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18 Free Online Museum Tours To Enjoy Without Leaving Your Couch

Culture up your day without leaving the comfort of your home with these free online museum tours from around the world.

As the history of museums is entering its digital age, more and more art institutions are choosing to expand their online services. Most large museums today offer online access to their collections. Other online resources such as videos, podcasts, games, etc, are also quite common. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, virtual tours of museums have become a popular substitute for physically visiting museum exhibitions. As a result, free online museum tours are becoming more and more available to the international audience.

From Paris to Seoul, and from Moscow to Mexico City, this is our list of 18 free online museum tours. For additional online art experiences, don’t forget to check our 9 Amazing Online Art Resources To Enjoy At Home .

Free Online Museum Tours

1. the louvre museum, france.

The Louvre’s Petite Gallerie offers virtual tours in the famous museum of Paris. This is the best way to explore the architecture, the exhibits, and the history of France’s leading museum without leaving the comfort of your home.

You can also watch 800 Years of History , a short documentary on the history of the museum, or a series of YouTube videos offering guided tours. In addition, the Louvre offers a VR experience of the Mona Lisa as well as a closer look at its masterpieces through multiple audiovisual supplements.

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See works by famous Impressionist and Expressionist artists like Monet , Renoir , Van Gogh , Degas , Claudel and so many more with a virtual visit at Paris’ Musée d’Orsay.

Worth exploring is also the research program The digital worlds of Orsay, where historian Pierre Singaravélou offers a new text three times a week on famous or unknown works from the museum’s collection.

3. Rijksmuseum, Netherlands

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is one of the leading museums in Europe offering a rich variety of online resources . At the center of its home services, lies the Rijkstudio , which allows you to dive into the museum’s vast collection of 707,967 works of art.

Take a free online tour of the museum through Google’s Art and Culture project. Worth exploring is also the Discover Masterpieces virtual tour which takes you through the most prized exhibits of the Dutch museum.

Among the museum’s most famous artworks is without a doubt Rembrandt’s Night Watch.  The Rijksmuseum offers a virtual tour explaining all the details you need to know about the famous painting.

You can also play Key Challenges , an interactive game set in the museum’s main exhibition.

Rijksmuseum from Home is a series of videos where museum employees share their favorite objects from the collection.

If you are still not satisfied with these tours and resources, then have a look at “10 ways to visit Rijksmuseum without leaving home.”

4. Van Gogh Museum, Netherlands

One of Europe’s most popular attractions, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is a true monument to the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh . Take a full virtual tour of the museum’s exhibition and immerse yourself in the post-impressionist art of Van Gogh.

If you are a fan of the Dutch painter, you should also check out Van Gogh Worldwide , the most complete resource of Van Gogh paintings and archival material.

5. Vatican Museums, Vatican

The Vatican Museums consist of 54 galleries or sale. These received 6 million visitors in 2019 making the Vatican Museums the third largest museum in the world.

You can explore the galleries at the Vatican Museums website . The institution also offers 360 virtual tours of some of its most iconic monuments like the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s Rooms with painted decoration by Michelangelo and Raphael respectively.

6. Uffizi Galleries, Italy

Florence’s leading museum that started as the collection of the Medici family in the Renaissance , is home to some of the most famous artworks in the world.

If you visit the museum’s website you will be able to explore its online collections and take a free virtual tour of its new gallery, as well as other exhibitions like the one on Saint Francis. The Uffizi can also be explored via Google Art and Culture .

7. Reina Sofia, Spain

If you like 20th-century Spanish artists like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali , then the Reina Sofia in Madrid is the museum for you. However, if Spain is out of your reach, why not check out this virtual tour and the museum’s online resources.

Reina Sofia’s Rethinking Guernica is an online space devoted to material related to Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica. Also, the museum’s Gigapixel is a project offering a selection of hi-resolution artworks by artists like Dali, Miro, Mason, Picasso, Santos, and more.

Other multimedia like podcasts, lectures, and short video documentaries on the Reina Sofia are available here .

8. Acropolis Museum, Greece

The Acropolis Museum is home to the archaeological treasures of the Acropolis of Athens . The museum offers a series of online activities and resources.

You can browse through its collection and discover the history of the Parthenon marbles thanks to the museum’s collaboration with Google Art and Culture .

Also, the museum offers a series of online interactive games that are ideal for young explorers interested in the secrets of classical antiquity.

9. The State Hermitage Museum, Russia

The Hermitage in St Petersburg is one of the richest museums in the world with more than three million items in its collections. The museum’s exhibition includes everything from Egyptian and Greek, to Renaissance and Modern art.

You can visit all of the museum’s rooms with a virtual tour and experience the Hermitage without wearing your wintertime clothes to go to Russia.

10. Pergamon Museum, Germany

Berlin’s world-famous institution offers a comprehensive range of online and virtual material. You can take a virtual tour of the museum or play around with a 3d model of the Pergamon altar , the jewel of the museum and a marvel of Hellenistic art .

Worth seeing is also the colorful Ishtar Gate from Babylon.

11. British Museum, United Kingdom

The British Museum grew out of the cabinet of curiosities of the British collector Hans Sloane and now includes a massive collection of more than eight million items.

There are many ways to experience the museum online. The best are to take a virtual tour  or visit its virtual galleries .

The British Museum also offers other resources like online access to its collections, podcasts, audio tours, videos, and more.

If you are interested in finding more ways to explore the British Museum from the comfort of your home, then you should read this British Museum blog .

12. Tate Britain, United Kingdom

Tate Britain houses one of the largest collections of J.W. Turner’s paintings which you can now explore with this virtual tour.

The museum’s website provides audio tours of the museum and various online tours on various themes.

13. National Museum Of Anthropology, Mexico

The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City is devoted to the history of Mexico’s prehispanic civilizations.

Explore the past of the American continent and take a virtual walk at the museum’s rooms with this free online virtual tour .

14. The Met, U.S.A.

The Metropolitan Museum is another institution that has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to offer free online museum tours to a worldwide audience.

Also on the museum’s website, you will find multiple online resources like The Met 360° , a series of six short videos inviting viewers to virtually experience the Met’s architecture and art.

Worth exploring is also the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History offering more than 1,000 essays on art and global culture using the Met’s collection as a point of reference.

15. MoMA, U.S.A

New York’s leading institution on modern and contemporary art is also offering free online museum tours and resources.

There is a comprehensive virtual tour of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) available on Google Arts and Culture.

Furthermore, the museum has a series of online resources and projects available on its website that allow you to explore its collections and exhibitions. An absolute highlight is the 3D model of Van Gogh’s Starry Night .

16. J. Paul Getty Museum, U.S.A.

Los Angeles is only a second away. Just click here and you will immediately teleport to the virtual tour of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Take a look at the museum’s website for other online resources and access to its collection.

17. National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea

Dive into the history of Korean modern art with this virtual tour of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and travel to Seoul without buying a plane ticket.

Don’t forget to check the Online Museum section at the museum’s website which offers interviews with artists and curators, exhibition guides, and more.

18. Museu National, Brazil: A Virtual Tour Against Destruction

Brazil’s National Museum made headlines in 2018 when a good part of its building was destroyed in a fire.

However, thanks to a Google Arts and Culture virtual tour , you can still travel in space and time to take a virtual peek at the museum and its collections before the destruction of 2018.

History of Museums: A Look at The Learning Institutions Through Time

By Antonis Chaliakopoulos MSc Museum Studies, BA History & Archaeology Antonis is an archaeologist with a passion for museums and heritage and a keen interest in aesthetics and the reception of classical art. He holds an MSc in Museum Studies from the University of Glasgow and a BA in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens (NKUA) where he is currently working on his PhD.

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These 12 Famous Museums Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take on Your Couch

Experience the best museums — from London to Seoul — from the comfort of your own home.

While there's nothing like setting foot inside an iconic museum and laying eyes on a world-famous sculpture created by a renowned artist centuries ago, it's not always possible to hop on a plane to New York City , Paris , or Florence to tour the gallery halls in person.

But there is a way to get a little culture and education while you're at home, gaining inspiration and intel for future trips as well. Google Arts & Culture has teamed up with more than 1,200 museums and galleries around the world to bring anyone and everyone virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.

You get to "go to the museum" and never have to leave your couch.

Google Arts & Culture's collection includes The British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Guggenheim in New York City, and literally hundreds more places where you can gain knowledge about art, history, and science.

Take a look at just some of Google's top museums that are offering online tours and exhibits. And if you're seeking more thoughtful inspiration from the comfort of your own home, museums around the world are sharing their most zen art on social media . Or, for a dose of nature, you can go "outside" with incredible virtual tours of some of America's best national parks .

The British Museum, London

This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on The Museum of the World interactive website, a collaboration between The British Museum and Google Cultural Institute.

Guggenheim, New York

Google's Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim's famous spiral staircase without ever leaving home. From there, you can discover incredible works of art from the impressionist, post-impressionist, modern, and contemporary eras.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

This famous American art museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895, including many renderings of clothes from the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The second is a collection of works from Dutch baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Get a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others.

Don Eim/Travel + Leisure

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

One of Korea's popular museums can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Google's virtual tour takes you through six floors of contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.

Pergamon Museum, Berlin

As one of Germany's largest museums, Pergamon has a lot to offer — even if you can't physically be there . This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and, of course, the Pergamon Altar.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Explore masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Google offers a Street View tour of this iconic museum, so you can feel as if you're actually wandering its halls.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Anyone who's a fan of this tragic, ingenious painter can see his works up close (or, almost up close ) by virtually visiting this museum, home to the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh, including more than 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 750 personal letters.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

European artworks from as far back as the eighth century can be found in this California art museum. Take a Street View tour to discover a huge collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs.

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This less well-known gallery houses the art collection of one of Florence's most famous families, the de' Medicis. The building was designed by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 specifically for Cosimo I de' Medici, but anyone can wander its halls from anywhere in the world .

MASP, São Paulo

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a nonprofit and Brazil's first modern museum. Artworks placed on clear, raised frames make it seem like they're hovering in midair. Take a virtual tour to experience the wondrous display for yourself.

National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

Built in 1964, this museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico's pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 22 exhibit rooms filled with ancient artifacts, including some from the Maya civilization.

Not all popular art museums and galleries are included in Google Arts & Culture's collection, but some have taken it upon themselves to offer online visits. For example, the Louvre offers virtual tours on its website .

To see more of Google Arts & Culture's collection of museums, visit its website . There are thousands of museum Street Views on Google as well. Google Arts & Culture also has an online experience for exploring famous historic and cultural heritage sites .

50 World Class Museums To Enjoy Virtually Online For Free

Scoping out some museums for art-inspired travel? Here’s my guide to the best virtual museums you can visit online at home from the comfort of your couch or computer.

Many world class museums have released some or all of their collections online. Or they’ve partnered with Google Arts & Culture to make collections accessible in high resolution.

Some museums have used the technology that powers Google Street View to let you zoom in to see floor plans or specific art works.

If you can’t travel for any reason, this is a splendid time to travel virtually to a museum of your choice. There’s an almost dizzying array of virtual options.

It’s not quite like walking through a museum. But it has its own strange pleasures.

World Class Museums With Online Collections and Virtual Tours For At Home Viewing

Here’s my list of virtual tours for 50 amazing museums:

1. Uffizi Gallery, Florence Italy

Art lovers are rushing to the Virtual Uffizi Gallery Facebook page. Launched in 2020, the page already has over 50,000 followers.

The Uffizi is one of Europe’s best museums, housing priceless treasures of Italian Renaissance art collected by the powerful Medici family. The Uffizi has the world’s best collection of Gothic and Renaissance art.

This is where you can admire Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Primavera , Laocoön and his Sons , and Raphael’s Portrait of Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals .

Install the Google Arts & Culture App to explore the entire collection .

Here’s my comprehensive guide to the Uffizi Gallery and my must know Uffizi tips to prepare for your museum visit.

2. British Museum, London England

In London’s artsy Bloomsbury area is one the world’s foremost museums, the British Museum . Opened in 1753, it’s a universal museum, holding a massive collection of the world’s most important historic artifacts. It seeks to provide a cross cultural understanding of art owned by “humanity.”

But it’s owned by humanity in name only. Many of the goodies on display date from England’s reign as a major world super power.

It’s utterly amazing how much stuff the Brits gobbled up, with their obsessive fervor for quirky collecting. Like the hotly disputed Elgin Marbles taken from the Pantheon.

The British Museum allows virtual visitors 360 views of the Great Court, the ancient Rosetta Stone, and the Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on the museum’s virtual tour that can be enlarged, with links to curator descriptions of the pieces.

Here’s my complete guide to the British Museum .

3. Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City

Google’s Street View feature lets visitors virtually tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase designed by Frank Lloyd Wright . From there, you can see incredible masterpieces from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary art periods.

Visit the museum’s popular online collection . There, you’ll find some of the Guggenheim’s most famous works, including Vasily Kandinsky’s Composition 8 (the most popular piece in 2019), Jackson Pollack’s Alchemy , and Edouard Manet’s Before the Mirror .

You can also check out the Guggenheim’s blog , with in-depth analyses of artists and art works.

4. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The National Gallery of Art is home to some of the most amazing paintings in the world. Plus, as a Smithsonian branch, it’s free to visitors.

But since you can’t visit right now, the museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895. The second is a collection of works from Johannes Vermeer, the famous Dutch Baroque painter.

The museum also has a rotating collection of museum highlights online. The most famous pieces will wow you — Pablo Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques , da Vinci’s Portriat of Ginerva de’ Benci , Vincent Van Gogh’s Roses , Claude Monet’s Woman with a Parasol, and Mary Cassat’s The Boating Party.

For more information, here’s my complete guide to the National Gallery .

5. Musée d’Orsay, Paris France

Ah, this is one of my favorite museums in Paris , housed in a beautiful converted railway station.

If you can’t visit the museum, you can virtually see dozens of famous works from French and European artists who toiled in Paris between 1848 and 1914. You’ll see artworks from Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, and so many other artists.

In particular, the d’Orsay is a Van Gogh treasure trove. You can inspect his Self Portrait, Starry Night, Dr. Gachet , The Church at Auvers , and The Siesta .

Other masterpieces at the d’Orsay include Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia, Paul Cezanne’s Card Players , Claude Monet’s Houses of Parliament , and Auguste Renoir’s Moulin de la Galette .

Here’s my comprehensive guide to masterpieces of the Orsay and must know tips for visiting the Orsay .

6. Louvre, Paris France

The Louvre is Paris’ iconic landmark and the world’s most visited museum. This treasure trove of history is closed right now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an arrangement with Google Arts & Culture.

But the Louvre does offer free virtual tours of some of its important exhibits, like the Egyptian Antiquities, Napoleon’s Rooms, the Medieval Louvre, and works by Michelangelo.

Via my blog, you can also explore the Louvre’s underrated masterpieces or take my virtual tour of the Louvre . I think the best painting in the Louvre , Theodore Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa .

If you’re a Beyonce fan, her recent music video featured pieces from the Louvre. Now, you can follow the Beyonce Louvre Trail .

READ : Louvre Survival Tips

7. Paris Museums Collections

In a collective effort, Paris museums have made 100,000 images of artworks from Paris museum collections freely available to the public.

