We’re all self-isolating at home. Our travel plans are on hold indefinitely, but that doesn’t mean we can’t experience the joy of travelling. Around the world, museums, zoos, cities and gardens are going online to offer virtual tours and live streams. Whenever you feel the urge to see the world, log on to these websites, and give yourself the hope that things will turn around soon and you’ll get to experience all this in person.
Virtual Tours Of Museums & Galleries
The National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai recently announced a virtual display of its artworks on the website. Many of the permanent collections are already up, and some exhibitions will be uploaded soon. Check out artists Amrita Sher-Gill, Rabindranath Tagore, and Jamini Roy here.
The British Museum in London, like all others in the city, has closed doors due to Coronavirus, but it has gone online with its collections, exhibits and galleries. Go to the website to check out prints and drawings, and take a virtual tour of Oceania. You can actually be inside the gallery, virtually, through Google Arts & Culture. Google has partnered with museums and galleries around the world to give you a tour from your couch at home. Now you can visit The Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art, Van Gogh Museum, The State Hermitage Museum, Sorolla Museum, The Olympic Museum and The National Museum of Western Art, among others.
The Metropolitan Opera in New York has cancelled all shows and has started live streaming of Opera on its website. Check out the schedule for this week here and tune in for a culture trip for free.
Virtual Tours Of Landmarks
Always dreamt of visiting the Great Pyramids of Giza? Now you can virtually walk around the pyramids and explore the site with Google’s 360 degree Street View. You can even climb to the top of Eiffel Tour and view the Parisian skyline from its 324-metre platform on Google, and know more about the construction and history of the world’s most visited landmark. Google Arts & Culture offers 360 degree views and Street Views of many more monuments. You can virtually explore the White House’s Ground Floor and State Floor; virtually visit the Taj Mahal in Agra; or trek on Machu Picchu.
Is Taj Mahal really worth a visit? Read here.
Meanwhile, HopOn is offering free audio tours of cities in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi, Leh, Kolkata and Jaipur. Check out their Instagram page for more details.
Virtual Tours Of National Parks & Gardens
That’s not all for Google Arts & Culture. Google has partnered with five national parks in the US to offer educational virtual tours.
With interactive videos, you can explore Alaskan fjords–ravel into a crevasse, watch a glacier melt and kayak through icebergs at the Kenai Fjords National Park. At the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, fly over an active volcano and take a dive to explore the shipwreck of 1907 and swim through coastal reefs at the Dry Tortugas National Park in Florida. Check out The Hidden World Of National Parks here.
French impressionist Claude Monet left a beautiful house and gardens in his countryside home in Givenchy. Art lovers and nature lovers will take delight in this virtual tour of his home, where he painted 250 paintings of waterlilies and created a heavenly garden. Watch the videos of his garden blooming with roses, poppies, tulips and daffodils here, and tour his cheerful house here. Want to see a classic English garden? Check out this YouTube channel of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew that manages the botanical gardens at Kew, which has one of the world’s largest collections of plants.
Live Animal Streams
For a live bush experience, check out this stream on elephants drinking from the river, bathing in the sun and just hanging about in the wild. Explore.org has soothing live streams from around the world, including rescue kittens, puppies in a playhouse, African bush lodges and even the Northern Lights.
Featured Image by NPS
Wow!! So informative. I’m sure the experiences will bring in lots of positivity in the current situation. 🙂