Got Wanderlust: Virtual Travel and Sightseeing

We are looking forward to being able to travel again when it is safe and responsible to do so. Wanderlust is real, friends. So what’s a traveler to do when you can’t in good conscience travel the world?!Make use of technology! Virtual Travel and sightseeing is a way of seeing places we might not otherwise get a chance to see in our lifetime. This could even be a resource for homeschooling or in preparation for world-schooling or unschooling!You could start with Google Street-view – coverage extends across most of the world, with the exception of large swathes of Africa, India, and China.

 

Museums, Art Galleries, Parks, and Zoos are some of the landmarks that are available for virtual exploration!

Virtual Travel and Sightseeing Tours: Parks

Check out some famous sights, landmarks, and National Parks around the world! Need some additional material for geography, natural history, or for world schooling or unschooling? These are also helpful educational links for those with curious children!

• Visit Ellis Island
• Colonial Williamsburg
• Tour of England
• Walk the Great Wall of China
• Check out Pompeii on Google Maps
• Explore the surface of Mars with the Curiosity Rover
• Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. This Dark Sky Certified Park is a pretty spectacular place to camp, and you can now explore it virtually.
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico. There are over 100 caves here with a pretty spectacular evening show of bats.
• Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida. Normally you need a seaplane to visit this national park 70 miles off of Key West, Florida.
• Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii, explores lava tubes and provides an aerial view of an active volcano.
• Kenaij Fjords National Park, Alaska, offers a tour of a glacier!
• Wander around  Vatican City that explores Saint Peter’s Basilica and Square, complete with a tour guide.
• Yellowstone National Park

Museums and Art Galleries may be closed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore some of the world’s most famous art-covered walls and halls. You might even find yourself able to get closer to the art than you could when visiting the gallery in person! In many of the virtual tours linked below, you can view paintings, sculptures, and installations as well as explore the museum surrounds.

• British Museum (London)
• Guggenheim (Bilbao)
• Guggenheim  (New York)
• J.Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles)
• The Louvre (Paris)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
• Museu de Arte de São Paulo (Sao Paulo)
• Musee D’Orsay (Paris)
• National Gallery (London)
• National Gallery of Art (Washington DC)
• Natural History Museum (London)
• National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City)
• National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (South Korea)
• Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)
• Uffizzi Gallery (Florence)
• Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)
• Vatican Museum (Including the Sistine Chapel) (Vatican City & Rome)

Love to hang out at Zoos when you travel? Take a stroll around these animal exhibits!

• San Diego Zoo
• Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
• Atlanta Zoo Panda Cam
• Georgia Aquarium
• Ouwehand Park Polar Bears
• Explore Other Live Cams
• Shedd Aquarium
• Nashville Zoo

Take Advantage of satiating your Wanderlust Now and you might find these virtual travel opportunities don’t go away

With public institutions needing to show community impact, if we make the most of these virtual tours and opportunities to explore the world now, we can still help these institutions fulfil their missions. Fulfilling the mission of sharing their art, and buildings (or landscapes) with the world is what they are there for after all!