This includes digital downloads of masterpieces by artists including Rembrandt, Gustave Courbet, and Eugène Delacroix.

Here’s the digital collections portal .

8. The Spy Museum, Washington D.C.

The Spy Museum is always a crowd pleaser. But if you’d like to avoid crowds, you can just visit online.

The Spy Museum gives you 360 degrees views of every room. It’s also got an amazing Pinterest account , featuring photos of its precious artifacts.

The Spy Museum even has a list online of the 10 most important pieces in its collection, including the Enigma Machine that Germany used in WWII to secretly communicate.

9. The Vatican Museums, Vatican City

I recently visited the Vatican Museums twice during a trip to Rome . The Vatican Museums are the public art and sculpture museums in the Vatican City complex.

The works in the Vatican are invaluable crowning glories of Western art. They tell stories of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the history of the Catholic Church, and the birth of the Renaissance.

You can take an online virtual tour of the Vatican Museums, including the Sistine Chapel , the Pio Clementino Museum, and the Raphael Rooms .

I’ve also quite a few pieces on in which you can check out the art work.

• Vatican’s must see masterpieces
• Raphael Rooms  
• Hidden gems of the Vatican
• Best sculptures in the Vatican
• Sistine Chapel in the Vatican

10. The Dali Theater Museum, Figueres Spain

This is a delightfully eccentric single artist museum in Salvador Dali’s hometown of Figueres Spain. Designed by Dali himself, the pink bread encrusted museum is a surrealistic object itself.

I’ve written a complete guide to the Dali Museum . But you can also see some of its most famous pieces online .

Check out the Mae West Room, the Labyrinth, the Rain Taxi, the courtyard of golden Oscar statues, and the painting of Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea (a clever double image).

11. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Netherlands

The Van Gogh Museum boasts the largest collection of paintings by the Post-Impressions master Vincent Van Gogh .

He’s an artist known for his colorful sunflowers, vivid landscapes, and searing portraits. Online, you can see panoramic views of the museum rooms.

The museum offers almost 1500 images of paintings to inspect. There’s also a 360 virtual tour of its Sunflower Gallery , with paintings from five international museums.

12. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Netherlands

If you love Dutch art, this is your chance to check out the preeminent source. The Rijksmuseum is well represented on Google Arts & Culture, with 150,000 items on display.

You’ll find masterpieces by Rembrandt ( The Night Watch , The Jewish Bride ), Vermeer ( The Milk Maid) , and Franz Hals ( The Wedding Portrait ) on their virtual tours . There’s also a Google Streets View of its grounds.

13. J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles

Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Richard Meier, the world famous Getty Center in southern California opened to the public in 1997.

The Getty Museum has an outstanding online virtual tour with Google Arts & Culture. It even has an outdoor virtual tour , which uses photography and time-lapse videos to enliven the experience.

There are 15,000 paintings and artifacts to see with accompanying audio explanations. Check out the Getty’s most famous pieces — Van Gogh’s Irises and Rembrandt Laughing , Renoir’s La Promenade , and the Lansdowne Herakles sculpture from Roman antiquity.

For more information, you can check out my guide to the Getty Center .

14. Museum of Modern Art, New York City US

The venerable MOMA boasts one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of modern and contemporary art in the world. A $450 million expansion in 2019 added 45,000 square feet of space.

It was the first museum solely dedicated to modern art. It has 84,000 pieces art on display online .

It’s seminal masterpieces include works by Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, and the ever popular Impressionists. MOMA’s most famous piece is Van Gogh’s Starry Night .

15. Tate Modern, London England

The Tate Modern is my favorite museum in London, a city overflowing with marvelous free museums . Opened in 2000, it’s housed in the former Bankside Power Station. The industrial look seems fitting for its cutting edge art.

Among other modern art masterpieces , you can clap your eyes on Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych , Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain , Amadeo Modigliani’s Peasant Boy , Pablo Picasso’s Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, Georgio de Chirico’s the Uncertainty of the Poet , and Henri Matisse’s The Snail, and Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone .

You can navigate the Tate Modern via Google Street View or explore its digitized masterpieces online . The Tate is to launch free online film tours of Andy Warhol (April 6) and Aubrey Beardsley (April 13) exhibitions on their YouTube channel .

16. National Gallery, London England

London’s National Gallery is an incredibly diverse museum, featuring 2,000 European paintings from the 13th to the 19th centuries.

You’ll find familiar names like Rembrandt, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, J.M.W. Turner, Monet, and Van Gogh.

READ : The Monet Guide To Paris

The most famous painting on display is Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks. But Van Gogh’s Sunflowers also draws hordes of admirers. Wherever you are, you can take a virtual tour .

Here’s my complete guide to the National Gallery .

17. The Prado Museum, Madrid Spain

The Prado Museum in Madrid is Spain’s cultural jewel. It boasts one of Europe’s finest and most sensuous painting collections.

The artistic anchors of the Prado are Francisco Goya, Diego Velázquez, and Peter Paul Rubens. But there are also masterpieces by Titian, Bosch, and El Greco.

Now you can Prado in your PJs. If you want to take a virtual tour of the Prado, you can. The Prado recently broadcast a live video in which its director, Miguel Falomir, gave a 20 minute talk on Tintoretto’s famed Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet .

The Prado also has a 360 virtual tour of its Rubens exhibition and an impressive online collection of over 10,000 works of art. Smarthistory has a large cache of YouTube videos exploring many of the Prado’s best works. The Prado also does a live one hour show on Instagram, also posted on Facebook, every morning at 10:00 am.

Here’s my complete guide to visting the Prado .

18. The Reina Sofia, Madrid Spain

Opened in 1992, the Reina Sofia is Madrid’s modern art museum. Its collection is comprised entirely of art work from 1900 to the present.

There’s a special focus on Spain’s favorite sons, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali , and their respective schools of Cubism and Surrealism.

The star of the Reina Sofia is Guernica , Picasso’s grim depiction of the seemingly casual Nazi bombing of Guernica Spain in 1937.

The Reina Sofia recently tweeted a video showing the array of content it has online .

19. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid Spain

Housed in the Villahermosa Palace, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is named after art collector Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The museum covers every major period in Western art, from 13th century Italian Renaissance to 20th century Pop Art. It also has an important collection of 19th century American paintings not found elsewhere in Europe.

The museum offers virtual visits to both its permanent collection and temporary exhibits. You can also browse through thematic tours that center on fashion, food, love, and wine.

READ : Best Art Museums in Spain

20. Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. US

Washington D.C.’s Museum of Natural History is one of the most visited museums in the world. You can inspect some of its wonderful treasures with an online virtual tour of the entire grounds.

Viewers head into its rotunda and receive a comprehensive 360 room by room walking tour of its most exceptional exhibits, including the Hall of Mammals, Insect Zoo, and Dinosaurs and Hall of Paleobiology.

In general, the Smithsonian museums have also released 2.8 million images into the public domain. They’re searchable, shareable, and downloadable via the museum’s Open Access platform . The Smithsonian will continue to digitize and publish their collections.

21. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg Russia

The State Hermitage is one of the world’s best museums. It’s the second largest museum in the world. It’s so large that it’s impossible to tackle in one real life visit anyway. Instead, you can explore its artsy endless halls with the Google Art Project guide.

Alternatively, check out the Hermitage website , which boasts a large digital archive with very convenient navigation. In the Highlights section, you’ll find the Hermitage’s most significant pieces: Faberge eggs, sculptures, and jewelry.

Some of its world class paintings include Rembrant’s Danae and The Return of the Prodigal Son , Henri Matisse’s Dance , Titian’s Danae , and Kandinsky’s Composition VI . Other Russian museums with significant online collections can be found here .

22. Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon Portugal

If you’re pining for Portugal , Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Museum has excellent online viewing options.

Thanks to a wealthy oil magnate, this gem of a museum is stuffed with a stunning range of treasures spanning 4,000 years. It’s one of the world’s largest and best private art collections, compiled over 40 years.

The museum has a 360 tour of the Founder’s Collection and the Modern Collection galleries. It also has an extensive online collection .

READ : 4 Day Itinerary for Lisbon

23. Tate Britain, London England

The Tate Britain may be London’s most beautiful museum. It boasts a domed rotunda, beautiful spiral staircase, terrazzo floors, and Victorian details. Built in the late 19th century, the Tate Britain underwent an extensive renovation completed in 2013. The result is an ultra pretty museum experience.

The Tate Britain is home to J. M. W. Turner’s watercolors and Francis Bacon’s abstract religious triptychs and screaming popes. Some of Tate Britain’s most famous paintings are here, including Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia , John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott , and John Constable’s Flatford Mill.

Of special note, there are 8 rooms dedicated to Turner, one of Britian’s greatest and most famous artists.

And you can enjoy it all online with Google Arts & Culture. And you can check out my guide to the Tate Britain , with must see masterpieces.

24. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City US

The Met is the largest museum in the United States. It has an extremely good online collection . There are over 200,000 works on Google Arts & Culture.

The Met also offers a 360 tour , consisting of 6 videos. The tour showcases different spaces inside the Met from unique angles.

Check out the Met’s best pieces — Georgia O’Keefe’s Cow’s Skull , Van Gogh’s Self Portrait with a Straw Hat , Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies , Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Socrates , and Antonio Canova’s famous sculpture Venus Italica .

25. The Capitoline Museums, Rome Italy

If you love ancient Greco-Roman sculpture, the Capitoline Museums have a virtual tour of its floorplans and collections. You can also examine its exhibits on Google Arts & Culture .

The Capitoline Museums is Rome’s oldest museum complex, sitting atop a beautiful Michelangelo-designed square, the Piazza dei Campidoglio on Capitoline Hill. It gives you a unique look at Rome’s ancient imperial history. If you’re a history or archaeology buff, this is a must see site in Rome .

READ : 5 Day Itinerary For Rome

The Capitoline Museum boasts an enormous array of ancient Roman, medieval, and Renaissance art — statuary, paintings, and relics. The most famous pieces are the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius , Dying Gaul , Medusa , Capitoline Venus , Spinario , and Bust of Commodus .

Here’s my complete guide to the Capitoline Museums .

26. Raffaello Exhibit, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome Italy

2020 marked the 500 year anniversary of the death of the Renaissance master Raphael . In honor of the great artist, Rome planned a landmark exhibition.

200 paintings had been gathered from all over Italy, from the Vatican Museums, and on loan from major museums worldwide.

Titled RAFFAELLO, the exhibition was planned to run from March 5th – June 2nd. But it was closed after several days. Fortunately a free virtual tour is now available. It’s narrated in Italian. But you can still admire the beauty of the art works.

27. Ara Pacis | Museum of the Altar of Peace, Rome Italy

The Ara Pacis Museum is dedicated to a single item — an ancient arch dedicated to the gods.

The arch was built by soon-to-be emperor Augustus, who had just pacified the barbarians. This victory marked the beginning of the Pax Roman, a 200 year golden age where arts and architecture flourished.

Opened in 2006, the altar-museum is housed in a modern pavilion designed by American architect Richard Meier. Examine all the intricacies of the altar with the museum’s virtual tour here .

28. The Acropolis Museum, Athens Greece

In 2009, Athens opened a gorgeous new museum, the Acropolis Museum.

Designed by French-Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, it’s a $200 million state of the art rebuttal to the British Museum’s claim that Athens had nowhere to properly store and display the Elgin Marbles , disputed statuary from the Parthenon’s frieze.

The Acropolis Museum recreated the Parthenon friezes for display. It’s also home to 5,0000 year old artifacts excavated from the Acropolis, home to the Parthenon. Both the ruins and the neighboring museum are free to explore virtually on Google Maps .

READ : One Day In Athens Itinerary

29. Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples Italy

Located in the Capodimonte Palace, the Capodimonte Museum houses a collection of fine and decorative arts mostly from Naples. The core of its collection was compiled by the powerful Farnese and Bourbon families.

The Capodimonte Museum has works by Caravaggio, Masaccio, Titian, Raphael, El Greco, Bruegel, and Sebastiano del Piombo (who also decorated the Villa Farnesina in Rome). The museum’s most famous painting is probably The Gypsy Madonna by Correggio. You can visit the museum’s online collection here .

Thanks to the museum’s collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, the cultural and artistic gems of the Capodimonte Museum can be admired online from home.

The online Google Art & Culture platform contains over 536 works of art. The Google Street View tool allows visitors to enjoy 14 themed stories and virtual tours of museum masterpieces.

30. Picasso Museum, Barcelona Spain

Founded in 1963, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona was launched with a donation of 574 works by Picasso’s secretary, Jaime Sabartés. In 1970, Picasso himself donated 800 more pieces to the museum.

In this museum, you’ll find one of the most extensive collections of his work, 4000 pieces, certainly the best collection in Spain. The best part of the museum is where it’s housed — in five glorious adjoining medieval palaces.

You can browse the highlights of the museum’s online collection here , though the images are rather small. You can take a virtual tour of the palaces here . The palace tour takes you on a private guided tour of the museum’s architectural elements.

If you’d like more Picasso, here’s my guide to the Picasso museums in Europe and my guide to the Picasso Museum in Paris .

31. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA

Ah, this is one of my favorite museums in the United States. If you’re a museum or art lover, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is a must see site in Boston Massachusetts . I just adored it.

The museum houses gorgeous paintings from the Italian Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age in an exquisite Venetian-style palazzo. The collection was assembled by Gardner herself, who was a wealthy maverick and avid art collector.

Gardner carefully curated and installed her collection amid the three floors of intimate gallery spaces and the interior courtyard with a skylit roof. Each room is named and sumptuously decorated.

In effect, the museum is a total work of art with Gardner as the installation artist. You’ll find pieces by John Singer Sargent, Rembrandt, Francisco Zurburan, Titian, and Sandro Botticelli.

Here’s my guide to the Gardner Museum . You can also take a virtual tour through Google Arts & Culture . If you’ve never watched the fascinating introductory video on the museum’s homepage , now’s the perfect time.

32. Musee de L’Orangerie, Paris France

Paris’ Musée de l’Orangerie, or the Orangerie Museum, is one of the best small museums in Paris . It’s a quick 10 minute walk from its more popular sister museum the Musée D’Orsay. And it’s completely worth the detour, a hidden gem in Paris just waiting for avid fans of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

The Orangerie’s main claim to fame is its famed collection of Monet’s water lilies, some of which can also be found at the equally stunning Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris’ 16th arrondissement.

In 1927, the water lilies were set in massive curved panels and installed in two adjoining oval shaped rooms in the new museum. Some art historians call the Orangerie the world’s first “art installation” because the space was designed specifically for Monet’s water lilies.

Here’s my complete guide to the Orangerie . You can also visit the museum masterpieces virtually on Google Arts & Culture.

33. Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao Spain

Who can argue with the emblematic Guggenheim Museum ? Inaugurated in 1997, Frank Gehry’s twisting shimmering museum is the star of the underrated city of Bilbao Spain .

The space age building is an awe-inspiring blend of titanium, glass, and limestone. The scaly exterior evokes a silvery fish and the wings of the building the wind-filled sails of a ship.

Outside, there’s a veritable sculpture museum. Inside, the Guggenheim’s modern art collection is on par with Europe’s best modern art museums. You’ll find works by Robert Motherwell, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Eduardo Chillada, and Anselm Kiefer.

