Digital Tours Explained
Governments around the world have implemented social distances to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In many countries, places such as restaurants, bars, museums, parks and historic buildings are closed to the public. Nowadays people don’t have many choices to go and enjoy quality time. Although some countries have reopened their borders, most of their popular destinations are still closed to tourists and travellers. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the tourism industry hard, especially the lives of ordinary people who are self-quarantined, and have a lot of time but can’t go anywhere.
Fortunately, there are many ways to prevent boredom while staying at home. One of the best ways to enjoy different places from the comfort of their homes is through digital tour technology and 360-degree videography. Due to the travel restrictions, tourism and real-estate industries have introduced new ways to promote their business. Historical places, Museums, national parks, and real estate agents have stepped up to promote their business by offering virtual tours and online travel experiences to everyone from the comfort of their homes.
Thanks to innovative technology, it’s easier to share information with people, regardless of where your target audience is located. Virtual tour technology can virtually take your target audience to various popular destinations that once may have required a physical travel experience. Real estate agents, tourism agencies, theme parks, and even universities are relying more on virtual tours to reach maximum targeted audiences.
Virtual Tours are built using Virtual-reality technology, which is used to create a simulated virtual model. You can create a variety of virtual tours to suit your needs, including walkthrough videos, 3D virtual tours, and attractive 360-degree virtual tours. Different organizations and public places around the world including museums, Zoos, and Historical places are using virtual tours for their online customers. We are presenting some of the best virtual tours and digital exhibitions of 2020.
Virtual Tours for Real-estate Properties
The Coronavirus pandemic has provided real damage to the economy of countries around the world. The real estate industry in particular has felt a drastic effect of the pandemic. The social distancing made buying and selling properties tougher than before. Real estate agents have brought innovative technology like virtual reality to advertise their properties, and customers can virtually visit the property on their smartphones and laptops from the comfort of their homes.
Digital tours have proven to be the most reliable tool to attract buyers and advertise real estate properties more efficiently. In a virtual tour, customers can take a visual walk-through of the properties, which allows them to explore every part of the building in detail. According to a recent study, real-estate property ads that offer virtual tours for the buyers, get maximum more views and buyer’s attention than other traditional advertisements.
This cutting-edge technology allows potential buyers to virtually interact with properties and its surroundings. The VR technology also helps to promote real estate business by enhancing brand awareness and quality of customer service. Real estate agents around the world prefer to use virtual tours instead of physical appointments, virtual tours give customers a more accurate and realistic experience of advertised properties.
Virtual Tours for Museums
Virtual tours for Museums are becoming more and more popular nowadays. Virtual reality technology allows people to virtually transport to places which they might never be able to visit in real life, and museums are one of them. There are amazing museums which are offering virtual tours for people around the world. These digital tours of Museums are very helpful for students as they can explore some amazing pieces of history and can gather knowledge with quick and easy access.
Google Arts and Culture has collaborated with over two thousand museums and Art galleries around the globe to create virtual tours and online exhibitions of these museums, which are accessible to people around the world. Some of the most famous museums around the world are also offering virtual tours to the audience and with the help of these virtual tours you can enjoy the real experience of being inside the museum without leaving your cosy couch.
National Museum of Natural History
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour
The National Museum of Natural History is one of the largest museums in the world. The museum is situated in Washington, D.C., United States. It has millions of specimens of wild animals, plants, fossils, meteorites and ancient artefacts, which is one of the largest collections in the world. The Museum offers several virtual tours for the internet users. Some of the popular exhibitions of the museums are Bone Hall, Hall of Fossils, Hall of Human, Hall of Geology, Hall of Mammals, eternal Life in Ancient Egypt, Objects of Wonder and many more.
The museum provides user-friendly and easy-to-navigate virtual tours for the audiences, which can be explored through most of the internet browsers. The virtual tours database includes all permanent and past exhibitions of the museum. These virtual tours allow visitors to select an exhibition and take a room-by-room tour from their desktop computer or smartphone.
The Louvre Tour
http://www.youvisit.com/tour/louvremuseum
The Louvre is the world’s largest art museum situated in Paris, France. Last year the Louvre was listed as the most visited museum in the world with over 9.6 million visitors. The most attractive thing about the museum is the diversity of art collection. From Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece the Mona Lisa to Egyptian antiquities, it contains over fifty thousand pieces of art. It has the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman departments, which contain ancient art pieces from the Roman and Greek empires.
The museum is offering virtual tours and panoramic images of its vast art collection for its online visitors. The Louvre is a hub to some of the most magnificent art in the world, and having it on your smartphone or desktop PC is a fortune for art lovers. You can enjoy one of the most popular museums in the world from the comfort of your home. Museum has created virtual tours of its four popular exhibitions including, Egyptian Antiquities, Galerie d’Apollon, Remains of the Louvre’s Moat, and the Advent of the Artist.
The British Museum Tour
https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/
The British Museum is one of the most popular museums in the world, it is famous for its collection of human history, art and culture. The museum also has a wide collection of historical antiquities from the era of the British Empire. It has nine different departments which cover different eras and regions of human history. The iconic museum collaborated with Google Cultural Institute to create an online digital database and virtual tours of the museum for online visitors.
