This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you click on the link and make a purchase I receive small commission (at no extra cost to you!), which helps fund the Mom Revamped Site.
Create your own free virtual vacations with virtual field trips to museums and art galleries or virtual tours of amusement parks and other popular attractions .
While being stuck at home isn’t ideal, we are lucky that we have so much technology available to us to make this easier. There are lots of virtual activities, virtual home school options, work at home options, and even virtual ways to travel.
These are all of the best virtual field trip websites, video tours, 360 travel videos, virtual walking tours and places you can walk through with google street view that I have found online (and for free!).
With a combination of the travel videos and virtual walk-through tours, it’s easy to plan a virtual vacation day.
Like many people, traveling is a big stress reliever for me which is why one of my current personal goals is to travel more. I even purchased a new website to start a travel blog last month.
Of course, now that project has been put on hold, as are my plans to take more day trips and mini-vacations with the kids.
Luckily for me though, the relaxing part of a vacation isn’t just the vacation itself.
I love planning vacations too.
When I was really stressed out a couple of years ago, I started planning a dream vacation for me and The Husband. I have no idea when we will even take the trip, but planning it was a great distraction to help me cope with the stressful situation I was dealing with.
So, this week, I decided to get in a bit of self-care time for myself by looking for some online ideas to plan a virtual family vacation.
While it may be a while before I go to any of these places in real life, for now, I am enjoying the virtual travel and am going to try to take a virtual vacation or virtual field trip with the kids every week until we can take a real family vacation.
Walt Disney World Virtual Tours
With 4 theme parks, two waterparks, shopping and entertainment areas, and tons of resorts, a virtual trip to Disney World could easily fill a day stuck at home.
To take a virtual walk through Disney World with google street view, you will want to get the park maps from their website so you can keep track of where you are and where you want to head to next.
Theme Parks
To get the full experience of Disney you’ll want to check out some rides too. Thanks to these 360 videos from Virtual Disney World you can. There are videos from all 4 Disney theme parks (and a few extinct attractions you can check out too), plus I have listed videos for parades and shows under each park.
Magic Kingdom
- Virtual walk-through
- Let the Magic Begin Opening Show
- Mickeys Royal Friendship Fair
- Festival of Fantasy Parade
- Move It! Shake It! Mousekedance It! Street Party Parade
- Electrical Water Pageant on The Seven Seas Lagoon & Bay Lake
- Happily Ever After Fireworks
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- Virtual walk-through
- Beauty and The Beast Live on Stage
- For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration
- Jedi Training: Trials of The Temple
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!
- Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular
- Fantasmic Show and Fireworks
Epcot
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park
- Virtual walk-through
- Festival of the Lion King Show
- Finding Nemo – The Musical
- UP! A Great Bird Adventure
- Rivers of Light: We Are One
Water Parks
- Disney’s Blizzard Beach Water Park (POV video of all slides)
- Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon (POV slides videos)
Resorts
While the google maps street views only let you walk around the outside of the resorts, there are lots of video tours and walkthroughs of the resorts on YouTube.
Here are the ones we will be checking out for our virtual Disney family vacation.
- Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
- Disney Beach Club Resort
- Disney’s Contemporary Resort
- Disney’s Boardwalk Resort
- Disney Art of Animation Resort
- Disney’s Pop Century Resort
- Disney’s All-Star Music Resort
- Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort
- Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort Tour
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort
- Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
- Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground (plus a cabin tour)
Disney Shopping and Entertainment
In addition to virtual theme parks, waterparks and resort tours, your virtual stay at Disney also includes a walk through Disney’s two shopping and entertainment areas.
If you want, you can even pick up a souvenir ahead of time from the Disney Store.
Universal Orlando Virtual Tours
With 2 theme parks, a waterpark, a shopping and entertainment area and 8 resorts, a virtual vacation tour of Universal Orlando Resort is another great way to spend a day.
Attractions
Use these park maps, these ride videos and the listed entertainment under each park to plan your virtual trip.