Via Google Arts & Culture, you can explore the Guggenheim Bilbao. The online offering includes cinematographic photos, videos, and guided tours of masterpieces from the collection.

READ : 2 Day Itinerary for Bilbao

34. Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh PA

This wonderful single artist museum celebrates Pittsburgh’s hippest native son, who made himself a world famous Pop artist. As the Prince of Pop, Andy Warhol was a hugely significant artist of the second half of the 20th century. Warhol cannily merged superficial commerce and fine art, popularizing robotic everyday images.

Opened in 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum is a chic urban venue. It’s an immersive and well curated museum. The museum has 7 floors in chronological order. You’ll see seminal works from the 1940s to Warhol’s death in 1987, with explanations of Warhol’s creative process.

The Warhol Museum has some of its art and archives online here . You can read about Warhol’s life here .

If you want to see more Warhol work, you can read my guide to the Warhol Museum and find other Warhol’s pieces on Google Arts & Culture .

35. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the best, and incredibly diverse, museums in the United States. It has the best collection of Impressionist paintings outside Paris and a spectacular modern art section.

The museum’s standout masterpieces include Grant Wood’s American Gothic , Georges Seurat’s Sunday on La Grand Jatte , Andy Warhol’s Liz #3 , Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks , Joan Mitchell’s City Landscape 1955, and Monet’s Stacks of Wheat.

You can now tour the renowned museum on Google Arts & Culture . If you’re interested in interiors, take a virtual tour of the Thorne Miniature Rooms.

If you want to explore ancient Roman ruins, there are over a 1,000 pieces online , including a noseless bust of Emperor Hadrian.

36. Museo Napoleonico, Rome Italy

Housed in the Palazzo Primoli, this Roman museum is dedicated to the period of Napoleon and his connection to Italy. Located just north of the Piazza Navona, the museum contains the collections of Count Giuseppe Primoli. He was the great grandson of Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte.

Primoli’s aim was to present the imperial family from his own private point of view. The museum is still arranged as he envisioned it.

You’ll find painting, artifacts, sculptures, Napoleon’s outfits, books, memorabilia, etc. If you’re a history buff, this museum is for you.

The Museo Napoleonico has an excellent multimedia virtual tour . You can take a 360 tour of the collection. Or you can go to the photo gallery, click on a specific photo, and get a wealth of information.

37. The Doge’s Palace, Venice Italy

Set in St. Mark’s Square, the Doge’s Palace or Palazzo Ducale is the very symbol of Venice and a must see site in the city .

This pink and white marble Gothic-Renaissance building was the official residence of the doges who ruled Venice for more than 1,000 years. It was held Casanova in a cell, but he dramatically escaped

Aside from the gorgeous rooms and staircases, there’s some fantastic works of art on display: Veronese’s Rape of Europe and The Triumph of Venice, many paintings and ceilings by Tintoretto, and Tiepolo’s Neptune Bestowing Gifts upon Venice .

You can tour the Doge’s Palace virtually on Google Arts & Culture , take a 360 tour of the exterior, or take a 360 tour of the city of Venice itself.

READ : 2 Day Itinerary for Venice

38. The Belvedere Palace, Vienna Austria

The Belvedere Palace is one of Vienna’s most visited tourist spots and an important UNESCO site for its showy architectural ensemble. The Belvedere is also one of Europe’s most important museums.

The Belvedere’s a haven of Baroque and Austrian art from the 19th and 20th centuries. Its main claim to fame is the world’s largest collection of Gustav Klimt paintings, including the world famous The Kiss . It also boasts masterworks by Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, two important Expressionist painters.

Here’s my complete guide to visiting the Belvedere Palace . You can also tour it virtually on Google Arts & Culture . There’s also an online exhibit dedicated to The Kiss . If you like Klimt’s gold toned art nouveau pieces, I also have a guide on where to find Klimt art work in Vienna .

39. Alte Pinakothek, Munich Germany

Munich’s most touted museum is the Alte Pinakothek . The museum shows off a collection of European masterpieces from the 14th to 19th centuries.

You’ll see a goodly number of paintings from the Italian Renaissance, including works by da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, and Titian. You’ll also find Albrecht Durer’s mysterious Self Portrait, and other old master treasures.

You can virtually tour the Alte Pinakothek online at Google Arts & Culture , where they have a massive collection. I also like this Rick Steve’s video about the museum.

READ : 4 Day Itinerary for Munich

40 . Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, Seville Spain

The Museo de Bellas Artes , or Museum of Fine Arts, is a smashing museum, quite lovely. It’s known, after the Prado, as the “second art gallery in Spain.” It’s housed in a salmon colored former convent in Seville Spain .

The museum has art from the middle ages to the 20th century. But it’s most known for its collection of 17th century art from Spain’s Golden Age, featuring Spain’s top painters Zurbarán, Murillo, El Greco, and Velazquez. You’ll see a lot of monks, balding saints, cherubs, and depictions of Christ.

You can take a virtual tour of the Seville Museum of Fine Arts’ masterpieces on Google Arts & Culture . There are excellent online exhibits on Baroque masters and on the museum’s superstar Murillo .

41. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Virtual Tour, Bilbao Spain

Often overshadowed by the famous Guggenheim Bilbao, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao is nonetheless one of Spain’s best museums. If you’re an art lover, you should definitely visit in person one day.

Located in Bilbao’s Abando neighborhood, the museum boasts over 10,000 art works, arranged chronologically from the 12th century to the present. It has works by Spanish artists Picasso , Goya , El Greco, Zurbaran, and Chillada, as well as many international artists.

You can explore the collection of the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts on Google Arts & Culture .

42. Musee Rodin, Rodin Museum, Paris France

Opened in 1919, the Rodin Museum is a shrine to the complex life and oeuvre of one of France’s most revered artists, Auguste Rodin . Rodin is considered the father of modern sculpture. Rodin’s titular museum is housed in the 18th century Hotel Biron, a romantic mansion where Rodin created some of his greatest works.

The museum’s permanent collection includes many iconic Rodin sculptures and works from Rodin’s brilliant student Camille Claudel . The Rodin Museum also has a vast and verdant sculpture garden. In it, Rodin hand placed some of his favorite and most iconic sculptures.

The Rodin Museum has added some online audio tours. You can take a virtual tour of his famous sculpture The Thinker , read stories about Rodin’s life, and view and learn about 40 of the figures in his masterpiece The Gates of Hell .

You can also explore over 300 Rodin sculptures on Google Arts & Culture . Here’s my complete guide to the Rodin Museum , if you want to know more.

43. Musée National Picasso, Picasso Museum, Paris France

Paris’ Picasso Museum is a fantastic single artist museum. It holds one of Paris’ most treasured art collections, shown off in an elegant private mansion in the Marais.

What I love most about the Picasso Museum is that it houses all the art that Picasso himself couldn’t part with. It’s a personal collection that he created, curated, lived with, and kept nearby his entire life. The museum showcases all the artistic periods of his long life, all the women he romanced, and reveals his extraordinary range and talent.

Here’s an excellent series of audio tours of Picasso Museum masterpieces. The museum itself doesn’t yet have a very good online collection.

But you can check out virtual tours of the museum on YouTube here and here . Smarthistory offers 13 virtual tours of seminal Picasso works. And you get explore Picasso paintings on Google Arts & Culture .

Here’s my complete guide to visiting the Picasso Museum in Paris .

44. The Palace of Versailles, Versailles France

The Palace of Versailles has opened its digital doors. Built by the Sun King Louis XIV, the Palace of Versailles is the most ornate and famous royal chateau in France, located just outside Paris. Once behind closed doors, the 17th century palace is now yours for digital viewing at home.

The palace has partnered with Google Arts & Culture to present virtual exhibits online. Google takes users on a journey of the palace’s rich decor and art collection of over 22,000 pieces.

You can also take a plethora of amazing virtual tours on the Palace of Versailles’ website . Nothing is left out! You can see the Hall of Mirrors, the royal apartments, tour the famous Le Notre gardens, etc.

For the full scoop on everything you can see and read online, here’s my guide to taking a digital tour of the Palace of Versailles .

45. Bernardo Museum | Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisbon Portugal

The Bernardo Museum is Lisbon’s modern art museum. Located in the Belem district, it’s a fabulous museum with over 1,000 works from the 20th and 21st centuries.

The ultra-white, minimalist gallery displays billionaire José Berardo’s eye-popping collection of abstract, surrealist and pop art.

It includes art work by such luminaries as David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, and Willem de Kooning. Picasso’s early Tete de Femme from 1909 and Warhol’s iconic Brillo Box are highlights.

You can take virtually visit the museum on Google Arts & Culture. And here’s a 360 virtual tour where you can admire the art up close.

46. Cluny Museum, the National Museum of the Middle Ages, Paris France

Are you a history buff who wants to be transported back to the late Middle Ages? Or are you, like everyone else it seems, just crazy for mythical unicorns? If so, the Musée Cluny is a must see site in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

It’s truly one of my favorite museums in Paris. The museum’s housed in the Hotel de Cluny, built in the 14th century and adjacent to an extant Roman bath.

The Cluny Museum is dedicated to all things from the Middle Ages. Its centerpiece is the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. They’re considered the Mona Lisa of tapestries and one of the greatest surviving medieval relics.

You can take a virtual YouTube tour of the museum here . And here’s a 360 tour of the beautiful museum. You can also check out my guide to the Cluny .

47. The Petit Palais, Paris France

Like its sister palace the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais was built for Paris’ 1900 World Fair. It became a museum in 1902. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style by famous architect Charles Girault, the Petit Palais is a charming small museum.

It houses French paintings, sculpture, and artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Petit Palais collection includes artists as diverse as Rembrandt, Fragonard, Delacroix, Cézanne, Courbot, Corot, Monet, Rodin, Sisley, Pissarro, and many others. There’s also a section dedicated to Roman and Greek art.

Though the museum isn’t on Google Arts & Culture, it has a very good online collection for you to explore. You can also virtually visit its current temporary exhibition, In the Drawing Room , featuring Masterpieces of the Prat Collection. And here’s a YouTube video of the museum’s collection.

For more information, here’s my guide to the Petit Palais .

48. Palazzo Barberini | Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome Italy

Palazzo Barberini is an underrated museum in Rome. But it’s definitely an art lover’s art gallery. Recent restorations give it an unapologetically grand wow factor. The museum holds some of Europe’s classic paintings by the great masters.

The Barberini Palace is 12,000 square meters and has 187 rooms. It has beautiful staircases by Borromini and Bernini.

It’s home to one of Raphael’s most famous paintings, La Fornarina . It’s a painting of the “baker’s daughter,” whom Raphael had fallen in love with while fresco painting in the Villa Farnesina.

Other master works include Caravaggio’s Narcissus and Judith and Holofernes , Holbein’s Henry VIII , and the ceiling fresco by Pietro da Cortona.

You can take a live tour with a museum guide here , a virtual tour with a museum curator on YouTube here , and get a 360 view of the current exhibit on Claude Monet here .

You can also check out my guide to the Palazzo Barberini .

READ : Secret Palace Museums in Rome

49. Louis Vuitton Foundation

Inaugurated in 2014, the Louis Vuitton Foundation houses the collection of Bernard Arnault. It’s a chic little museum tucked into a stunning Frank Gehry designed glass building located in the Bois de Bologne. The Foundation houses modern and contemporary art from the 1960s to the present.

The museum’s permanent collection showcases Pop, Expressionistic, and Contemplative pieces. You’ll find masterpieces by the likes of Egon Schiele, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Henri Matisse, and Ellsworth Kelly. The foundation hosts temporary exhibits as well.

You can take a virtual tour here . Or read my guide to the Louis Vuitton Fondation .

50. NASA Headquarters

If you geek out on science, you’ll be pleased to know that NASA offers virtual tours of its research centers. Their extensive virtual tours combine videos, text, and 360 degree views. You may feel like you’re on a school field trip.

Here are some virtual tours from NASA worth exploring:

NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, USA

NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia

The Space Telescope Operations Control Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

* * * * * * *

This is just a sampling of world class museums to enjoy virtually from home. There are over 2500 virtual tours on Google Arts & Culture. If you’d like to explore more online travel and culture sites, here are my other virtual tour guides:

• Virtual Rome
• Virtual Lisbon
• Virtual London
• Virtual Barcelona
• Virtual Paris
• Virtual Versailles
• Virtual Venice
• Virtual France
• Virtual Andalusia
• Virtual French Chateaux
• Virtual Paris Museums
• Virtual Italian Museums

Virtual Spanish Museums

If you’d like to tour world class museums online, pin it for later.

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Last Updated on March 30, 2023 by Leslie Livingston

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The 75 Best Virtual Museum Tours Around the World [Art, History, Science, and Technology]

Jarrod West

Senior Content Contributor

440 Published Articles 1 Edited Article

Countries Visited: 21 U.S. States Visited: 24

Keri Stooksbury

Editor-in-Chief

29 Published Articles 3074 Edited Articles

Countries Visited: 45 U.S. States Visited: 28

Google Arts and Culture

1. the albertina museum (vienna, austria), 2. art institute of chicago (chicago, illinois), 3. benaki museum (athens, greece), 4. the broad (los angeles, california), 5. centre pompidou (paris, france), 6. the dalí theatre-museum (figueres, spain), 7. detroit institute of arts (detroit, michigan), 8. frick collection (new york city, new york), 9. galleria dell’accademia (florence, italy), 10. georgia o’keeffe museum (sante fe, new mexico), 11. grand palais (paris, france), 12. hermitage museum (saint petersburg, russia), 13. high museum of art (atlanta, georgia), 14. the j. paul getty museum (los angeles, california), 15. kunsthaus zürich (zürich, switzerland), 16. la galleria nazionale (rome, italy), 17. los angeles county museum of art (lacma) (los angeles, california), 18. mauritshuis (the hague, netherlands), 19. the metropolitan museum of art (new york city, new york), 20. musée du louvre (paris, france), 21. musée d’orsay (paris, france), 22. museo nacional del prado (madrid, spain), 23. museo frida kahlo (mexico city, mexico), 24. museo nacional centro de arte reina sofía (madrid, spain), 25. museu de arte de são paulo (são paulo, brazil), 26. museum of broken relationships (los angeles, california and zagreb, croatia), 27. museum of fine arts, boston (boston, massachusetts), 28. museum of fine arts, houston (houston, texas), 29. the museum of modern art (moma) (new york city, new york), 30. national gallery (london, england), 31. national gallery of art (washington, d.c.), 32. national gallery of victoria (victoria, melbourne, australia), 33. national museum of china (beijing, china), 34. national museum of korea (seoul, south korea), 35. national museum, new delhi (new delhi, india), 36. national museum of modern and contemporary art (seoul, south korea), 37. national palace museum (taipei, taiwan), 38. national portrait gallery (washington, d.c.), 39. pergamonmuseum (berlin, germany), 40. picasso museum (barcelona, spain), 41. rijksmuseum (amsterdam, netherlands), 42. san francisco museum of modern art (san francisco, california), 43. sistine chapel at the vatican museums (vatican city), 44. solomon r. guggenheim museum (new york city, new york), 45. tate modern (london, england), 46. thyssen-bornemisza museum (madrid, spain), 47. tokyo national museum (tokyo, japan), 48. uffizi gallery (florence, italy), 49. van gogh museum (amsterdam, netherlands), 50. victoria and albert museum (london, england), 1. american museum of natural history (new york city, new york), 2. the british museum (london, england), 3. national museum of anthropology (mexico city, mexico), 4. national museum of natural history (washington, d.c.), 5. natural history museum (london, england), 1. london science museum (london, england), 2. museo galileo (florence, italy), 3. the museum of flight (seattle, washington), 4. the museum of natural sciences of belgium (brussels, belgium), 5. museum of science, boston (boston, massachusetts), 6. national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) (washington, d.c.), 7. national air and space museum (washington, d.c.), 8. national museum of computing (bletchley park, england), 9. national museum of the united states air force (riverside, ohio), 10. oxford university’s history of science museum (oxford, england), 1. acropolis museum (athens, greece), 2. american battlefield trust virtual battlefield tours, 3. anne frank house (amsterdam, netherlands), 4. franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum (hyde park, new york), 5. national museum of african american history and culture (washington, d.c.), 6. national museum of american history (washington, d.c.), 7. national museum of scotland (edinburgh, scotland), 8. national women’s history museum (alexandria, virginia), 9. terra cotta warriors of xi’an at emperor qinshihuang’s mausoleum site museum (xi’an, china), 10. u.s. holocaust memorial museum (washington, d.c.), final thoughts.

