Opportunities abound online for virtual explorations, here are a few of our favorite unique experiences that you can enjoy without leaving the comfort of your chair.
Create:
Color Push is an immersive online experience where anyone can easily create and download abstract art in just ninety seconds. It’s incredibly soothing to influence and observe the interaction of the beautifully malleable colors.
Silk is an interactive generative art experience. Use the controls to select colors, adjust the ability to mirror or spiral, and vary the rotational symmetry.
Sounds:
Visit Radio Garden and spin the globe to listen to radio stations from all over the world.
Sounds of the Forest is a collection of the sounds from the world’s woodlands and forests. Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to capture a local recording to contribute to the collection of aural tones and textures.
A Soft Murmur features and array of adjustable ambient sounds that can be blended together to wash away distraction. Choose the intensity of each sound and press play to enjoy everything from thunder, wind, and waves, to fire, birds, crickets, singing bowl, coffee shop, and white noise.
Rainy Mood provides soothing rain sounds perfect for relaxing, reading, or sleeping.
Sights:
Indulge in a 360° Virtual Tour of Buckingham Palace featuring the Grand Staircase, White Drawing Room, the Blue Drawing Room, and the Throne Room.
Flåm railway presents a 360° Virtual Train Ride on the one of the steepest standard gauge railway lines in the world. Relax and enjoy the spectacular scenic views of Norway.
Window Swap provides a much-needed change of scenery. With the click of a button travelers can instantaneously open a new window somewhere in the world to enjoy the sights and sounds of a unique location.
Art:
The Carnegie Museum presents Self-Care Sunday with a collection of more then thirty of short meditations focused on art from their collection. All of the previously posted meditations can accessed any day of the week.
Google Arts and Culture provides endless opportunities to explore, experience, and learn about art!
The Frick Pittsburgh – Explore the Collection – allows you to virtually explore their featured collections of Paintings, Decorative Arts, Prints & Drawings, Cars & Carriages, Costumes, and Photographs. Visit their Virtual Museum page for curator talks, virtual exhibitions, and virtual tours.
Westmoreland Museum of Art – Virtual Experiences shares opportunities to enjoy their museum from home including a self-navigated virtual tour of the galleries, Artists’ Studio Tours Series, Virtual Enrichment Video Series, and Art Activities inspired by their collection.
National Gallery of Art offers several Virtual Exhibitions where you can take a 360° tour of each gallery and read wall texts, watch related video clips, and more. You can also search their entire collection virtually through: What’s on View, Collection Highlights and Online Editions.
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid features a 360° virtual tour so you can explore the impressive collection of art containing masterpieces of nearly every art movement at your own pace.
Nature:
OCEARCH Shark Tracker lets you track tagged sharks as they swim around the ocean. Click on a shark to learn its name, see an image, and learn where it has been traveling for the past year. The site also feature a few turtles, seals, and dolphins.
Live Penguin TV streams Phillip Island’s Little Penguins every day at sunset fro. Check the page for the sunset in Australian Eastern Daylight Time and figure out what time you should tune in from your location to watch live and ask questions in real-time. This is just one of their virtual experiences, check them all out here!
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration presents Virtual Dives providing an immersive 360° view of your national marine sanctuaries.
Hays Bald Eagle Camera typically live-streams each year from February through June when the eaglets fledge.
Visit Birdcast to experience Bird Migration Forecast Maps and Live Bird Migration Maps. Enter your city into Local Bird Migration Alerts to see if a migration alert has been issued for your area.
This Live Wind Map is mesmerizing.
Puzzles:
Bayne Library created a custom digital puzzle titled Lone Sentinel Elm Tree Nostalgia with an image of the Historic Elm Tree that once stood in Bayne Park.
Visit Jigsaw Explorer to solve a variety of puzzles, or create custom puzzles using your own photographs. The number of pieces in the puzzle can be adjusted to increase the challenge, and the puzzles can be shared with friends and family.
Smithsonian Libraries Digital Jigsaw Puzzles features six puzzles featuring images from their collection, we are partial to the puzzle titled ‘To Dream a Little’ due to its literary theme.
Play:
Cat Bounce is undoubtedly one of the most ridiculous pages on the web, as it is literally an interactive website of bouncing cat images. To put your mind at ease, no actual cats are bounced.
Thanks for checking out this Resource on Online Explorations, return to our Book Lists and Resource Guides.
Written 12/14/20 by Linda
