Spotlight on Grand Turk - Turks and Caicos National Museum

In one of the oldest stone buildings on the islands, the national museum houses the Molasses Reef wreck, the earliest shipwreck—dating to the early 1500s—discovered in the Americas. The natural-history exhibits include artifacts left by Taíno, African, North American, Bermudian, French, and Latin American settlers. The museum has a 3-D coral reef exhibit, a walk-in Lucayan cave with wooden artifacts, and a gallery dedicated to Grand Turk's little-known involvement in the Space Race (John Glenn made landfall here after being the first American to orbit the Earth). An interactive children's gallery keeps knee-high visitors "edutained." The museum also claims that Grand Turk was where Columbus first landed in the New World. The most original display is a collection of messages in bottles that have washed ashore from all over the world.

• Address: Duke St., Cockburn Town, Grand Turk
• Phone: 649/946-2160
• Cost: $5
• Hours: Mon., Tues., Thurs., and Fri. 9-4, Wed. 9-5, Sat. 9-1
• Website: www.tcmuseum.org