Online travel is now a reality!
Probably even just 10-15 years ago, the phrase “online travel” would have caused only bewilderment. Today, online tour services sell tens of thousands of tickets per season and open the world to a huge range of Internet users. For example, aggregator Tripster sold 10,000 excursions in 2020, which were taken on Zoom or similar video communication services.
But what about free online travel? After all, not everyone is willing to pay for a guide’s story. Sometimes you just want to see something new, but not overload yourself with unnecessary information. Fortunately, this is no problem today, and we have some interesting options for you.
Google Maps — a limitless platform for research
The Google Corporation has done a great job to open up the whole world to its users. Plus it’s completely free. There are more than enough tools for online travel:
Street View. Allows you to literally walk the streets in different countries and cities of the world. Not only in the largest and most developed places, but also in strictly non-tourist locations.
Google Maps — Travel. A unique service where you can learn everything about the most interesting places on the planet and literally see them with your own eyes. If you want, go to the Kennedy Space Center in the USA, or explore the Colorado River estuary. Or maybe you dream of seeing Mont Blanc? No problem! You simply select the object of interest and investigate it. You can walk like on Google Maps, find out interesting facts, see photos and videos, find related routes and much more.
Exploring cultural sites on Google Art & Culture. A unique opportunity to see the work of popular artists in the maximum detail, visit the most interesting museums, learn a lot of fascinating things about the cuisine of other countries, read more about a particular attraction or an art piece and see gorgeous panoramas from the most beautiful places on the planet.
Travel planning. With the help of Google My Maps, you can create your own maps, add tags of points of interest with photos and comments, jointly edit them and so plan future trips.
It’s also worth mentioning the Google Earth service — here you can view the map in 3D mode and thus even more clearly see how cities, buildings, historical sights and much more look. Street View also works here.
360cities.com — the world with a 360° view
Thousands of people travel the world and record their trips with 360° cameras. Thanks to the 360cities.com service, you can literally join them and see what they are doing. This is not just a video in 3:4 or 16:9 format, but a 360° view. Look wherever you want.
But the true 360° video clips are revealed if you have 3D glasses — even the simplest, where the phone is inserted into the goggles. They create a great sense of presence. You turn your head and change your field of view, just like in real life. And if you plug in headphones, the immersive experience is even better. We highly recommend giving it a try. Just do not overdo it to start with — if you’re not used to it you may feel dizzy and your eyes may get tired. So be sure to take short breaks.
By the way, 3D videos with travel and more can be searched for directly on YouTube. There are more and more of them every year.
Excursions to the most famous museums and galleries
Many large museums have been online for years. They often use the same Street View technology from Google, and the principle is similar. Some of the most famous museums with online tours include the following:
- The Paris Louvre
- The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow
- The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican
- Theater-Museum of Salvador Dali in Figueres, Spain
- Acropolis Museum in Athens
- Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam
- British Museum in London and others
No lines, entrance tickets, masks or anything else. Online excursions are very convenient and informative.
There are also a lot of exciting excursions for children. You can walk the surface of Mars on the Access Mars site, visit the Boston Children’s Museum, peer into the Netherlands’ largest science museum, NEMO, or explore the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. And all this without leaving your home.
Live video chats for meeting people from different countries
Traveling is not just about exploring new places, but also meeting new people. Fortunately, today it’s not at all necessary to cross borders and spend many hours on the road for such communications. Anonymous video chat sites open up the broadest opportunities for dating and chatting with people from all over the world online. Each video chat site offers unique opportunities and functions that make communication even more convenient. Let’s take a look at some of them.
- Omegle
- text and video chat
- search for chat partners by interest
- choice of communication language
- section for adults
- chat for university students
- Chatrandom
- gender and geographic filters
- search by interests
- thematic chat rooms
- separate chat with girls (paid)
- gay chat
- AR masks
- Chatroulette
- text and video chat
- platform for video conferencing
- more than 2 million users per month
- CooMeet
- effective gender filter
- girls provide data for identity verification
- only real people on the site
- no ads or bots
- excellent moderators and support service
- modern and live video chat with girls.
- Camsurf
- gender and language search filters
- search by interests
- safe search function
- the ability to hide your location
- introductory message
- collecting followers for Instagram inside Camsurf
- Bazoocam
- text and video chat
- search for chat partners in your region
- online mini-games
- video broadcasts, including 18+
- Chatki
- text and video chat
- gender and geographic filters
- search for chat partners by interests
- AR masks that hide the face
- safe search function
- the ability to hide your location
- Emeraldchat
- search for chat partners by interests
- text and video chat
- group chat mode
- karma rating system
- photo and media sharing
We have listed just a few of the popular video chat sites. In fact, there are many more of them. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, so we recommend that you try different options and choose the best chat service for yourself. We also advise you to focus not only on free video chats, but also on paid alternatives. They usually have more extensive functionality, higher quality moderation and more varied opportunities for communication.
Experience the entire world from home
To discover our vast world, it isn’t necessary to travel day after day by plane, train, car or bicycle. You can discover the wonders of our planet and meet amazing people while staying at home.
It’s exciting that today we can discover new horizons more conveniently and easily than ever. Can you think of a more fun online experience? We can’t.
