For a lot of us around the world, 2021 seems to be a re-run of 2020 in terms of travel. Most still aren't able to do so, be it for health and safety or financial reasons. So, it got me thinking: can we travel in the safety of our own homes? Okay, sure, we can watch documentaries on the television of far flung places but is there anything out there a little more interactive? After a bit of investigating and hunting around on the internet, I was excited to find a range of interactive, virtual online experiences and activities that you can experience from the comfort of your living room. I wanted to share a few of my favourite ones with you today.
Virtual City Tours
There are many city tours on official websites that offer tour services for a small fee. For example, Virtual City Tours have a large range of tours available all over the world and state that they provide a "local and professional tour guide" to show you around a city of your choice, and who will share the city's history and secrets "just as if you were there".
Of course, if you did not want to spend your money, there are also a lot of unofficial videos on YouTube that you can watch, but without a local tour guide of course. Some people have expressed to me that this idea is "boring". Why, they ask, would they want to sit on their own sofa at home watching a virtual reality footage of someone else experiencing a place you'd rather be? Okay, granted, I see where they are coming from but my advice to that is always: Be creative! Let you're imagination run wild! For example, watch a 360 VR video in Italy and create a date night with with your other half. Cook an Italian dish together, dim the lights and pretend you're on a gondola ride in Venice together. Why not? You have nothing to lose and if you don't enjoy it, you can always turn the video off.
Virtual Museum Tours
This is, quite honestly, now my favourite kind of virtual experience although I wasn't really drawn to the idea at first. It wasn't until I stumbled across an article online by Forbes Magazine listing 15 of the world's "Best Virtual Tours To Take During Coronavirus" that I decided to invest my time in to exploring this idea further. Forbes rated the virtual tour of the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, number one on their list and I can completely understand why. Not only can you see the art without the pain of crowds etc, the Louvre website offers interactive and initiative experiences that take "visiting" museums to a whole new level. I'd recommend "Mona Lisa:Beyond the Glass", where you can engage with Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous portrait model on a more "personal" level, just as if she was a modern day celebrity.
Virtual Theme-park Experiences
Personally, I am generally not very good with theme-parks or roller-coasters. I enjoy the experience as a whole, but the thrill and adrenaline of an actual ride gets my palms sweating even just thinking about it. I just don't like them. So the notion of a virtual theme-park experience is perfect for me. One can enjoy the rides without the terror of the drop or the loop de loop. Or, for those a lot less timid than myself (ha!), this is a perfect way to explore rides that you've not yet had a chance to go on and wet your appetite for when you can experience them for yourself in real life. Walt Disney, naturally, is a worldwide favourite for this and you can experience the "Jurassic World" ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, for example, right from your own sofa.
Virtual Zoo Tours
For anyone who was a fan of the popular British TV program Chester Zoo, this is the one for you! A lot of zoos nowadays have cameras showing viewers different habitats, feeding routines and live-streams of their animals. Chester Z00, as an example, has a great "Virtual zoo" online page - a great one for kids and adults, alike!
The Virtual Wizarding World
For all the fellow Harry Potter fans out there, the Warner Bros Studios in London, UK, offer a virtual studio tour on their website alongside activity ideas for children, such as "make your own potion jar" and the "broomstick challenge", and tasks from their "award-winning Education programme" that includes such things as costume design, set design and pitching.
Generally, if you were to type in "Virtual Experience or Tour" in to your search engine, you're bound to find something of interest to you. Have you tried any of the above, or have some suggestions of your own? Comment below, I'd love to hear from you!
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