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You can now access collections from many of the world’s top museums without ever leaving home! We’ve put together an ultimate list of 75 world-class museums that offer virtual tours you can visit from the comfort of your couch.

Many of the virtual tours include exhibit walk-throughs and the ability to examine some of the world’s best paintings, sculptures, and other pieces up close and personal. These virtual tours are jam-packed with enough details to make you feel like you’re really visiting the museum. The experiences are sure to entertain the whole family, an art or history buff, or even those who want to imagine the joys of travel!

We’ve broken our list into 4 easy-to-review sections, including art, natural history, science and technology, and history museums. So whether you prefer to take in a painting at the Van Gogh Museum, check out an SR-71 Blackbird at the Museum of Flight, or gaze upon the Rosetta Stone, this list has it all!

Many of the virtual exhibits in this article are offered through a collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. If you’re not familiar, Google Arts and Culture is an online platform that showcases high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from more than 2,000 museums throughout the world. You can zoom in and out of images in great detail and view some of the best pieces of artwork ever created without leaving your couch.

The platform is available in 18 languages and has been praised internationally for increasing access to art to those who may have not had the opportunity otherwise. It’s available for web , iOS , and Android .

50 Art Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened:  1805

The Albertina Museum features one of the most important European collections of international modern art and houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and 1 million old master prints. Hundreds of the works housed in the museum, like “Study for the Last Supper” by Da Vinci and “The Water Lily Pond” by Monet, can be viewed online thanks to a partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

To view the online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1879

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the U.S., hosting approximately 1.5 million people annually. Its collection features more than 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world and contains more than 300,000 works of art in 11 curatorial departments.

The online tour allows you to view major pieces from the museum’s collection, such as “American Gothic,” “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” and “Nighthawks.” The site also offers projects to get creative at home, educator resources, and JourneyMaker, a digital tool that allows visitors to create unique, personalized tours of the museum.

To view the online tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1930

Established in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, the Benaki Museum houses Greek works of art from prehistoric to modern times and an extensive collection of Asian art. It also hosts periodic exhibitions and maintains a state-of-the-art restoration and conservation workshop.

The entire museum can be viewed virtually in great detail.

To view the online virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 2015

The Broad is a contemporary art museum named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. The Broad houses a nearly 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, featuring 200 artists including works by Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Notable installations include Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirrored Room” (pictured above) and Ragnar Kjartansson’s expansive 9-screen video “The Visitors.”

The Broad has put together a series of YouTube videos to give you a first-hand look at the museum.

Year Opened : 1977

The Centre Pompidou, named after the president of France from 1969 to 1974, is the largest museum for modern and contemporary art in Europe and the second-largest in the world. The museum has more than 12,000 pieces of artwork on display, including works by Kandinsky, Dalí, and Valadon.

The Centre has dozens of videos available on its YouTube channel that provide walk-throughs of the museum and explanations of its most important works.

To view the video tours, click here .

Year Opened : 1974

Dedicated to the life and work of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, the Dalí Theatre-Museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by the artist. In addition to Dalí paintings from all decades of his career, there are Dalí sculptures, 3-dimensional collages, mechanical devices, and other curiosities from Dalí’s imagination. Through the website, guests can take a virtual tour in 360-degree of the entire museum.

To view the virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1885

With more than 100 galleries covering over 658,000 square feet, the Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the U.S. Its collection features works spanning from ancient Egypt and Europe all the way to modern contemporary art.

The museum has put together “ At Home With DIA ” to offer school field trips from home, weekly film screenings, senior resources, and home projects. DIA also has a partnership with Google Arts and Culture to provide online exhibits including:

• Frida Kahlo in Detroit
• Ordinary People by Extraordinary Artists
• Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry
• Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States

Year Opened: 1935

Located in the Henry Clay Frick House, the Frick Collection houses the art collection of industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists, including Bellini, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, as well as numerous works of sculpture and porcelain.

The entire museum can be viewed virtually.

Year Opened : 1784

The Galleria dell’Accademia, while small compared to other museums featured, is still the second most visited museum in Italy. Its command of visitors is in large part due to its display of perhaps the most famous sculpture in history — Michaelangelo’s statue of David.

You can view a short, video-guided tour of the museum, which includes 360-degree viewing, allowing you to get a close look at the museum’s offerings.

To view the video tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1997

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and her contributions to American Modernism. The museum’s collection includes many of O’Keeffe’s key works, ranging from her innovative abstractions to her iconic large-format flower, skull, and landscape paintings, to paintings of architectural forms, rocks, shells, and trees. Initially, the collection was made of 140 O’Keeffe paintings, watercolors, pastels, and sculptures, but now includes nearly 1,200 objects.

The museum website offers creative activities, stories, and education about Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, along with several virtual exhibits available through Google Arts and Culture, including:

• Georgia O’Keeffe
• American Modernism
• United States

Year Opened : 1900

The Grand Palais is a large historic site, exhibition hall, and museum dedicated to the organization of exhibitions, publishing books, art workshops, photographic agency, and hosting major fairs and events. The museum receives 2.5 million visitors each year. The partnership with Google Arts and Culture brings extensive online exhibits to life, from the construction of the building to the masterpieces that lie within it.

Year Opened : 1764

The Hermitage Museum is the second-largest and eighth-most visited art museum in the world. The Hermitage has more than 60,000 pieces of artwork on display, including the “Peacock Clock” by James Cox, “Madonna Litta” by Leonardo Da Vinci, and works by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Antonio Canova.

The online tour is extremely comprehensive and allows you to virtually walk through all 6 buildings in the main complex, treasure gallery, and several exhibition projects.

Year Opened : 1905

The High Museum of Art offers over 15,000 works of art in its collection and is the leading art museum in the southeastern U.S. The museum focuses on 19th- and 20th-century American art, historic and contemporary decorative arts and design, European paintings, modern and contemporary art, photography, folk and self-taught art, and African art.

The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture also offers online exhibits for viewing including:

• Bill Traylor’s Drawings of People, Animals, and Events
• How Iris van Herpen Transformed Fashion
• Incredible, Innovative, and Unexpected Contemporary Furniture Designs
• Photos From the Civil Rights Movement

Year Opened: 1953

The J. Paul Getty Museum is made up of 2 campuses — the Getty Center and Getty Villa — that receive more than 2 million visitors per year. The Getty Center features pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts and photographs from the 1830s through present-day from all over the world. The Getty Villa displays art from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.

The museum has put together online resources like art books, online exhibitions, podcasts, and videos, all viewable on its website .

It has also partnered with Google Arts and Culture to showcase online exhibits including:

• 18th Century Pastel Portraits
• The Art of Three Faiths: Torah, Bible, Qur’an
• Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
• Getty Museum Acquisitions 2019
• Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well

To view the online galleries, click here .

Year Opened : 1910

The Kunsthaus Zürich features one of Switzerland’s most important art collections from the 13th century to the present day. While the museum places an emphasis on Swiss artists, including Alberto Giacometti, you’ll also find work from the likes of Monet, Picasso, and Warhol.

The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture has digitized several of the museum’s best collections for viewing.

Year Opened: 1883

La Galleria Nazionale displays about 1,100 paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries — the largest collection in Italy. It features work from famous Italian artists including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Alberto Burri, and foreign artists including Cézanne, Monet, Pollock, Rodin, and Van Gogh.

It has teamed up with Google to offer 16 virtual exhibits for online viewing.

Year Opened: 1910

LACMA is the largest art museum in the western U.S., attracts nearly a million visitors annually, and holds more than 150,000 works spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present.

The website (click LACMA @ Home ) includes exhibition walkthroughs, soundtracks and live recordings, online teaching resources, and courses.

To view the LACMA’s online virtual tour from Google Arts & Culture, click here .

Year Opened : 1822

The Mauritshuis is home to some of the best Dutch paintings from the Golden Age of Art. The museum consists of 854 works by artists like Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt Van Rijn, and Jan Steen. Famous works include “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (pictured above) and “View of Delft” by Vermeer, and “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” by Rembrandt.

The museum has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring several of its best works to life for virtual viewing.

To view the Mauritshuis’ online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1870

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, also known as “The Met,” is the largest art museum in the U.S. and the fourth most visited museum in the world with more than 6 million visitors each year. The permanent collection contains more than 2 million works from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all of the European masters (including Monet’s Water Lillies), and an extensive collection of American and modern art. It also has extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, and Islamic art.

The museum has extensive different online exhibits available for viewing through Google and its own Art at Home website .

Year Opened:  1793

The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, began as a fortress under Philip II in the 12th century to protect the city from English soldiers that were in Normandy. It wasn’t repurposed as a museum until 1793. Now, the Louvre is easily one of the most historic art museums in the world. Not only is the Louvre the largest art museum in the world at 782,910 square feet (72,735 square meters), but it also had 9.6 million visitors in 2019, making it the most visited museum in the world as well. Featured masterpieces include “Mona Lisa,” “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” “Venus de Milo,” and “Hammurabi’s Code.”

The Louvre has several virtual galleries on display, including:

• The Advent of the Artist, including works from Delacroix, Rembrandt, and Tintoretto
• Egyptian Antiquities, featuring collections from the Pharaonic period
• Remains of the Louvre’s Moat — visitors can walk around the original perimeter moat and view the piers that supported the drawbridge dating back to 1190
• Galerie d’Apollon, destroyed by fire in 1661 and recently rebuilt for viewing

To view the Louvre’s virtual tour page, click here .

Year Opened: 1986

The Musée d’Orsay is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe and had more than 3.6 million visitors in 2019. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, including works by Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Sisley, and Van Gogh.

The museum allows you to virtually walk through one of its popular galleries, featuring hundreds of paintings from French artists.

To view the Musée d’Orsay online gallery, click here .

Year Opened : 1819

The Museo Nacional del Prado is considered to have one of the greatest collections of European art in the world and offers guests the single largest collection of Spanish art. The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings, 7,600 paintings, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures. Well-known works include “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez, “The Third of May 1808” by Francisco De Goya, and “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch.

The museum’s online gallery allows you to get a close look at over 10,000 different pieces of art. The Prado also offers a 1-hour live show on Instagram every morning at 4 a.m. EST.

To view the online gallery, click here .

Year Opened: 1958

The Frida Kahlo Museum, also known as the Blue House due to its blue walls, is a historic museum dedicated to the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The building was Kahlo’s birthplace, the home where she grew up, lived with her husband Diego Rivera for many years, and where she later died in a room on the upper floor. The museum contains a collection of artwork by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and other artists, along with the couple’s Mexican folk art, pre-Hispanic artifacts, photographs, memorabilia, personal items, and more. Find out more in our guide to the best museums in Mexico City .

Year Opened: 1990

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, also called the Museo Reina Sofía, is one of the most popular art museums in the world. The museum includes large collections of Spain’s 2 most popular artists, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Famous works on display include “Guernica” and “Woman in Blue” by Picasso and “Cubist Self Portrait” by Dalí.

You can view collections of artwork at the Reina Sofía through its partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

Year Opened: 1947

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is Brazil’s first modern art museum. The museum is internationally recognized for its collection of European art, as it’s considered the finest museum in Latin America and all of the Southern Hemisphere. The museum primarily features Brazilian art, prints, and drawings, as well as smaller collections of African and Asian art, antiquities, decorative arts, and others, amounting to more than 8,000 pieces. MASP also has one of the largest art libraries in the country.

You can now take a virtual tour of online galleries the museum has to offer, including:

• Art from Brazil until 1900
• Art from Italy: Rafael to Titian
• Art from France: from Delacroix to Cézanne
• Art in Fashion
• Histories of Madness: The Drawings of Juquery
• Picture Gallery in Transformation

Year Opened: 2010

The Museum of Broken Relationships is dedicated to failed love relationships. Its exhibits include personal objects left over from former lovers, accompanied by brief descriptions. The museum was founded by 2 Zagreb-based artists, film producer Olinka Vištica and sculptor Dražen Grubišić, after their 4-year relationship came to an end.

The virtual tour includes a close-up collection of dozens of the museum’s most interesting pieces.

The 17th largest art museum in the world, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) hosts one of the most extensive art collections in the U.S. It houses over 8,000 paintings, surpassed only by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and exceeds 1 million visitors each year. Pieces by world-renowned artists like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Monet are featured alongside sculptures, mummies, ceramics, and other artifacts from ancient civilizations.

There are currently 16 online exhibits available for viewing.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is one of the largest museums in the U.S., and its collection features over 64,000 works from 6 continents. The collection places emphasis on pre-Columbian and African gold, Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture, 19th- and 20th-century art, photography, and Latin American art. Read our guide to the best museums in Houston for more information.

The museum has 14 online exhibits available for viewing in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture.

Year Opened: 1929

Regarded as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world, MoMA’s art collection features an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books, and artist’s books, film, and electronic media. MoMA’s holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces including Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills.

MoMA’s website offers 86,000 works of art that can be viewed online, along with a partnership with Google Arts and Culture to create a virtual display of its Sophie Taeber-Arp exhibit.

To view the website’s collection, click here . To view the Google exhibit, click here .

Year Opened : 1824

The National Gallery features more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900, including works such as “Sunflowers” by Van Gogh, “The Virgin on the Rocks” by Da Vinci, and “The Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan Van Eyck.

Its website offers a few virtual tours, showcasing many rooms in the museum, the Sainsbury Wing, and a Google Virtual tour.

Year Opened: 1937

The National Gallery of Art and its attached Sculpture Garden are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and are open to the public free of charge. The museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress.

The National Gallery is widely considered to be one of the greatest museums in the U.S. It ranks second in total visitors of all American museums, 10th in the world, and features incredible pieces including Jackson Pollock’s “Number 1,” Leonardo da Vinci’s “Ginevra de’ Benci,” and Degas’ “Little Dancer Aged 14.”

