The Butuan Boat Site Museum stands in Barangay Libertad, Butuan City, at the archaeological landscape associated with Butuan Boat 1. It is a different place from the National Museum of the Philippines–Butuan regional museum in Barangay Doongan. That distinction matters when arranging transport: the National Museum manages both, but a gallery visit in the city is not automatically a visit to the boat’s excavation setting.
The National Museum says archaeological materials were encountered in Butuan in the 1970s during work on an artificial river system. Subsequent excavations revealed ancient boats beneath waterlogged deposits. The regional museum was established in 1978, and the purpose-built Boat Site Museum followed in 1980 at Ambangan, Libertad. A site museum keeps the story tied to the ground where evidence emerged rather than presenting the boats only as objects detached from their landscape.