, then everything else. Choose the first slot of the day or the last: both avoid the middle hours when the rooms are unusable.
Build the rest of the trip around the gap
One exhibition is two hours. Fill the rest with the free layer: the permanent collection you are already inside, a gallery district, a concert. The 48 Hours planner does this automatically for any of the sixteen cities.
Go twice if you can
Most tickets allow same-day re-entry. An hour in the morning, lunch, then a second hour is a better experience than three continuous hours, for the reasons set out in the piece on museum fatigue.
