The Internet is full of offers for virtual excursions to survive the Corona winter in virtual sociability. The c’t editors have compiled virtual tours, exciting museum visits and surprising online discoveries for you.

As in the spring of all museums Welt had to close for weeks, many houses have expanded their online offers. They offer extensive 360 – degree tours, partly complete with audio guide and high-resolution photos of the exhibits. There are interactive tours that you can simply click through, but also online catalogs with detailed information on individual works, which are more aimed at interested art lovers. Many museums also offer playful access to their works for children.

Off to the museum Most offers of this kind are permanently accessible on the web. To get you started with your online museum visits, we have compiled an overview of around 23 worth seeing websites from museums all over the world, including houses World-class such as the Louvre in Paris and the MOMA in New York, as well as lesser-known but exciting collections and changing offers such as the ZDF’s digital art gallery. If your favorite museum is not listed, try the search term “virtual tour” or “immersive tour”, followed by the name of the museum you want and be surprised.

When you visit a virtual museum, you stand – like here in Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – always in the first row.

A highly recommended starting point in the virtual world of works of art is Google Arts & Culture, which can be used as a web application or in a free app for Android and iOS. Google uses its own Street View technology for its cultural project. So far there have been close 2000 collaborations with galleries and museums worldwide. The quality of the tours is very different, some of them risk seasickness at first until you get used to navigating with the mouse or arrow keys. When visiting a museum from the sofa, the attention span also follows different laws than when visiting on site. Fortunately, you can always take a break and come back later.

Travel virtually Because the travel industry suffered severe sales losses as a result of the pandemic, many tour operators and tourism companies developed new ways of getting a first impression of cities, regions and tourist sites online To convey attractions. Google Arts & Culture also has a lot to offer, for example tours through 100 American national parks, including Yellowstone National Park and Hawaii ‘i Volcanoes National Park. In this country, many cities and federal states have revamped their online presence. Great discoveries can be made from the puppet show from Bremen to the live stream from the shark tank in the Haus der Meere in Vienna.

You can also find these and around forty other interesting excursion destinations on the web in our collection of links against the corona blues, from the ISS space station to the largest cave in the world. There are things to slow down, such as a boat tour through Norway, but also action, such as a helicopter flight over New York. For those who want to get started on their own, we have good starting points on the web, such as a Unesco website for the #ShareOurHeritage project.

Because Airbnb’s rental business fell sharply this year, the travel portal was launched Airbnb “online discoveries”: hosts offer activities for those interested via zoom. Up until the beginning of the corona pandemic, these discoveries were made as city tours, house concerts or cooking courses offered on site. Now it’s all happening online. For prices starting at 8 euros per person, you can take part and learn magic with David in Japan, take a coffee masterclass with Ricardo in Mexico or solve a guided escape room puzzle.

Be sociable and stay fit You can easily organize a comfortable game at a distance yourself. If you prefer to do something together with others, you may find yourself in further articles of the c’t 23 / 2020 Find what you are looking for: The article on playing online and being social brings ideas for board game evenings, but also for cooking together, virtual book clubs or wine tastings.

If it’s too uncomfortable outside to