The iconic British museum has a huge collection of artefacts belonging to over two million years of human history. You will find unique and diverse cultural treasures under one roof, and you can access all these through the virtual tour of the museum. The Digital Tour of the British Museum also gives you a detailed history of various specimens, including Parthenon sculptures, Egyptian mummies, Rosetta Stone, etc., which even an expert historian cannot tell you.
The Tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses VI Digital Tour
The Tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses VI also known as KV9, is one of the most spectacular tombs in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb has a 117m long corridor with a variety of decorations on the walls. Every inch of the tomb is telling you a new story, it is a feast for the eyes of those who are lovers of Egyptian history. The walls of the tomb are covered with paintings and details in hieroglyphs. The unique thing about the tomb is that its decoration is well-preserved.
Thanks to the Egyptian government, which has created a series of virtual tours of the country’s most popular ancient sites and museums, one of them is the tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses VI. The virtual tour of the tomb allows people to watch every inch of it with the finest details of the paintings and hieroglyphs on the walls. You can literally walk through the corridor of the tomb and navigate around to watch the ancient Egyptian artwork on the walls and ceiling of the tomb. Click below to view the tour.
Sistine Chapel Digital Tour
Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, situated in the Vatican City. It was rebuilt in 1973 by a famous architect Giovanni dei Doki. The chapel is famous for its interior wall and ceiling which were decorated with frescoes by many popular artists of that time. One of the most famous artists in history, Michelangelo spent four years working in the Sistine Chapel and decorated the Sistine Chapel’s most famous ceiling panel named “The Creation of Adam”.
The Sistine Chapel has become one of the most iconic pieces of Western art, and millions of people from all over the world flock to this historic site to see the amazing art on the walls and ceilings of the chapel. The Sistine Chapel is offering a digital tour of the interior artworks of the chapel. You can enjoy this historical place and famous collection of Western art including Michelangelo’s masterpieces on your smartphone.
Virtual Tours for National Parks
Safari enthusiasts and nature lovers are quite bored of the lockdown imposed by the governments due to the coronavirus pandemic. Luckily there are ways to enjoy the beauty of nature from the comfort of your home. Google Arts & Culture has collaborated with many national parks around the world to bring virtual tours and interactive 360-degree panoramic images.
Yosemite National Park Virtual Digital Tour
https://www.virtualyosemite.org/virtual-tour/
Yosemite National Park is situated in California and is famous for its sensational landscapes, diverse outdoor beauty, and soul-searching waterfalls. More than five million tourists visit Yosemite National Park every year in search of nature. It contains the amazing Sierra Nevada Mountains, rushing rivers, lush green forests, and beautiful meadows. It has over 900-meter tall vertical cliff named El Capitan, which attracts international mountain climbers from all over the world.
Yosemite National Park has created digital tours of all popular places of the park. You can easily access these virtual tours of the park through their official website. You can also explore some stunning 360-degree panoramic images of the park which they added to their virtual tours. You can also find a piece of brief information about different places in the park as you explore during the virtual tour.
Five national parks of USA
https://artsandculture.withgoogle.com/en-us/national-parks-service/bryce-canyon
If you want to explore national parks in the United States, you can try the Google Arts and Culture platform. Google Arts and Culture has collaborated with the top five national parks in the country, including Kenai Fjords National Park Alaska, the Volcanoes of Hawaii, Dry Tortugas Florida, Bryce Canyon Utah, and Carlsbad Caverns New Mexico. You can enjoy different types of climates and environments from across the country through these virtual tours.
You can enjoy the Harding Ice field and glaciated landscape of Kenai Fjords National Park in the virtual tour. The tour also gives you great images of the world’s most active volcanoes in Hawaii, watching the breathtaking images of the volcanoes will be a truly unforgettable experience for you. Virtual tours of Dry Tortugas allow visitors to watch lush green groups of islands with attractive landscapes. There are plenty of places which you can discover through these online virtual tours.
Abisko National Park, Sweden
Abisko National Park is situated in the heart of Swedish Lapland. The park is stretched over 77 square kilometres and is popular for its wildlife, lush green beauty, and Majestic Mountains. Abisko Sky Station is considered the best location for watching magical aurora borealis or Northern lights. Tourists visit this mystical national park from around the world to watch this amazing natural phenomenon in the sky.
Seeing mystical northern lights is on everyone’s bucket list, and the best thing is that you don’t have to travel all the way to Abisko National Park to watch the northern lights. A popular photography company, Lights-over-Lapland has created interactive virtual tours of Abisko National Park, including the magical Northern Lights, Arctic birch forest, Lake Torneträsk, Reindeer Sledding tour, etc. These virtual tours contain 360-degree high-quality virtual videos, which allow people to enjoy the beautiful Abisko National Park from their home.
