Missing Luxury Vacations? Try an Online Museum Tour!
Why do we travel on luxury vacations? Our brains crave the chance to experience something new to stimulate our curiosity. Visiting a gallery or museum while on vacation gives our rational “I’m at work” brain hemisphere a break and stimulates our imaginative “Hey, that’s really intriguing” brain.
The pandemic has slowed international travel, but it has not stopped our innate desire for stimulation. So, to keep your brain healthy, and give your kids a chance to experience something amazing, we present six virtual museum tours definitely worth checking out.
American Museums
Start with the best: The Metropolitan Museum in New York. Thanks to the Met’s 360 Degree project, over 11 million virtual visitors have toured the museum’s historical exhibits, including the Armor Gallery and the iconic Egyptian Temple of Dendur.
The Metropolitan Museum in New York features some of the best art in the country.
The natural world is revealed at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. The museum’s virtual tours allow you to see fossils, rare gems such as the Hope Diamond, animal species, and even a timely new exhibit on epidemics.
Art lovers will find a trove of inspired works at the Art Institute of Chicago. The virtual tours don’t offer 360-degree panoramas, because the focus is on individual works of art. You can admire over 570 famous pieces by Renoir, Degas, El Greco, and more. Plus the Institute site shares videos, kids’ activities, scholarly articles, and other art-related resources for curious minds.
The Getty Museum is the pride of Los Angeles, featuring art ranging from the 8th to 21st Centuries. In collaboration with the Google Arts & Culture project, The Getty Museum currently has 5 online exhibits, including “The Art of Three Faiths”, and ”Food & Celebration in the Middle Ages”. One of the most popular and funniest pages is the Getty’s recent online quarantine challenge to recreate famous paintings with household items.
International Museums
The British Museum tops the list of European museums. A favorite destination for luxury vacations, the British Museum in London unabashedly proclaims itself The Museum of the World. The Google-powered virtual tour is a clever interactive timeline, allowing visitors to choose any point in time and geography to learn about that cultural era. Remarkably, this is only one of eleven ways the British Museum shares its resources online. The museum site also hosts podcasts, YouTube videos, StreetView tours, virtual galleries, and more.
The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture.
The Louvre in Paris is perhaps the world’s best-known museum. And while nothing can compare to taking a luxury vacation to explore the Louvre in person, the virtual tours are exceptional. The site is in French, but it’s easy to switch to English with the “Select Language” button on the top right of the museum’s homepage. You can move through the virtual galleries at your own pace, and savor the breadth of Western art. And there are no crowds! Our favorite exhibit is a virtual-reality experience that brings the Mona Lisa to life.
This is just a small sample of the museums to explore without booking a luxury vacation. There is an inherent joy in learning, discovering, and exploring. We hope that once the travel bans are lifted, you will be inspired to charter a Stratos jet so your family can explore these museums in person.
As these museums reveal, we are a resilient species. When you are ready luxury vacations via private jet, call Stratos Jets—888-593-9066.
