Virtual Museum Tours to Take During Lockdown: National Park Virtual Tour & Aquarium

To get the obvious out of the way, of course virtual reality pales in comparison to…well, reality. Unless you’ve invested in some serious Oculus equipment and an Omnideck VR treadmill, you just won’t have the same depth of experience as when you can smell a gallery or hear your footfalls echo through cavernous hallways. That said there are several things going for the VR museum experience. After all, how else could you meander around the Guggenheim in Bilbao, scoot to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, explore the Musée d’Orsay at lunch, and finish up the afternoon at the Getty? MoMA not doing it for you? No problem. Zip to the British Museum in London in just a few clicks! The ease of sampling and ability to change locations with little friction make VR museum tours something quite enjoyable indeed. Let’s take a look at what some of the world’s best institutions are offering.

Vatican City has gotten into the VR game with some impressive offerings. The Vatican Museums house some of the most important artwork in the Western canon. Now you can explore the magnificence without needing to stand elbow-to-elbow as people crane their necks looking up at Michelangelo’s masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel. Despite missing the sternly-worded and oft-repeated reprimands from museum guards calling for “quiet” and “no pictures,” the 360-degree movable panoramas provided by the Vatican allow you to approximate walking through the many collections. On offer include Sala Alessandrina, the Profane Museum, the Pio Clementino Museum, and of course, the Sistine Chapel. The virtual tours are easily accessible from the Vatican Museum website. Simply navigate to the pages for the various collections and see if a virtual tour is available. Even where it’s not, there is still plenty of information and high-quality photos to give you enough to spend a good chunk of your quarantine hours on.

Britain through its long and often dark colonial history has “acquired” (looted?) a nearly unparalleled trove of cultural treasures from around the world. Housed together at the impressive British Museum in London, these artifacts weave a vivid human tapestry. Now you can explore the vast collection using the museum’s eye-catching and innovative navigation tools found on its website. Picture something like Guitar Hero meets Tron. Organized thematically across time by world region, your experience will take you on a journey across continents. Select individual items to open information boxes with detailed photos, maps, and audio guide explanations. Jump to similar items or go back to the timeline to keep exploring. This impressive digital experience builds on what you’d get in person and makes for one of the better virtual museum tours around.

Among the experiences that make traveling to new destinations so exciting is happening upon great local art. New York City may no longer feature subway cars decked from top-to-bottom in futuristic graffiti murals; but if you know where to look, there’s still plenty of great street art. Ditto for many of the world’s other major cities. Ever fancied strolling around Berlin or Buenos Aires in search of giant murals? Well now you can. Google has leveraged their impressive reserve of map and street-view data to curate virtual walking tours around the globe. Simply hop on the Google Art Project and look for Street Art. You can surf your way around the world and skip from point to point in Bangkok, Dakar, Yekaterinburg, and dozens more great cities. Let your fingers do the walking and check out some of the world’s great street art galleries!

Was this the year you were planning to get to Yellowstone or Yosemite? Maybe you had Glacier National Park on your list? Perhaps it was Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. These are likely to be hot destinations in a post-coronavirus world. Brush up on some places you might want to visit once we emerge from lockdown. The US National Park Service has created a stunning series of virtual tours through some of America’s most-beloved national parks. Fly-over maps, incredible videos, immersive audio, your very own park ranger tour guide…there’s a ton to fall in love with here. You can easily spend several hours whiling away your time exploring Kenai Fjords. Rappel down an ice wall with the impressive 360-degree panorama. Afterwards zip over to Bryce Canyon in Utah for some desert scenery. There are several parks to choose from offering a wide variety of scenic landscapes. Come explore the great outdoors!

Ready to get wet? By now you’ve probably seen the adorable videos of penguins exploring empty aquariums as zookeepers take them around to “visit” the other animals. If this sight melted your heart like it did ours, we think you’ll enjoy the digital programs offered by the New England Aquarium in Boston. Each day on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, aquarium staff post new educational presentations where they introduce viewers to different animals and tackle some of your frequently asked questions. The feeds are live every day at 11:00 a.m. (UTC-4) if you want the sense of being there together with others. Alternatively, you can view previous offerings any time on the New England Aquarium website. You can also find a wealth of educational activities to try at home. These are perfect for families with kids or people who are just kids at heart.

Since we’re not really getting out of the house, we have to make the world come to us. Chile aims to do just that with its innovative digital app available for both iOS and Android. Rich presentations and stunning vistas help bring Chile’s incredible wonders to life. Visit the iconic moai statues on Easter Island, or wander high up above the Atacama Desert to visit the European Southern Observatory. If you have VR glasses you can use them to make the experience all the more immersive. For those who’ve always wanted to visit South America, this is a wonderful substitute available now in the time of corona. Come along as we venture far to the south to explore Torres del Paine. Chile is absolutely chock full of incredible things to see. With Chile 360° you won’t have to stretch your imagination too much to think you’re actually there!

COVID-19, in forcing us together for long stretches, has placed enormous strain on relationships worldwide. What seemed like forever and ever just a few months ago may now feel as cold as yesterday’s slice of pizza. In such times as these it helps to know you’re not alone. Countless others have gone through the cycle of love and heartache that forms such a large part of the human experience. The Museum of Broken Relationships is a space where you can share your stories of love and loss through the possessions that helped define it. Explore the virtual galleries where people have donated mementos from a time in their lives that hope sprung eternal and love seemed evergreen. While it may seem odd to want to explore a gallery chronicling times where people were feeling down, it’s strangely cathartic. If you’re looking for a different virtual experience, or perhaps wondering if something of yours is destined to belong there, take a look at the Museum of Broken Relationships and remember you’re not alone.

The last stop on our virtual tour takes us way Down Under to Melbourne. The National Gallery of Victoria has loads of virtual tours, including the highly-regarded offering “Crossing Lines” by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Navigate through the gallery in 3D virtual space where you can see recommended works, hear the audio guide, and move around using the dollhouse view. Experiencing a gallery in this manner is quite nice as you can get a sense for how the artists and curators work together to develop the space in its entirety. When you’re wandering a gallery in person you can sometimes lose the forest through the trees. That won’t happen here when you able to pull back and see everything from a bird's-eye view. The National Gallery of Victoria has several virtual tours available on its website in addition to other interactive content. We think you’ll certainly enjoy spending some time here.

The coronavirus pandemic has us all searching for new things to do and ways to make use of our time. If Netflix is wearing thin and you’re seeking a bit more high-brow culture in your life, make use of the amazing virtual museum tours we profile here to add some joy to your life. We’ve only scratched the surface, but we’re confident this will give you a sense of what’s out there. Hold together and let these offerings help you continue to do your part to physically distance and flatten the curve. We’re going to come out on the other side of this and together we can make the world better for it.