14 Virtual Tours for the Family
Want to explore art, history, nature, and more from the comfort of your own home? It’s possible, thanks to these virtual tours.
The Royal Ontario Museum
Who doesn’t love the ROM? It’s full of cool dinosaur bones, the only examples of 19th century birch bark canoes left anywhere, and Sitting Bull’s actual headdress.
Rijksmuseum
When you hear Rijksmuseum, don’t you immediately think “Dutch Masters”? We don’t, because we don’t consistently pronounce Rijksmuseum properly, but if you want to see works from Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer, this is the place.
Parliament
Yep, you can visit Parliament (including the House of Commons, the Prime Minister’s Office, and Peace Tower) from your home. You won’t even have to listen to any heckling from backbenchers!
The Vatican Museum
Want a 360-degree view of the Sistine Chapel? It’s a better view than you’d get in the actual chapel itself.
Iqaluit, Nunavut
Want a walking tour complete with a sled dog meeting geared towards students? Now you too can visit Iqaluit.
Kenai Fjords National Park
You’re probably not going to climb down into an ice crevasse anytime soon . . . but why not try it virtually with this very cool guided tour?
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Instead of artefacts and art, why not explore the rise of collective bargaining, how women’s suffrage was won, or the famous Persons case?
The Louvre
It’s more than just the Mona Lisa and Egyptian antiquities. There are exhibits on how artists convey movement, how art is connected to political power, and mythmaking from Hercules to Darth Vader.
Musee d’Orsay
It’s the famous Paris museum that isn’t the Louvre. It’s in a converted railway station and is home to the largest group of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings in the world, including examples from Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, and like a million other masters of the form.
The Royal Tyrell Museum
The very best dinosaur museum in the world, you can see examples of triceratops, albertosaurus, and tyrannosaurus rex. They also have the world’s most complete example of a thyreophora, a cool shonisaurus, and a place where you can watch palaeontologists dust off actual bones. And if you’re unsure of any of those terms, ask your grade schooler.
Walt Disney World
If you like the wonder of Disney and don’t care that you’re not actually going on a ride, check out their virtual tours of exhibits like Pirates of the Caribbean, the new Star Wars world, and, if you’re a masochist, the It’s a Small World ride. Churros not included.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met is the largest museum in the US, and you wouldn’t be able to get through it all in one day, so why not see everything in a leisurely online fashion? You can take a close look at the arms and armour of Ferdinand I, a leaf from the Blue Quaran, and Washington Crossing the Delaware.
The British Museum
Home to the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, the Portland Vase, Assyrian palace reliefs, Palaeolithic artefacts, Lindow Man, the Sutton Hoo treasure, and so, so much more. Protip: listen to the podcast The History of the World in 100 Objects to get a real deep dive into this stuff.
The Van Gogh Museum
Get up close and personal with Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, Sunflowers, the Yellow House, and more. Plus there’s art by Van Gogh contemporaries Rodin, Gaugin, Monet, and more.