The museum has put together a collection of educational resources on its website for teachers, families, and children. It also features online exhibits through Google Arts and Culture including:

• American Fashion — highlights from 1740 to 1895
• Johannes Vermeer — Dutch Baroque painter

To view the National Gallery of Art online collection page, click here .

Year Opened: 1861

The National Gallery of Victoria is Australia’s oldest, largest, and most visited art museum. The museum offers a wide variety of international and Australian art in its collection, including paintings, drawings, photography, and sculptures.

The online tour includes walk-throughs of exhibits, including highlights from the NGV Triennial 2020 and Chinese Collection, as well as exhibits featuring Goya and KAWS.

Year Opened : 2003

The National Museum of China covers Chinese history from 1.7 million years ago to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Notable works include the “Houmuwu” Rectangle Ding, a rectangular bronze sacrificial vessel made in the late Shang Dynasty, the heaviest piece of ancient bronze ware in the world, and a Han Dynasty jade burial suit laced with gold thread. It is one of the largest museums in the world, and the second most visited art museum in the world, just after the Louvre.

The museum has virtual exhibits available for 360-degree viewing including:

• Resplendence of the Tang Dynasty
• Sunken Silver

Year Opened : 1909

The National Museum of Korea is the top museum of Korean history and art and has been committed to various studies and research activities in the fields of archaeology, history, and art, continuously developing a variety of exhibitions and education programs.

The museum’s virtual tour provides a 3D walk-through of exhibits, including 1,000 years of Korean design and 500 years of the Joseon Dynasty.

Year Opened: 1949

The National Museum, New Delhi is one of the largest museums in India. The museum has around 200,000 works of art, both of Indian and foreign origin, including paintings, sculptures, jewelry, ancient texts, armor, and decorative arts ranging from the pre-historic era to modern works — covering over 5,000 years.

The museum has partnered with Google to bring its online exhibits to life, including:

• Art of Caligraphy
• Cadence and Counterpoint
• Indian Bronzes
• Nauras: The Many Arts of the Deccan
• Pottery from Ancient Peru
• Treasures of National Museum, India
• Radha and Krishna in the Boat of Love

Year Opened: 1969

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was first established in 1969 as the only national art museum in South Korea, accommodating modern and contemporary art of Korea and international art of different time periods. The museum features over 7,000 pieces of artwork, including works of contemporary Korean artists such as Go Hui-dong, Ku Bon-ung, Park Su-geun, and Kim Whan-ki.

Google’s virtual tour takes you through 6 floors of contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.

Year Opened : 1965

The National Palace Museum has a collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of ancient Chinese imperial artifacts and artworks. The collection encompasses 8,000 years of history of Chinese art, including jade, paintings, bronzes, and porcelain that were formerly held in the Forbidden City of Peking.

The museum offers 360-degree virtual tours of many different exhibits.

To view the virtual tours, click here .

Year Opened : 1962

The National Portrait Gallery has a collection of over 21,000 works of art. The collection focuses on images of famous Americans and how they’ve shaped U.S. culture. A major attraction of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection is the Hall of Presidents, which contains portraits of nearly all American presidents. It is the largest and most complete collection in the world, except for the White House collection itself.

The museum has several collections featured on Google Arts and Culture, but also offers digital workshops, and distance learning resources for children and teachers.

To view the online resources, click here .

The Pergamonmuseum houses monumental buildings, such as the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, and the Market Gate of Miletus reconstructed from the ruins found in Anatolia, as well as the Mshatta Facade. The museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. It is visited by over 1 million people every year.

The museum has dozens of structures and other artifacts that can be viewed online.

Year Opened: 1963

The Picasso Museum, located in the heart of Barcelona’s Latin Quarter, is visited by millions every year. They come to marvel at the best works of Picasso, perhaps the most famous painter of all, but stay to marvel at the best-preserved medieval architecture in Barcelona. With 4,251 works by the painter exhibited, the museum has one of the most complete permanent collections of his works.

The online tour offers a large selection of Picasso’s finest works, as well as virtual tours of the museum’s beautiful courtyards.

Year Opened: 1798

The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1798 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1885. The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history from the years 1200 to 2000, and a total collection of 1 million objects. The museum features masterpieces including Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” and “The Jewish Bride,” plus works by Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer, who are known to have been major contributors to the Golden Age of Dutch art.

Google offers a street view tour of some excellent art pieces located in the museum, and the museum has put together an entire virtual tour of all of the museum’s masterpieces viewable on its website.

To view the Google street view tour, click here . You can also view the museum’s From Home microsite and masterpieces tour .

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is composed of over 33,000 works of art spread throughout 7 gallery floors and 45,000 square feet of space. Following a 3-year closure for expansion, the museum reopened in 2016 and is now one of San Francisco’s must-see destinations.

SFMOMA’s website is updated regularly with videos and articles regarding current exhibits, projects, and artist showcases and provides behind-the-scenes looks of the museum. 

To view the museum’s multimedia features, click here .

Read our guide to the best museums in San Francisco to find out more.

Year Opened: 1483

The Sistine Chapel, located inside of the Apostolic Palace (the official residence of the pope in Vatican City), is easily the most popular chapel in the world. The chapel is famous for its magnificent ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, and is considered to be one of the best artworks to come out of the Italian Renaissance. The primary panels of the ceiling showcase 9 scenes from the Book of Genesis, of which “The Creation of Adam” (pictured above) is the best known and most recognized.

Its website offers a virtual tour of the chapel’s most stunning sites, including the ability to marvel at Michelangelo’s ceiling from the comfort of your couch.

Year Opened: 1939

The Guggenheim Museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year.

Google’s  Street View feature lets you tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase and some of its art pieces. It also offers a handful of online collections on its website .

Year Opened: 2000

Tate Modern is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world, consisting of art dating from 1900 until today. The gallery receives over 5 million visitors a year, making it the sixth most visited art museum in the world and the most visited in the U.K.

The Tate Modern has published dozens of videos on its YouTube channel that give you an in-depth look at many of its exhibits, including the Andy Warhol exhibit and the Aubrey Beardsley exhibit.

To view the Tate Modern’s YouTube channel, click here .

Year Opened: 1992

Located in Madrid, the Thyssen has over 1,600 paintings inside its walls and was once the second-largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. It includes works from the Italian primitives, the English, Dutch, and German schools, Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the 20th century. It also features pieces from the continent’s most celebrated artists including Rembrandt and Dalí.

The virtual tour includes a detailed look at the permanent collection, along with exhibits including the Rembrandt and Impressionist galleries.

Year Opened : 1872

The Tokyo National Museum is the oldest and largest art museum in Japan, and one of the largest art museums in the world. At the museum, you’ll find a collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, ancient and medieval Japanese art, and Asian art along the Silk Road.

The museum has teamed up with Google’s Arts and Culture to provide an inside look at what the museum has to offer.

Year Opened: 1581

The Uffizi was designed by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo I de’ Medici, whose family members were by far the largest patrons of art in Renaissance Italy. The museum now spans over 139,000 square feet with 101 different rooms that house its art pieces, including famous pieces such as “The Birth of Venus.” Over 2 million people visit the Uffizi each year, making it the most viewed art museum in Italy.

The museum has teamed up with Google to showcase online galleries including:

• Piero di Cosimo, Perseus Freeing Andromeda
• The Santa Trinita Maestà, Cimabue
• The Creative Process Behind Federico Barocci’s Drawings
• Drawings by Amico Aspertini and other Bolognese artists

Year Opened: 1973

The Van Gogh Museum is dedicated to perhaps one of the most famous artists of all time — Vincent Van Gogh. The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters. The museum has over 2 million visitors each year and is the 23rd most visited art museum in the world. Find out more in our review to the best museums in Amsterdam .

The museum has teamed up with Google to create online exhibits on Vincent Van Gogh’s love life and the books he loved to read. You can also visit the museum’s website for a selection of things to do for young children, including school lessons and coloring pages.

Year Opened : 1852

The Victoria and Albert Museum collection spans 5,000 years of art from Europe, North America, Asia, and North Africa. The collection of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings, and photographs is among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

The virtual tour, in partnership with Google Arts and Culture, offers several online exhibits ranging from fashion to surrealism.

5 Natural History Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 1869

One of the largest natural history museums in the world, the American Museum of Natural History contains 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts.

The museum’s 360-degree virtual tours offer an up-close look at permanent exhibits, current exhibits, past exhibits, and research stations.

Year Opened: 1759

The British Museum is one of the largest in the world and houses over 8 million works within its walls. Established in 1759, it was the first public national museum in the world. Visitors can tour the great court and view some of the most famous objects in history, like the Elgin Marbles of Greece and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.

The Museum is the world’s largest indoor space on Google Street View and you can go on a virtual visit to more than 60 galleries.

The British Museum also has virtual galleries on display, including:

• Prints and Drawings

To visit the British Museum’s virtual tour page, click here .

Year Opened: 1964

The National Museum of Anthropology is the largest and most visited museum in all of Mexico. The museum contains significant archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage, such as the Stone of the Sun (or the Aztec calendar stone) and the Aztec Xochipilli statue.

The museum has made more than 100 items available for Google visitors to explore from home.

To view the museum’s online collection, click here .

Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is the 11th most visited museum in the world and the most visited natural history museum in the world. With over 325,000 square feet of exhibition space, the museum’s collections contain over 145 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts — the largest natural history collection in the world. Highlights of the collection include the Hope Diamond and the Star of Asia Sapphire.

You can view all of these specimens from the comfort of your home as the museum has dozens of different online exhibits that can all be accessed on its website.

To view the museum’s virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1881

Undoubtably one of the best Museums in London , the Natural History Museum in London showcases 80 million life and earth science specimens of great historical and scientific value, even housing pieces collected by Charles Darwin. There are 5 categories within the museum: botany , entomology , mineralogy , paleontology , and zoology . Over 5 million people visit this museum each year, making it the most visited natural history museum in Europe.

One of the museum’s most prominent displays is the skeleton of an 82-foot long blue whale named Hope, which you can learn more about through a self-guided virtual tour, along with several other galleries. 

10 Science and Technology Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 1857

The London Science Museum holds a collection of over 300,000 items, including famous items such as Stephenson’s Rocket, Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), the first jet engine, some of the earliest remaining steam engines, and documentation of the first typewriter.

Thanks to Google Street View, guests can take a virtual tour of the entire museum, or watch curator gallery guides on the museum’s YouTube channel.

To view the virtual tour or videos, click here .

Dedicated to the scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, the Museo Galilei is housed in an 11th-century palace known as the Palazzo Castellini. The museum has a collection of over 5,000 ancient scientific instruments dating back to the 13th century, and among its most notable items is the telescope Galileo used to discover the satellites of Jupiter.

Visitors from around the world have the opportunity to explore the inside of the museum and can access more than 1,000 permanent exhibition objects through the online catalog.

Year Opened: 1965

The Museum of Flight is the largest private air and space museum in the world and attracts over 500,000 visitors every year. The museum has more than 150 aircraft in its collection, including the Lockheed Model 10-E Electra (the aircraft Amelia Earhart was piloting when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean), Boeing 747s, and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (pictured above).

The museum offers 360-degree tours that let you step inside dozens of these iconic aircraft.

Year Opened: 1846

The Museum of Natural Sciences of Belgium is dedicated to natural history and is part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. The dinosaur hall of the museum is the world’s largest museum hall completely dedicated to dinosaurs, and its most important pieces are 30 fossilized Iguanodon skeletons, which were discovered in 1878 in Bernissart.

It has partnered with Google to set up virtual exhibits for viewing, including:

• 360-degree guided tour
• The Bernissart Iguanodons
• From Salehanthropus to Homo Sapiens
• Over 250 Years of Natural Sciences
• Past, Present, Future: The Marvels of Evolution

To view the museum’s online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1830

The Museum of Science, Boston, receiving over 1.5 million visitors annually, is a museum and indoor zoo with more than 700 interactive exhibits and over 100 animals, many of which have been rescued and rehabilitated.

The museum offers a phenomenal virtual tour full of digital exhibits, videos, and audio presentations.

NASA, founded in 1958, was created by the federal government to develop the civilian space program, as well as to conduct aeronautics, space, and astrophysics research. Since its inception, NASA has been responsible for historic space missions including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the space shuttle.

NASA has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring many online exhibits to life to showcase the beauty of space exploration.

Year Opened : 1946

The National Air and Space Museum is a center for the history and science of aviation, spaceflight, planetary science, terrestrial geology, and geophysics. It is the fifth most visited museum in the world (the second most visited in the U.S.), and contains the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the Friendship 7 capsule, the Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer airplane, and Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

The virtual tour offers a 360-degree walk-through of the entire museum.

Year Opened: 2007

The National Museum of Computing is dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is home to the world’s largest collection of working historic computers dating back to the 1940s, including a rebuilt Mark 2 Colossus computer, alongside an exhibition of the most complex code-cracking activities performed at the Park.

In the 3D virtual tour, viewers can move around the galleries looking at the machines and their descriptions with the added bonus of hyperlinks to video and text explanations providing further detail and history of the exhibits.

Year Opened: 1923

Located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Riverside, Ohio, the National Museum of the United States Air Force is the oldest and largest military aviation museum in the world, with more than 360 aircraft and missiles on display.

The virtual tour allows visitors to take a virtual, 360-degree, self-guided tour of the entire museum by navigating from gallery to gallery.

Year Opened: 1683

Oxford’s History of Science Museum holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

The museum, ever ahead of the times, has offered virtual tours since 1995. You’ll get to explore the fantastic exhibits and artifacts of some of the most important scientific discoveries in science history.

10 History Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 2009

The Acropolis Museum is centered around the archaeological findings at the site of Athens’ most important structure — the Acropolis. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece.

The museum has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring the museum to life virtually. Now you can view rock, marble, and sculptures certificates, all of which are thousands of years old, all from the comfort of your couch!

The American Battlefield Trust Virtual Battlefield Tours offers the incredible opportunity to experience 360-degree virtual tours of more than 20 American Revolution and Civil War battlefields. You can explore Gettysburg, with 15 different stops, each of which features icons that discuss in great detail the history and significance of the battle.

Year Opened: 1957

What was once the house where Anne Frank went into hiding during WWII is now a museum dedicated to increasing awareness of Anne’s story and life in the attic. The Anne Frank House was established in cooperation with Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, and now welcomes over 1 million visitors from around the world each year.

The museum’s website offers a virtual reality tour of the annex, along with other educational resources about Anne’s life.

Year Opened: 1941

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum holds the records of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. president (1933 to 1945). The museum showcases the history behind FDR’s story, his presidency, New Deal policies, assassination attempt, and wartime decisions.

The 360-degree online tour gives you a close look at original documents, artifacts, and videos from FDR’s life.

Year Opened: 2003

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African-American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African-Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 36,000 artifacts.

The museum website offers more than 15 different online exhibits covering African American history and culture.

Check out its online virtual tour  and digital resources guide .

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has more than 1.8 million objects that highlight the history of the U.S — including the original Star-Spangled Banner, Julia Child’s kitchen, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Indiana Jones’ fedora and whip, and more!

The museum offers about 100 online exhibits from its encyclopedic collections, each with a mix of photos, video, graphics, and text on topics ranging through the nation’s entire history.