The Stonehenge Digital Tour
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history-and-stories/stonehenge360/
The Stonehenge tells us about the oldest history of mankind. It is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, which contains a ring of standing stones. These stones are around 13 feet high and 7 feet wide, and the weight of each stone is around 25 tons. According to a study, the stone ring was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC, and it took an estimated 1500 years to build these iconic constructions. Archaeologists and historians are still unable to solve the mysteries behind the construction of Stonehenge.
The English Heritage has created a virtual tour of the popular Stonehenge with a 360-degree view from inside the mountain. If you are a history lover, then it is a great source of information about this masterpiece of engineering. The virtual tour provides you with more information about different spots of Stonehenge when you click on them. You can also watch the real-time view of the standing stone by using live skyscape mode.
Virtual Tour of the Great Wall of China
https://www.thechinaguide.com/destination/great-wall-of-china
The Great Wall of China is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and it is an essential stop for every tourist who is visiting China. The rich history behind the Great Wall of China attracts millions of tourists to China. The China Guide has created a virtual tour of the most visited section of the Great Wall of China. The length of the virtual tour is almost 3000 miles which allows visitors to explore some of the best views of the wall.
The virtual hike created by the China Guide covers a section of the Great Wall of China which is not only the most visited but also well-preserved. The website of China Guide also provides complete details about different parts of the Great Wall of China, which is quite significant for students. You can take a virtual tour with your friends and family to watch this iconic wonder of the world and learn amazing facts about it.
Virtual Tour of the Taj Mahal, India
https://www.airpano.com/360photo/Taj-Mahal-India/
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/treks/taj-mahal/
Taj Mahal is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, it is a masterpiece of Eastern architecture, which attracts millions of visitors from around the world and generates billions of dollars in annual revenue for the country. It is a great combination of Islamic, Indian and Persian architectural style, which make it unique. Visiting Taj Mahal is every traveler’s goal, but it is not necessary that you travel all the way to India to visit this masterpiece. One of the easiest ways to visit Taj Mahal is through its virtual tour.
Google Street View has created attractive virtual tours of the Taj Mahal. It allows you to virtually travel around the Taj Mahal, and you can explore the whole area including the mausoleum, reflecting pool, paradise gardens and ornate red sandstone mosque. Airpano also has created a 360-degree air view of the majestic Taj Mahal in which you can explore all sides of the tomb with high-quality images.
Virtual Tours of Zoos and Aquariums
There are many Zoos and Aquariums which are offering virtual tours for online visitors. Thanks to the virtual tour technology, you don’t even have to leave your couch to visit these zoos and aquariums. Some Zoos are offering live streaming in which you can enjoy watching your favourite animals.
Houston Zoo
https://www.houstonzoo.org/explore/webcams/
Houston Zoo is offering high-definition live streaming for their online visitors. You can choose any from seven live webcams of the zoo, these live webcams cover Chimps, Giraffes, Elephants, Rhinos, Gorillas, Flamingos, and Leafcutter Ants. These interactive webcams allow visitors to navigate and change the direction of cams. You don’t have to pay any fee or any kind of money to watch these cams, just go to the website of the Zoo and you can explore these wild animals.
San Diego Zoo
https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/live-cams
The San Diego Zoo is one of the best Zoos in the world, especially when it comes to virtual Zoos. It offers more than 10 live webcams for streaming videos of wild animals. Visitors can enjoy a detailed virtual tour of many wild animals including, Hippo, Platypus, Baboon, Penguin, Polar Bear, Apes, Tiger, Elephant, Giraffe, Burrowing Owl, Panda, Koala, and Condor. San Diego Zoo also hosts a separate website for kids, which contains plenty of information with videos about different animals.
Georgia Aquarium
Georgia Aquarium is the biggest aquarium in the United States. The aquarium is closed to the public due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but it is offering live streaming of its notable sea creatures. There are nine high definition live webcams, which cover most of the sea creatures including sea lions, the cool penguins, piranha, Jellyfish, Beluga whales, Sea Otter, and many more. The website also offers Ocean Voyager gallery, which contains more than 50 species including whale sharks, Manta Rays, and thousands of different types of fish.
Monterey Bay Aquarium
https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams
If you want to learn more about sea creatures through live streaming then Monterey Bay Aquarium live webcams are the best option for you. It contains live online tours for each of its 10 exhibits. Monterey Bay Aquarium contains over 35 thousand sea creatures belonging to over 550 species. Currently aquarium is offering live streaming for its 10 exhibits including Aviary cam, Coral Reef cam, Jelly cam, Kelp Forest cam, Monterey Bay cam, Moon Jelly cam, Open Sea cam, Penguin cam, Sea Other cam and Shark cam.
Aquarium of the Pacific
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/exhibits/webcams
Aquarium of the Pacific is one of the most popular Aquariums in the world, it contains over 12000 sea creatures. The aquarium offers seven live webcam exhibits including, Sea Nettles cam, Shark Lagoon cam, Tropical Reef cam, Honda blue Cavern, Coral Predators cam, Penguin above water cam, and Penguin below water cam. The virtual tours of the aquarium also provide plenty of information related to these sea creatures and their species.
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