Universal Studios
Universal’s Islands of Adventure
- Virtual walk-through
- Universal Superstar Parade
- Oh, The Stories You’ll Hear
- Poseidon’s Fury
- Dark Arts at Hogwarts Castle
- Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts Castle
Universal’s Volcano Bay
Universal’s City walk
Resorts
While Universal doesn’t have as many resort hotels as Disney, over the last 5 years they have been working on expanding their resort with more hotels (and a third theme park, Universal’s Epic Universe set to open in 2023).
- Universal’s Endless Summer Resort – Dockside Inn and Suites
- Universal’s Endless Summer Resort – Surfside Inn and Suites
- Universal’s Aventura Hotel
- Universal’s Cabana Bay Beach Resort
- Loews Sapphire Falls Resort
- Loews Royal Pacific Resort
- Hard Rock Hotel
- Loews Portofino Bay Hotel
Legoland Resort Virtual Tours
Another Florida resort that has been expanding is Legoland, which now has 3 resort hotels in addition to the Lego theme park which includes a waterpark.
- Legoland Map
- Legoland walk-through
- Legoland Hotel
- Legoland Florida Beach Retreat Resort
- Legoland Pirate Island Hotel Preview
- Rides
SeaWorld Virtual Tours
A virtual tour of SeaWorld is another great idea for a virtual vacation in Florida. With all the shows, rides and the parade listed below, it will easily take you a few hours to see it all.
- SeaWorld Map
- SeaWorld walk-through
- Orca Encounter show
- Dolphin Days show
- Sea Lion High show
- Pets Ahoy show
- Ocean Discovery show
- Sesame Street Parade
- Rides
More Virtual Florida Attractions
Of course, those aren’t the only attractions in Florida that offer google walkthrough and/or POV videos and video tours. If you feel like extending your virtual vacation in Florida, check out these other virtual tours of theme parks, water parks, and popular attractions.
- Aquatica (slide videos)
- Discovery Cove
- Busch Gardens Tampa (ride videos)
- Adventure Island
- Old Town Kissimmee
- The Crayola Experience
- WonderWorks
- Epic McD– World’s Largest Entertainment McDonald’s
Virtual Amusement Park Tours
If you don’t feel like visiting Florida for your virtual vacation, there are lots of other amusement parks and water parks you can walk through virtually too.
- Disneyland
- Disney California Adventure Park
- Legoland California
- Sesame Place
- Bush Gardens Williamsburg
- Water Country USA
- SeaWorld San Antonio
- Aquatica San Antonio
- SeaWorld San Diego
- Canada’s Wonderland
- Six Flags America
- Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
- Six Flags Great Adventure
- Six Flags Great Escape Theme Park & Lodge
- Six Flags Magic Mountain
- Six Flags New England
- Six Flags Over Georgia
- Six Flags Over Texas
- Six Flags St. Louis
- Frontier City
- Hershey Park
- Knott’s Berry Farm
- Dollywood
- Dorney Park
- California’s Great America
- Holiday World
- Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
Virtual Zoo Tours and Aquarium Tours
You can also take a virtual walk through many zoos and aquariums with 360 tours, video tours or google street view, and even view some live animal camera feeds.
Zoo’s
- San Diego Zoo (live cams)
- Houston Zoo (live cams)
- Dublin Zoo (live cams)
- Kansas City Zoo (live cams)
- Melbourne Zoo (live cams)
- St. Louis Zoo (live cams)
- Woodland Park Zoo (live cams)
- Zoo Atlanta
- Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
- Edinburgh Zoo
- Chester Zoo
- Toronto Zoo
Aquariums
- Monterey Bay Aquarium (live cams)
- National Aquariums Baltimore (live cams)
- Clearwater Aquarium (live cams of Winter from Dolphin Tale)
- Seattle Aquarium (live cams and virtual field trip)
Virtual Museum Tours and Art Gallery Tours
There are way too many museums and art galleries with google street view tours for me to list, so if you want to tour a museum or art gallery not listed below look for it on Google’s Museum Views page.