Year Opened : 1866

The National Museum of Scotland is dedicated to Scottish antiquities, culture, and history. The museum contains artifacts from around the world, encompassing geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology, art, and world cultures. Popular items from the collections include Dolly the Sheep, the Arthur’s Seat coffins, and the Cramond Lioness sculpture.

The Museum’s galleries have been captured digitally in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, along with a virtual walk-through thanks to Google Street View.

Year Opened: 1996

Founded in 1996 by Karen Staser, the National Women’s History Museum researches, collects, and exhibits the contributions of women to the social, cultural, economic, and political life of our nation in the context of world history.

Its website currently features 29 different online exhibits!

Year Opened: 1974 (created third century B.C.)

The Terracotta Army at Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210 to 209 B.C. to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The sculptures include warriors, chariots, and horses. Estimates from 2007 were that the 3 pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits near Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum.

The online experience allows you to get up close and personal with the sculptures in a full 360-degree experience!

To view the online virtual experience, click here .

Year Opened: 1980

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is the country’s official memorial to the Holocaust. It is located on the National Mall alongside other monuments dedicated to freedom. Each year, the museum encourages its 1.6 million visitors to promote human dignity, confront hatred, prevent genocide, and strengthen democratic values. The museum’s collection includes millions of archival documents, artifacts, photographs, footage, and a list of over 200,000 registered survivors and their families, among other historical items.

Its website offers a wide selection of educational resources, including a virtual tour, and is available in 16 languages.

There you have it — 75 amazing #MuseumsAtHome options filled with one-of-a-kind artifacts covering art, science, history, and natural history, all of which can be “visited” virtually while you lounge in your pajamas! So whether you’re a massive fan of art, looking for an educational experience for your children, or simply need a way to keep yourself entertained, you can’t go wrong with a virtual tour of any of these world-class museums.

Frequently Asked Questions

What museums have virtual tours.

There are dozens of museums worldwide offering virtual tours — we have 75 on this list alone! But some of our favorites are the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum!

How much do virtual tours cost?

Every single virtual tour included on our list is completely free of charge!

What is a virtual museum tour?

A virtual museum tour is, in essence, a simulation of what you might experience when visiting the museum in person. Virtual tours are usually comprised of a collection of videos, still images, 3D walkthroughs, and narration that help you feel as though you’re visiting the museum — without actually doing so!

How do you do a virtual tour?

Doing a virtual tour is easy! Often, the museum will have a dedicated website page allowing you to view all of their virtual resources on 1 page.

In the case of museums that have a 3D walkthrough, you can “walk” yourself through the museum by clicking from artwork to artwork, and exhibit to exhibit, as if you were actually visiting the museum in person!

Are virtual tours worth it?

Absolutely! If you’re currently not able to visit a museum in person, but want to experience all it has to offer, a virtual tour allows you to do just that — all from the comforts of your home!

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National Museum of Natural History Virtual Tours

Access the tours.

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History virtual tours allow visitors to take self-guided, room-by-room tours of select exhibits and areas within the museum from their desktop or mobile device. Visitors can also access select collections and research areas at our satellite support and research stations as well as past exhibits no longer on display.

Virtual Tour Tips

• To navigate between adjoining rooms in the tours, click on the blue arrow links on the floor or use the navigation map in the upper right of the presentation screen.
• Look for the camera icon which gives you a close-up view of a particular object or exhibit panel.
• Try zooming in as some of the images are stitched together from individual pictures in order to create very high resolution gigapixel images.

Please note: This tour and these presentations have been tested and should work on all common devices, browsers, and operating systems (using a desktop computer with Windows, Mac, Linux or a mobile device such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android). Functionality and appearance may vary as it will adjust automatically to accommodate the most visitors. While the virtual tour has no advertising, ad blocking software or browser settings that block JavaScript and/or XML may interfere with the functionality of the virtual tour. Please let us know what you think of the tour and how the experience can be improved. Send your feedback to the NMNH Web Team .

Site Credit: Imagery and coding by Loren Ybarrondo

Equipment Used: Professional Nikon digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera bodies and lenses. The photography is typically done using rectilinear lenses with minimized distortion and shooting equirectangular panoramas at 22K pixels on the long side.

Software Used: No authoring software is used. The tours are hand-coded in HTML5 and JavaScript using the krpano graphics library.

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The 13 best virtual museum tours in the world

By Jo Ascherl

Hands up – who is missing art ? While in early 2021 we can only dream of visiting exhibitions in far-flung destinations, we can experience the next closest thing: being transported to world-class museums and galleries, via European courtyards and faraway sculpture gardens, and lose ourselves in virtual tours and talks. Google Arts and Culture has also collaborated with a whole load of venues to place viewers right at the heart of the action. Here are the 13 virtual museum tours to take now.

LOUVRE, PARIS

Initially hesitant to take part in the Covid-induced digitisation that many galleries around the world have launched over the past year, the Louvre has finally succumbed to demand. While not technically offering a virtual tour, the world’s biggest museum has put almost its entire collection online – that’s more than 480,000 works of art. They're available to view for free on the new platform, Louvre Collections, which is updated on a daily basis. Explore by collection and filter to discover some of the world’s most precious paintings, as well as sculptures, inscriptions, objects, textiles and artists until we are able to travel to France and re-experience the museum in all its 4D glory. collections.louvre.fr

Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museums, Rome

It may just be that you had always intended to go to Rome and marvel at Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling masterpiece, instead of seeing it endlessly replicated in the media, but you somehow never got round to it. Here you can place yourself in the chapel, which is inside the pope’s official palace residence, and get a more complete impression of how it would be for real. You can even take a tour guide option to wander around the Vatican City and really ramp up the virtual experience. museivaticani.va

NASA, Washington DC

Who isn’t fascinated by NASA and space? Short of getting on a plane to Washington DC (which you can’t do even if you wanted to), this experience gives a glimpse into how the US government agency that deals with National Aeronautics and Space Administration operates. There’s some incredible video footage on it’s website’s Galleries page of test-firing launch systems and missions to the moon, plus you can see a number of exhibitions online via Google Arts and Culture. artsandculture.google.com

Natural History Museum, London

There’s pretty much something for everyone at the Natural History Museum: a 360-degree tour of the Fantastic Beasts exhibition, a gallery full of extraordinary Photographer of the Year images, as well as an up-close experience with Hope the blue whale – with audio guides by the reassuringly knowledgeable Sir David Attenborough . Our top tip: every Tuesday at 3pm you can spend time with a scientist online, and take part in interactive discussions. nhm.ac.uk

The National Gallery, London

If you missed the much-talked-about Titian: Love, Desire, Death exhibition when the National Gallery reopened its doors after the first lockdown in 2020, now is your chance to see the glorious works of the Italian Renaissance painter. There are also video highlights from the gallery’s considerable British collection with The Wonderful Everyday tour. While you’re there, sign up for the family half-term Zoom session (Monday 15 February 2021) on decoding paintings with the help of clues. nationalgallery.org.uk

The Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City

Frida Kahlo’s eventful life has been well documented – along with her eyebrows – but so have her unmistakable colourful masterpieces, from brilliant self portraits to original clothing designs. There is no place more fitting to view her work than in the house where she spent most of her years: La Casa Azul (the Blue House), which was set up as a museum after her death, as she wished. Through this virtual tour, which will transport you straight to Mexico , its possible to explore the house and gardens , as well as view a selection of Kahlo’s art. museofridakahlo.org.mx

Picasso Museum, Barcelona

A very uplifting way to bring a piece of Spain into your living room. Picasso was born in Málaga, but he spent many of his formative years in Barcelona , so many of his most important pieces are housed in this museum. A heady virtual stroll takes in works from his Blue and Rose periods, as well as his series of insightful reinterpretations of Velázquez’s Las Meninas . There are separate tours of the place’s pretty, plant-strewn courtyard and the various places where Picasso lived and worked. bcn.cat

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, USA

Big, bold flowers will forever be associated with O’Keeffe, along with her other distinctive American modernist works including paintings, sculptures and objects, in this collection entirely dedicated to the artist. You can take a virtual tour, and there are also some excellent online lectures and classes, such as drawing with colour, which is suitable for ages 12+, but make sure to book in advance. okeeffemuseum.org

The British Museum, London

No stone (literally) has been left unturned when it comes to exploring the British Museum from home, with a staggering 60-plus galleries to visit via Google Street View. Virtual collections on the museum site cover Oceania, with art and artefacts from the South Pacific islands , and a large selection of prints and drawings. Special online shows worth seeing, meanwhile, include the recent Arctic: Culture and Climate exhibition. artsandculture.google.com

Stacey Lastoe

Alessia Armenise

Hannah Summers

Sarah James

Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Spain

So in early 2021 you can't hop over to San Sebastián for some pintxos on a trip to Bilbao , but you will can see this brilliantly designed Frank Gehry museum with an interactive tour that shows a mesmerising video of a photographer catching a free runner scaling the outside of the building before exploring its outstanding modern art collection, with paintings by greats from Mark Rothko and Yves Klein to Willem de Kooning and Anselm Kiefer. artsandculture.google.com

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This powerhouse of a gallery is home to too many Renaissance greats to mention, but its selection of curated tours goes some way to conjuring up the magic of the Uffizi experience – and the upside is you don’t have to queue behind hordes of visitors to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation or Botticelli’s The Birth Of Venus . You can look up paintings or take a virtual stroll through various parts of the museum, and there are also video stories on lesser-known artists and educational projects. uffizi.it

The Vasa Museum, Stockholm

The behemoth Vasa ship, seen on entering this museum in Stockholm in real life, is one of the most striking pieces of history in the city, and it remains the best preserved example of a 17th-century vessel worldwide – retrieved after it sank in harbour waters in 1628. The audio guides online go through the history of the ship, along with realistic background sounds of the moment it sank, as well as up-close images and a historical timeline of events. stockholm360.net

Anne Frank House, Amsterdam

Anne Frank’s name is indelibly inked in history books as a result of her evocative World War II diaries, published after her death. This is a fascinating, if unsettling, tour around the museum dedicated to her attic hiding place, where she stayed to escape from the Nazis – something she managed until she was found and transported to a concentration camp, aged just 15. The site also has photographic footage of her childhood, along with extracts from her diaries. annefrank.org

MOMA, New York

Manhattan ’s awe-inspiring museum of modern art has a huge online display of work, from paintings and design to sculpture, architecture and film, including virtual views of Van Gogh’s Starry Night , the Surrealist Women exhibition and the gallery's Sculpture Garden. The New York, Open City video is a must for an immersive and historic NY experience. If you sign up to MOMA’s newsletter you can be updated on specific virtual events and live Q&As. moma.org

Now watch a tour around Milan's Fondazione Prada:

Like this? Now read:

When will galleries open again?

9 entertaining things to do with kids at home during lockdown

The best exhibitions in London

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Bloomberg Connects features thousands of hours of bespoke audio, video and text content, with more content being added every month. The app makes it easy for you to explore arts and culture on your own time, at your own pace. Quick snackable content or deep dives. On site or from home. In your city or around the world. All guides are downloadable, allowing you to explore them even when you’re offline.

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Created by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Connects benefits over 400 museums, galleries, gardens, and cultural spaces — with more joining every month — by providing a pre-built, easy-to use app interface customizable to their content and mission. We empower our partners with training, marketing, and technical support to deliver digital experiences to their visitors and a global audience. Learn more.

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• Revolutionizing Education: A Comprehensive Review of HistoryView VR
• Exploring the Past with a New Lens: Virtual Reality in History Education
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• Bringing History to Life with Virtual Field Trips on HistoryView.org
• Enhance Your Virtual Field Trip Experience with Histora: ChatGPT AI Teacher Assistant, Historian, and Tour Guide on HistoryView
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Welcome to the enhanced experience of historyview.org’s virtual tours.

Embark on a thrilling journey through time with HistoryView.org’s immersive 3D virtual field trips! Marvel at the beauty of world-class museums, art galleries, and historic treasures, all from the comfort of your home or classroom. Our cutting-edge Matterport 3D technology whisks you away, placing you in the midst of history’s greatest wonders. Feel the excitement of strolling through captivating exhibits and admiring breathtaking art as if you were there.

Meet Histora, your AI-powered companion, enhancing your adventure with engaging, personalized stories and facts at every turn. Dive into the past with us at HistoryView.org, where history isn’t just learned, it’s experienced. Join our mission to make history an accessible, lively adventure, vital for understanding our world. History is not just a subject, it’s a journey — and with us, it’s a journey you won’t forget.

Please use this clickable table of contents to explore museums, art galleries, historic heritage sites, zoos, and aquariums across different regions and topics:

Our virtual tours work well for classrooms and individual exploration. They create an immersive experience that brings history alive. With Matterport 3D virtual tours, you can:

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Our virtual tours are completely free, making them accessible to all, no matter where you are or what your financial situation is. Whether you’re a student, educator, or just curious, our virtual tours are a great way to uncover the stories behind iconic landmarks. Start exploring now and join us on a journey through history!

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Education During Coronavirus

A Smithsonian magazine special report

The World’s First Entirely Virtual Art Museum Is Open for Visitors

VOMA—the Virtual Online Museum of Art—is a free and fully immersive art experience

Jennifer Nalewicki

Travel Correspondent

As museums have been forced to close their doors in the midst of Covid-19, many of these cultural institutions have proven just how nimble they can be, temporarily shifting their exhibitions from in-person events to online-only experiences. However, one museum in particular is waging its bets that virtual programming will be the new way of presenting art to a wide audience.

Launched just last week, the Virtual Online Museum of Art (VOMA) is the world’s first museum of its kind. More than just an online gallery, VOMA is 100 percent virtual, from the paintings and drawings hanging on the walls to the museum’s computer-generated building itself, giving viewers an entirely new way of experiencing art that transports them to an art space without having to leave their computers.

The idea for VOMA came about during the early stages of the internet—1999 to be exact—when Stuart Semple, the museum’s creator and an artist himself, dreamt up the concept to create an online museum. “When I was a teenager, I decided to make an online gallery,” Semple says, quickly admitting that the idea soon failed, chalking it up to the fact that his vision was a little bit too early for its time. Plus, back in the late '90s virtual technology was nothing like it is today.

Born in Bournemouth, England, Semple grew up having an eye for art. He studied fine arts at Bretton Hall College at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and built a successful career as an artist, showing his body of work, which contains paintings, drawings, multimedia and print, in 15 international solo exhibitions and more than 40 group shows . Now, at the age of 40, he's shifting his focus back to where he started 20 years ago by giving hi s idea for a virtual museum a second go.

“I was thinking about how art should be accessible online, but was disappointed with what I was seeing,” he says. “Because of Covid-19, I was seeing artwork grabbing onto tech in different ways, like taking a virtual walk in a park. I started thinking about putting my original idea back out there. And with CGI, I can make an experience you can live right now.”

This isn’t the first time one of Semple’s wild ideas has made headlines. In 2016, he made waves by creating a paint pigment dubbed “the world’s pinkest pink.” Teaming up with Emily Mann, an architect, and Lee Cavaliere, an art consultant and former curator of the London Art Fair, the trio built VOMA from the ground up in about six months’ time with the help of a team of programmers, architects and video game designers.

