World Kite Museum
303 Sid Snyder Dr SW
Long Beach, WA
A whole museum devoted to kites, from silk fighting kites to giant Japanese banners, steps from the hard-packed sand of the country's unofficial kite capital.
The World Kite Museum is one of those small, single-minded places that turns out to be a delight. It is devoted entirely to kites, holding a collection of more than a thousand from dozens of countries: military and scientific kites, whirling fighter kites from India, enormous painted banners from Japan, delicate paper kites from China, and modern sport kites that carve the sky in teams. It bills itself as the only museum of its kind in the country.
It could not sit in a more fitting place. Long Beach, with its miles of hard, flat sand and steady ocean wind, is one of the great kite-flying spots in North America, and the museum grew directly out of that culture. Step outside its doors and you are a short walk from the beach where those kites take to the air.
What Guests Love
- Galleries of more than a thousand kites from dozens of countries
- Delicate hand-painted silk and paper kites from Japan, China, and across Asia
- The Kite Hall of Fame honoring the sport's great makers and fliers
- Being able to walk straight out to one of the best kite-flying beaches anywhere
Worth Knowing
- It is a compact, focused museum, so it pairs well with a walk on the beach rather than filling a whole day
- The Washington State International Kite Festival each August is the peninsula's biggest event, and the town fills up
- Long Beach weather is often breezy, foggy, and cool, which is exactly why the kites fly so well; dress warm
- Exhibits rotate, so the kites on display change from visit to visit
Details
Long Beach, WA
Learn about World Kite Museum
How the museum began
The story starts with a festival. The Washington State International Kite Festival began in 1982, a small weekend gathering that grew year after year into one of the largest events on the Washington coast, drawing kite makers and fliers from around the world to the peninsula's endless beach. As the festival grew, so did the idea of a permanent home for kite history and art.
The museum's first exhibit, a display on the history of kites in Washington, appeared during the 1989 festival, crammed into the Long Beach city council chambers, and it was a hit. The following year, in 1990, the World Kite Museum opened as a permanent institution in a converted beach cottage, with a founding collection of hundreds of kites. In 2005 it moved into its current, larger home near the beach approach.
Kites from around the world
Inside, the collection spans centuries and continents. There are the fierce, nimble fighter kites of South Asia, flown on abrasive line in contests to cut a rival from the sky, and the towering rokkaku battle kites of Japan. There are exquisitely painted silk and paper kites, some genuine works of folk art, alongside kites that once carried scientific instruments or served in war.
The museum also keeps a Kite Hall of Fame, honoring the designers, artists, and fliers who shaped the craft, and it rotates its exhibits so that regular visitors keep finding something new. For children, the appeal is immediate; for adults, the surprise is how much history and artistry hangs in the air of a single gallery.
The kite capital by the sea
Long Beach earns its reputation as a kite town honestly. The peninsula offers a long, wide, firm beach and the reliable onshore wind that kite fliers dream of, conditions so good that the beach becomes a canvas of color whenever the weather cooperates. During the August festival, the sky over the sand fills with everything from tiny handheld kites to inflatable creatures the size of a house.
The setting is classic southwest Washington coast: often gray, breezy, and cool, with the surf rolling in and the wind never quite still. That weather can feel raw, but it is the whole point here, the engine that lifts the kites, and the reason a museum devoted to them makes perfect sense in this particular town.
The art and science of the kite
Part of what the museum quietly makes clear is that a kite is far more than a toy. Its collection traces kites used to carry scientific instruments aloft, to lift observers and cameras, and even to serve in wartime, alongside the fighting kites and festival banners that are pure spectacle. The result is a small course in how a simple idea, a wing on a string, has been bent to a hundred purposes across cultures and centuries.
There is real artistry on display, too. Many of the Asian kites in particular are hand-painted works, their silk and paper surfaces carrying dragons, warriors, and birds rendered with the care of a scroll painting. Between the engineering and the artistry, visitors of every age tend to leave with a new respect for the humble kite, and often an itch to go fly one on the beach outside.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Long Beach
Long Beach boardwalk
A few blocks west
A half-mile elevated boardwalk over the dunes with sweeping beach views, at the edge of the town's famous stretch of drivable sand.
Cape Disappointment State Park
About 15 miles south
Two historic lighthouses, Fort Canby's ruins, and the spot where Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific, at the tip of the peninsula.
Oysterville
About 15 miles north
A tiny, beautifully preserved 1850s oyster village at the north end of the peninsula, on the National Register of Historic Places.