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- American Museum of Natural History
- Ontario Science Centre
- Boston Children’s Museum
- The Royal Tyrrell Museum
- Cincinnati Museum Center
- Science Museum (London, England)
- The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum
- The Henry Ford Museum
- Lamborghini Museum
- World Chess Hall of Fame
- The National Cowboy Western & Heritage Museum
- The Adler Planetarium
- Museum of Cosmonautics
- Van Gogh Museum
- Guggenheim Museum
Famous Landmarks You Can Visit Virtually
Your virtual vacation isn’t limited to amusement parks, zoos and museums either. You can find virtual tours for famous landmarks around the world too.
- Vatican
- Eiffel Tower
- Leaning Tower of Pisa (plus inside view)
- Taj Mahal
- Buckingham Palace
- Sydney Opera house
- Machu Picchu
- Stonehenge
- Venice Grand Canal
- Great Wall of China
Popular Virtual Tourist Attractions and Destinations
Here are a few more popular tourist attractions you can take a virtual walk or video tour of for some at-home sight-seeing.
- The Vegas Strip (360 photo tour and video tours)
- Time Square
- Niagara Falls (Clifton Hill and the Botanical Gardens)
- The Whitehouse (guided tour from Barack Obama)
- Viscaya Museum and Gardens
- Alcatraz
- Winchester Mystery House
- Carnegie Hall
- The Liberty Bell
- Statue of Liberty
- Central Park
- United States Botanic Garden
- Sculpture by the Sea
- Mount Rushmore
- Grand Canyon National Park
- Hidden World of National Parks
- Google Earth United States National Parks
More Fun Virtual Tours and Live Cameras
If you still want more virtual vacation ideas, you can try an International Space Station virtual tour or check out some live cameras and 360 views from around the world.
- International Space Station (Video tours)
- Worldwide live cameras
- 360 views from popular tourist destinations
- Wildlife live cameras
How to Plan A Virtual Vacation
To plan your virtual vacation, start by visiting the website for the destination you will be visiting and find the map. It’s much easier to walk through virtually if you can refer to the map to know which way you are going (just like you would if you were visiting the place in real life).
Looking at the map, use google docs or word and type out the order you will be virtually visiting each area, animal, ride or other attraction in.
For amusement parks, the experience is best if you find POV (point of view) videos of the rides. I have put links to ride videos for some of the attractions, but for the rest just search the name of the ride on YouTube. You can also find parades and other entertainment for some parks so check the website to see what else there is to do then see if there are videos for it.
For museums, aquariums and zoo’s check their website to see if there are any educational pages, educational videos, live animal cameras or other resources for virtual field trips. You can also check YouTube for any videos of the destination.
Paste the links for each video or webpage into the google doc/word document under the area it is in, so you can quickly find the links when you reach that location on your virtual walkthrough.
If you really want to go all out, check the menu’s for any restaurants or cafeteria’s and plan to make something your kids would chose from it for lunch or dinner the day of your online trip.
So far, the kids and I have taken a virtual field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
I had it all pre-planned for them, with my word document listing each section in the order we would be visiting them in, and had links to the information pages from their website, the live cameras for each area and a couple of YouTube videos I found too.
As I walked around the aquarium virtually with the kids, I would go to the saved links in each section so we could stop and watch the live cameras or watch a video about the exhibit we were looking at.
We even walked into the cafeteria and took a break to have a snack.
Our virtual vacation took us an hour and a half, so I think when we do a Disney virtual vacation, I may need to spread it out over a few days.
While virtual tourism isn’t as fun as the real thing, I still found the whole experience to be very relaxing, and planning the virtual trip was a great distraction for me.
Being stuck at home for weeks is hard, but at least we can be thankful that it’s during a time when there are so many things we can do without leaving home.
Have you done any virtual vacations? Do you know of any other great virtual field trips or virtual tours I should add to my list?
Let me know on my Facebook post, and follow me to see what else I learn on my journey to live a healthier and happier life.
Amazing suggestion for planning virtual vacations tours.