“We were seeing all these museums uploading their offerings to digital spaces, such as the [ Google Arts & Culture project],” he says. “I don’t want to be rude, but it didn’t feel like it was really there. I’d be looking at a Monet and the head would be chopped off. I was inspired, because I think we could do better.”

The result is a cultural experience unlike anything else online today. VOMA's creating some media buzz, with Cat Olley of Elle Decoration describing it as a space with “ a grounded, familiar feel ” that can “ hold [its] own alongside conventional cultural centers. ” Gabrielle Leung of Hypebeast commends VOMA for “not only [addressing] the problems of attending museums with social distancing measures in place, but also more complex issues about who has access to major cultural institutions in the first place.”

Visiting VOMA is simple. First viewers must install the free VOMA program onto their computers. From there, they can explore two galleries featuring works by nearly two dozen artists, including Henri Matisse, Édouard Manet, Li Wei, Paula Rego, Luiz Zerbini, Lygia Clark, Jasper Johns and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Cavaliere, the museum’s director and curator, worked closely with some of the world’s most prestigious museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Using high-res images provided by each institution, the VOMA team made 3-D reproductions of each piece. “We don't need to transport any paintings [on loan],” Semple says. “We're literally taking the photos and using computers to create 3-D reproductions, which adds in depth and lets viewers see [the reproduction] from all angles.”

The result is a 360-degree, fully immersive experience that lets museumgoers get as close as they want to, say, Manet’s Olympia or Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights . Using a computer's arrow buttons, a visitor can virtually “walk” around the museum, zooming in on different works of art. The user-friendly setup feels much like a computer game.

VOMA is one of the latest examples of how museum content is going digital, joining the likes of other popular sites and apps like Smartify . Dubbed the “Shazam for the art world,” Smartify offers free audio tours from a database of more than two million artworks from some of the world's most esteemed museums and cultural institutions. Anna Lowe, the app's co-founder, says that being able to access art digitally is important, especially when it comes to reaching a global audience.

“ The advantage of something like VOMA or [other virtual museum experiences] is the reach and engagement you can have with a global audience, ” Lowe says. “ But I think the key thing about physical museums, and the main reason that people go to museums, isn't for a learning experience, but to be social. I think that's the biggest challenge for [virtual visits] is how do you move people through a space without it feeling like you're just scrolling through a site. ”

This point is one of the things that VOMA's creative team took into account when building its user experience, making it as lifelike as possible.

“[VOMA’s] zoom functionality is crazy,” Semple says. “Normally, you can’t get your nose right up to the canvas, because there’s a line of tape and a security guard watching you. We recreate each artwork so that it’s 3-D. You can look around and see the sides of each work, which you can’t do [in other online art galleries].”

Not only are the displays interactive and provide in-depth information about each artwork, but the museum building and its waterfront surroundings change.

“[Architect Emily Mann] built VOMA so that the museum experience changes depending on the weather and the time of day,” he says. “VOMA is her vision of what a space for an art museum should look like. Every single tree leaf she created from scratch, and the light of each gallery changes throughout the day and plays into the space. It’s fantasy, but it’s also real.”

Another aspect that makes VOMA stand out from other museums is its mission to be more inclusive. While many museums have been accused of a severe lack in representation of work by women and BIPOC artists, VOMA intends to feature a diverse group of artists on a regular basis.

“We want to highlight voices that haven’t been heard and seen,” he says. “We are featuring artists from around the world, and not just Western artists.”

As the months progress, VOMA plans to open additional galleries to help accommodate such a diversity of artists. The museum, which boasts a permanent collection of more than 20 works, will also feature temporary exhibitions, such as the current “ Degenerate Art ,” which, according to the museum, “is a recreation of an exhibition held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937 denouncing the work of ‘degenerate’ artists.” It features pieces by Otto Dix, George Grosz and Max Beckmann, to name a few, shining a light on the lingering effects of oppression in the art world.

VOMA’s new take on the art experience has proven so popular that, during the September 4 launch, the website’s servers completely crashed while the first visitors tried “entering” the museum.

“At one point there were over 130,000 people trying to access it at the same time,” Semple says, “and we had to make the sad decision to take it down.”

Luckily, the kinks were worked out and VOMA is up and running again.

Semple believes that VOMA is just a taste of the future of art museums. “We are at an unprecedented moment in time,” he writes on VOMA's Kickstarter page. “Due to [Covid-19], we have seen the art world have to adjust, and as a result, we are able to enjoy online viewing rooms, zoom visits to artist studios and see a plethora of museums bringing images of their collections to their websites.” While he admits these changes have been exciting, Semple feels the need for a whole new kind of museum—“one that is born digitally,” he adds.

“VOMA has been designed from the ground up to work in a digital future,” he writes. “A future that is open and accessible to all.”

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Jennifer Nalewicki | | READ MORE

Jennifer Nalewicki is a Brooklyn-based journalist. Her articles have been published in The New York Times , Scientific American , Popular Mechanics , United Hemispheres and more. You can find more of her work at her website .

Virtual Museum Tours, Performances, and Tutorials to Keep You (and Your Kids) Entertained at Home

Here’s how to stay entertained while you remain home in the midst of the coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak..

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Google Arts and Culture provides digital tours of more than 2,500 museums and galleries around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Photo by Tinnaporn Sathapornnanont/Shutterstock

As people in countries around the world are being asked to practice social distancing —to stay home and avoid crowded places—in order to help “ flatten the curve ” of the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), an increasing number of museums, theaters, and tourist attractions have closed their doors (temporarily), and large public gatherings, such as concerts and festivals, have been canceled or postponed.

While we all learn to adjust to the realities of self-quarantine, a number of cultural institutions and individual artists are bringing their shows to the streaming-sphere so you can feel like you’re venturing beyond home, even though now is truly the time to stay put . These virtual museum tours, live performances, and digital broadcasts—most of which are being offered for free—will help keep you (and any youngsters) entertained while we all do our part to ensure that these trying times are one day behind us.

Where to find virtual museum tours

Moma, rijksmuseum, the louvre and more.

While major Paris museums such as the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay are closed until further notice due to the coronavirus outbreak, you can still virtually explore parts of these art institutions, and many others, thanks to Google Arts and Culture . The online platform provides digital tours of more than 2,000 museums and galleries around the world, among them New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, and London’s Tate Britain, all of which have temporarily closed to help halt the spread of the virus.

The platform’s featured collections for each museum vary, but most include digital exhibits (London’s National Gallery offers 10 separate Monet collections ), as well as a “street view” that lets you explore inside the institutions, so you can see paintings such da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery (currently shuttered), or Van Gogh’s The Starry Night at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which is also closed until further notice.

Some art institutions, such as the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and the San Diego Museum of Art also offer a few virtual tours of their own.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

In addition to online exhibit tours, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan is giving free public access to more than 200 art books from its digital archives (until the museum reopens). Available titles focus on a range of renowned artists from late 19th-/early 20th-century abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky to contemporary conceptual artist Jenny Holzer. Other books in the collection examine more general artistic movements, from American pop icons to the history of Italian art.

American Museum of Natural History

Similarly, New York City’s American Museum of Natural History is making its previously recorded tours of the museum halls available on Facebook Live every day at 2 p.m. (EST) throughout its closure. The virtual tours, which are led by museum guides, take viewers through collections in the museum’s Hall of African Mammals, Hall of the North American Forests, Hall of Meteorites, and more. A collection of the museum’s educational materials (for children and adults) has also been made available to the public for free; you can find scientific articles and videos on topics including climate change and human health, as well as science classes, games, and quizzes for kids, on the museum’s website .

Baltimore Museum of Art

The Baltimore Museum of Art is offering virtual gallery walks of several exhibitions currently installed as part of the museum’s year-long 2020 Vision initiative , which is dedicated to highlighting the works of female-identifying artists. Virtual tours of various museum exhibits are available on BMA’s website, including Baltimore-born artist SHAN Wallace’s exhibit, 410 , which the photographer describes as a love letter to the beauty, complexity, and resilience of her hometown.

Live performances and concerts to watch

Nightly met opera streams.

After canceling all performances through the remainder of its 2019–2020 season due to concerns around the coronavirus outbreak, New York City’s Metropolitan Opera announced that it would stream a performance from its archives for every night through the duration of the closure, starting Monday, March 16. The Nightly Met Opera Streams , which start at 7:30 p.m. (EST), pull from the renowned opera house’s award-winning Live in HD series, which includes encore presentations such as 19th-century French composer Georges Bizet’s Carmen . The recordings remain available to view for free on the Met Opera’s website until 6:30 p.m. (EST) the following day after they’re streamed.

92Y online archives

Another New York City arts institution, 92Y, has made its online archives —which contain hundreds of recordings of readings, concerts, and educational talks—free to the public during this time. On Wednesday, March 18, the cultural organization also livestreamed the last recital from its 2019/20 vocal series, featuring mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and pianist Myra Huang performing songs by Beethoven and Mahler. You can watch the free livestream online.

Broadway performances

Theater-streaming service BroadwayHD is offering a seven-day free trial (before a monthly or yearly subscription) so users can livestream full-length shows from Broadway, which will now remain dark in New York City through Labor Day, at least . The site has a hefty archive of Broadway performances with everything from Cats (1998) and Swan Lake (2015) to Sweeney Todd (1982).

New York City Ballet’s spring 2020 season

New York City Ballet (NYCB) is going digital for its now-canceled spring 2020 season by streaming recorded performances from its repertory every Tuesday and Friday at 8 p.m. (EST) through May. The virtual performances spotlight classic works filmed during recent seasons at the Lincoln Center, including classic ballets such as George Balanchine’s Apollo (filmed in January 2019). Each performance will be available on NYCB’s YouTube channel , Facebook , and homepage for 72 hours after it streams.

National Theatre Live at Home

Every Thursday at 2 p.m. (EST) through May, the United Kingdom’s National Theatre is streaming a different stage production from its archives as part of its “National Theatre Live” program, also called “National Theatre at Home.” The London institution’s online offerings have included popular British plays such as One Man, Two Guvnors (which features a Tony Award–winning performance by James Corden). Full-length plays are uploaded to the National Theatre’s YouTube channel each week and remain available for seven days after they air.

The Berlin Philharmonic, Paris Opera, and more

The Berlin Philharmonic, also temporarily closed to help contain the spread of the coronavirus, dropped the subscription fee to its online video streaming service, known as its Digital Concert Hall . The legendary German orchestra is currently offering archival performances to home audiences for free through April 30. Other major opera houses and concert halls around the world are similarly streaming free archival performances, among them the Paris Opera , London’s Wigmore Hall , Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera , and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra .

Where to stream TV shows and movies for free

This live TV streaming service is offering new users in the United States free access to more than 50 cable channels and 50,000 on-demand movies every night during “primetime hours,” from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. (EST). All you have to do is create a Sling TV account with your email and zip code—unlike most other free trials , you don’t have to enter payment details for access.

Amazon Prime Video (for kids)

Amazon has also lifted its Prime Video paywall for more than 40 children’s shows, including Amazon originals, such as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie , as well as popular PBS Kids series, such as Arthur .

Rent new theatrical releases at home

Even if you’ve already prepared a long list of TV shows and movies to stream during this time of social distancing, there might’ve been an upcoming movie release you were really hoping to see when it hit theaters. On Monday, March 16, Universal Pictures made a groundbreaking announcement : Due to coronavirus, the studio is making movies available at home on the same day as the films’ global theatrical releases, starting with DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour (which opened April 10 in the United States). The movies will be available for a 48-hour rental period on a variety of on-demand services such as iTunes and Google Play at a price of $20.

Free online dance parties and workouts

Virtual museum tours and movie marathons can help pass the time, but it’s important to stay healthy by moving your body, which proves more difficult for some from the confines of home. To blow off some steam and get your endorphins going, tune into a daily Instagram Live dance party hosted by Lady Gaga’s former backup dancer (follow him at @mkik808 ), or try these livestream workout classes and virtual dance parties.

Down Dog Yoga

The Down Dog iOS and Android app is offering its virtual workout classes (yoga, HIIT, and Barre) for free to new users until June 1. The fitness app is also extending completely free access for students and teachers (K-12 and college) and healthcare professionals until July 1.

“Dance Church Go!”

Dance Church is a free, biweekly fitness class that’s part aerobic workout, part virtual dance party. Led by Dance Church founder, Kate Wallich, and two other instructors, the “Dance Church Go!” livestreams take place every Wednesday at 8 p.m. (EST) and Sunday at 1 p.m. (EST) and often have up to 12,000 people in virtual attendance.

DJ D-Nice’s “Club Quarantine”

DJ D-Nice started his “Club Quarantine” Instagram Live dance parties with an eight-hour live DJ set on Wednesday, March 18. Within a few days, word about the livestream spread around the internet, and by that Saturday the live DJ session hosted over 100,000 viewers on Instagram Live. Previous attendees have included Rihanna, Drake, Jennifer Lopez, Ava DuVernay, Dave Chapelle, and Oprah Winfrey—even Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Mark Zuckerberg. Follow DJ D-Nice on Instagram ( @dnice ) for scheduling updates about his hugely popular nightly jams.

#BareFeetLIVE with PBS TV host Mickela Mallozzi

Mickela Mallozzi, professional dancer and Emmy Award–winning host of PBS’s Bare Feet TV series, offers a weekly #BareFeetLIVE at-home edition featuring interviews with musicians and dancers from around the world. Every Tuesday on Facebook Live and Thursday on Instagram Live —at 1 p.m. (EST) for both—you can tune in for real-time lessons on global dances including the Irish sean nos , a Haitian folk dance, and the Brazilian samba.

Quarantine cooking classes

Chef massimo bottura’s “kitchen quarantine”.

Another important aspect of staying healthy under quarantine is to prepare nutritious meals with the food you have available. Renowned Italian chef Massimo Bottura—the restauranteur behind the three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy—is offering up his culinary insights through daily cooking classes on Instagram Live for self-isolated viewers. During the English-language livestreams, which Bottura named “Kitchen Quarantine,” the chef demonstrates how he’s preparing his own dinners while under quarantine. Head to his Instagram ( @massimobottura ) to catch each livestream at 2:30 p.m. (EST); after he prepares his dinner, Bottura addresses recipe questions from tuned-in viewers.

“Quar Eye: Cooking Lessons in Quarantine” with Netflix’s Antoni Porowski

In mid-March, Antoni Porowski from Netflix’s Queer Eye launched a similar cooking tutorial series dubbed “Quar Eye: Cooking Lessons in Quarantine.” During the roughly 10-minute videos, which Porowski posts to his Instagram ( @antoni ) weekly, the Fab Five’s food guru teaches viewers how to prepare simple meals while staying at home in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The first episode, for example, shows Porowski making an omelette using canned foods and pantry staples, a dish he dubbed “The Keep Calm-lette” in the caption.

Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi’s “Baking Club”

Christina Tosi, founder of the popular bakery chain Milk Bar , hosts a “Baking Club” Instagram Live series on her personal account ( @christinatosi ) at 2 p.m. (EST) daily. The day before each livestream baking class, Tosi posts a “shopping list” of the ingredients you’ll need to whip up her sweet snacks, such as french toast muffins and oat cookie bars. (Most of the ingredients are staple pantry items that you might already have.) You can watch the step-by-step classes on Tosi’s IGTV after they air and also find the recipes on her website .

“Quarantine Quitchen” with Food Network’s Alton Brown

Food expert and TV personality Alton Brown is hosting live cooking classes on his YouTube channel every Tuesday at 7 p.m. (EST). The livestreams involve two series: “Pantry Raid,” which sees Brown outline recipes that use pantry staples for easy-to-make snacks such as onion dip. The other videos, “Quarantine Quitchen,” bring at-home viewers along with Brown and his wife as they livestream cooking escapades from their kitchen.

Free virtual art classes for adults

Moma’s free online art courses.

MoMA is offering a series of free online art courses for at-home audiences amid the coronavirus pandemic. The nine courses, which are available through the online learning platform Coursera, explore everything from photography and fashion to postwar abstract painting, as well as more general examinations of contemporary art. New sessions begin every four weeks and can be completed at your own pace.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by wendy macnaughton (@wendymac) on Mar 17, 2020 at 11:07am PDT

Daily drawing lessons for kids

New York Times bestselling illustrator and graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton is offering free, weekday drawing classes on Instagram Live through the rest of the school year. “The class is for kids of all ages, parents of kids, parents of parents, aunties/uncles, friends, and pets,” the artist shared on her Instagram ( @wendymac ) in an announcement post.

The livestreams air at 10 a.m. (PST) and last about 30 minutes—which is “long enough for parents to get a little work done or take a shower and take a couple deep breaths,” MacNaughton wrote. After each class, you can check out the #drawtogether hashtag, where MacNaughton has asked that participants post photos of their drawings so that everyone can check out one another’s work. The live drawing lessons are also uploaded to MacNaughton’s Youtube channel 24 hours after they air.

Educational courses for at-home kids

School closures across the nation due to the coronavirus mean millions of students and young children are out of classes and at home. Because of this, the educational company Scholastic launched a “Learn at Home” website that offers daily courses for students from pre-kindergarten to grade 9, providing online educational content such as virtual field trips, writing and research projects, and geography challenges. The website, which is accessible on any device that has internet, will remain free and open indefinitely.

This article originally appeared online on March 16, 2020; it was updated on April 29, 2020, to include current information.

>>Next: Puffins, Koalas, and Pandas: Wildlife Webcams to Watch During Quarantine

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20 World Online Museums You Can Visit For Free, Without Leaving your Place

From the MoMa to the Louvre, here are the 20 most beautiful online museums in the world that you can discover for free, without leaving your home. All you need is an internet connection

Museums online? What a great idea! Would you like to travel the world, visit museums and discover works of art, but never have the time to do it? This list is perfect for you. Read on to enter the 20 most spectacular museums in the world for free without leaving your home. All you need is an internet connection to spend your free time between artistic masterpieces and pieces of history, relaxing but without forgetting to continue learning new things every day.

1. The British Museum, London

The British Museum boasts one of the largest online museums in the world. The website gives you access to a huge collection of more than 8 million objects but also how they have been documented over the centuries. For instance, you could see the Phoenician panel of a sphinx in ivory.

2. The Louvre, Paris

This museum offers free online access to its important exhibits . For instance, some works from Michelangelo or the famous Egyptian Antiquities . What’s more, you can take a 360-degree tour and click what you find attractive to discover some additional information .

3. Vatican Museums, Rome

A collection of classical sculptures curated by the Popes over the centuries is available at the Vatican Museums . Don’t miss the chance to take a virtual tour of Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and of the other iconic exhibits.

4. The National Gallery of Art, Washington

If you can’t visit Washington D.C . and you’re really curious to discover this museum, use its virtual tours of galleries and exhibits . Moreover, you can also listen to audio and watch some video of past lectures .

5. Uffizi Gallery, Florence

High-quality pictures of some of the most attractive artistic works. You’ll have the chance to see the works of some famous italian artists such as Cimabue or Botticelli .

6. The Dalì Theatre Museum, Florida

This museum is located in  Saint Petersburg , Florida, and it is completely dedicated to the artwork of Salvador Dalí . It boasts several rooms and exhibits following each step of Dalí’s career . In addition, Dalì himself is buried there.

7. Nasa Museum, Virginia

You can visit the Langley Research Center in Virginia . There’s also an app for virtual tours, videos, reality experiences and stories to discover.

8. Prado Museum, Madrid

The artificial intelligence supplied by this website will offer you a huge collection divided following a specific timeline .

9. MoMa, New York

Discover the beautiful collection of this famous museum in New York by looking at their website. It will seem like you’re looking at some pics from your smartphone gallery .

10. The National Women’s History Museum, Virginia

This well-curated online exhibits, with its oral histories, is perfect if you want to discover women’s distinctive culture and history in the United States . As a matter of fact, its aim is to empower and inspire women.

11. South Tyrol Museum of Archeology, Bozen

The “ Iceman Database ” is now also available online! Whether you’re a little curious kid or someone who’s into archeology, discover every detail about the Iceman thanks to this website.

12. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Take a closer look of the beautiful exhibits in Milan , at the Pinacoteca di Brera . As a matter of fact, their HD pics will give you the chance to discover their interesting online collection made of 669 objects .

13. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thank to  The Met 360° Project , the virtual tour supplied by their website makes the experience so real that it will seem like you are there.

14. Hermitage St Petersburg

More than three million works  of the world culture are available at the online collection of the State Hermitage . For example, you can take a look of  The Winter Palace of Peter the Great, a unique monument from the 18th century.

15. Egyptian Museum, Turin

Christian Greco , the executive director, streams video tours  on Facebook where he explains the majestic collection of this museum.  Don’t miss this chance.

16. Guggenheim, Bilbao

Near the Nerviòn River , there’s a unique building made of steel and titanium . This is one of the world’s most distinctive museums. Thanks to a virtual tour you can discover a collection of postwar European and American painting and sculpture.

 17.  Rijks Museum, Amsterdam

80 galleries are available on the website of this museum. While exploring the Great Hall and beyond, you’ll get the chance to discover the most beautiful works by Dutch masters such as Vermeer , Rembrandt and others.

18. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

In the Gare d’Orsay , a hotel and railway in Paris , there’s this distinctive museum which is home to some of the most important French artists such as Monet and Cézanne . If you’re passionate about Impressionist works, here you’ll find a huge collection of masterpieces . Also, the virtual tour includes the history of the building .

19. Natural History Museum, London

The Natural History Museum’s collection is one of the most important ones in UK , since it’s always really attractive both for Londoners and tourists. Get lost in gallery spaces and in its long corridors, thanks to its virtual tour. In the entrance hall, tou’ll see the famous Dippy the dino .

20. J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

The Getty is one of the most famous art places on the west coast , with its long history of creative treasures . From Van Gogh’s Irises to neolithic clay figure . The virtual tour provides of very beautiful artworks . So, take a look on the internal gallery and discover all the information about the exhibition .

Don’t miss this chance of exploring the best online museums in the world, and learning directly from your couch. Stay comfortable, and don’t ever stop being curious about discovering new things!

Cover Photo: Vatican Museums in Rome, Photo by Chris Malinao Burgett on Unsplash

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Free Online Virtual Tours Of Landmarks And Museums

Most travel plans are on hold for a while during the coronavirus pandemic. To pass the time after working from home with the kids or for a fun digital happy hour with friends , take a vacation without ever leaving your couch. Numerous world-class destinations and man-made marvels offer virtual tours that you can take online while you are social distancing. The other benefit? It's free.

Taj Mahal (India)

A trip to India's majestic and romantic Taj Mahal is a major money investment. But the Google Arts & Culture app lets you wander all around the stunning structure, built by a 17th-century emperor as a monument and tomb for his beloved late wife. It's a great way to explore the intricacies of one of the most mesmerizing places on earth .

National Aquarium (Baltimore, Maryland)

The National Aquarium in Baltimore is one of the most visited tourist attractions in America , and can still be explored from home. Dodge the deadly teeth in Shark Alley, admire the breathtaking Tropical Rain Forest exhibit, or watch the dolphins and jellyfish bob and swim right on the aquarium's website.

Space Center Houston (Houston, Texas)

It's one small step for man, one giant leap for families looking for things to do at home . Download Space Center Houston's app and you can tour the facility to check out shuttle replicas and rockets, and even take a selfie with an astronaut-helmet filter.

Ellis Island (New York)

Many families began their American adventure when they arrived at New York's Ellis Island. The Ellis Island virtual tour by Scholastic lets visitors follow in those immigrants' footsteps, hear their stories, see their photos and learn about the many challenges they had to overcome in the process. This virtual journey could be a great way to cultivate family relationships while spending more time together in the house.

National Baseball Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, New York)

America's pastime is taking an unexpected seventh-inning stretch. While you may not be able to go to the actual filming location of "Field of Dreams," fans can take themselves out to the ballgame via the Google Arts & Culture virtual tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Examine vintage photos, signed baseballs, programs, posters, videos and more.

Museum of Flight (Seattle, Washington)

Fly high at Seattle's Museum of Flight. Virtual online tours let you explore such famed aircraft as the Concorde, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a NASA Space Shuttle Trainer, and the Air Force One plane from John F. Kennedy's presidency through photos, 360s and history lessons.

National Women’s History Museum (Virtual)

OK, so it might not be a landmark yet , but the House of Representatives voted to establish a comprehensive women's history museum on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall. While you wait for the brick-and-mortar location, you can explore online exhibits that cover trailblazing women in everything from athletics and suffrage to fashion and civil rights.

U.S. Capitol (Washington, DC)

The U.S. Capitol is a striking building that all history buffs should visit . An impressive online virtual tour lets visitors enjoy 360-degree views of the Capitol Rotunda, Library of Congress and more as if they were in Washington, D.C.

Palace of Versailles (France)

The Palace of Versailles in France is one of many enchanting castles around the world that you can actually visit — both in person and virtually. Homebodies looking to discover decadence can tour the grounds both on the landmark's website and through a Google Arts & Culture virtual tour that takes you into the famed Hall of Mirrors, the Royal Chapel and Coronation Chamber, and zooms in on specific artifacts in 3D.

Yosemite National Park (California)

The amazing natural wonders of Yosemite National Park can actually be experienced from anywhere. The virtual Yosemite online tour eliminates the crowds of tourists and offers sumptuous views of El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and more of the most beautiful places in the national park.

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China stretches thousands of miles across northern China and dates back as early as the third century B.C. With a virtual tour through travel agency The China Guide, you can zoom in and out, move from section to section and never wear out your shoes. An added bonus: Part of the wall is rumored to be haunted , so you don't have to worry about potential spooky sightings.

Acropolis (Greece)

The ancient Acropolis of Athens in Greece is a place everyone should check out in their lifetime , and an online tour gives modern tourists a rare peek back through the centuries. The technology uses high-resolution panoramic photography to highlight the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Propylaea and other stunning views, with helpful histories provided.

The White House (Washington, DC)

The White House, long home to the U.S. president, is the only private home of a head of state that's free and open to the public. The Google Arts & Culture virtual tour lets the curious explore the White House's elegant rooms, offices and artwork, as well as the manicured grounds . There's also a tour of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the castle-like building next to the White House that houses many staff offices.

National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)

Established in 1937, the National Gallery of Art is one of the largest museums in North America. The Google Arts & Culture virtual tour includes more than 46,000 artworks from the collection, covering everything from Rembrandt self-portraits to Mary Cassatt paintings.

Van Gogh Museum (Netherlands)

Sometimes you need a break from looking at weird happenings online and to just go with something classic. Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh is one of the most famous artists in history, and this museum hosts the world's largest collection of his artwork. The Google Arts & Culture virtual tour features his iconic self-portraits and sunflower art and also showcases lesser-known paintings inside the Netherlands landmark.

The Louvre (France)

Paris' spectacular Louvre museum, home to the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and many more art masterpieces, is likely on the international bucket list of many. The museum offers numerous virtual tours online, including a stroll through the marvelous Egyptian Antiquities collection. (Pro tip: the tour requires Flash.)

Pro Football Hall of Fame (Canton, Ohio)

With the election class of 2019, there are 326 members inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The Hall's website lets visitors search inductees who have endured it all by name, team, year of induction or even jersey number.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (Cleveland, Ohio)

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has been rocking Cleveland since 1995. On the website, you can type in the name of your favorite inducted musician or band to see photos, watch videos and read about why they hit all the right notes.

Vatican Museums (Vatican City)

Seeing the Vatican Museums is a travel experience that will change your life , with its wide array of treasures from the extensive collection of the Roman Catholic Church that includes sculptures and Renaissance paintings. The museum's online offerings include numerous 360-degree tours of the legendary Sistine Chapel, Raphael's Rooms, stunning frescoes and more.

New York Public Library, New York

Like museums, many public libraries have closed temporarily due to the coronavirus outbreak. Thankfully, the massive New York Public Library has digitized more than 880,000 items from its collections, ranging from old scrapbooks of New York City to a scanned group of vintage children's books. What better way to escape for a little while than inside the world's most stunning libraries ?

The best virtual tours to explore the world from home

Oct 8, 2020 • 5 min read

The Sistine Chapel is just one wonder offering a virtual museum tour ©Rajesh Gathwala/500px

We live in an age of unprecedented access to digital technology – and with it, brand new ways of exploring the world around us.

While it's not quite the same as seeing, say, the Mona Lisa or Christ the Redeemer in person, some of the world’s most popular and remote destinations have created libraries of online images and video, as well as 360 degree virtual tours that let you virtually explore museums, galleries, world wonders and even national parks.

Here a just a few of the best digital tours that let you wander the world from wherever you may be social distancing.

See the seven wonders of the world

If there’s anything capable of whetting your appetite for world travel, it is the new seven wonders of the world:  the Great Wall of China , the ancient city of Petra , the Taj Mahal , the Colosseum , Machu Picchu , Christ the Redeemer , and Chichen Itza . Thankfully there are impressive virtual tours of each from The New York Times , AirPano , Google , and Panoramas .

With modern technology, you can even see the last standing wonder of the ancient world— The Pyramids of Giza . There are a few other wonders that might not make it into to the top seven but are still worth a digital peek, like the Alhambra , Seville's La Giralda , and even Easter Island.

Best virtual museum tours

In recent years, Google has partnered with over 2,5000 art museums to upload high-resolution versions of millions of pieces of art. Highlights include New York’s MoMA , DC’s National Gallery of Art , Chicago’s Art Institute , the Casa Battl ó, and Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum to name a few.

In addition, The Louvre offers a virtual tour , as do The Vatican Museums , many of the Smithsonian Museums , the Russian Museum , the top-rated British Museum , the Minneapolis  Museum of Russian Art , and the Palace Museum in Beijing.

You may not be able to kiss the Blarney Stone right now, but you can tour the Blarney Castle from afar. You can also visit the Museum of Flight,  the Museum of Science, the Museum of Natural History,  the National Women's History Museum  and Boston's History of Science Museum .

While museums are often an inherently visual experience, there's a lot to be learned from archives of past lectures and tours like the ones preserved online by Nashville's Frist Museum , the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Smithsonian American Art Museum,  the Frick , and others.

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Explore national parks

While travel to National Parks is best avoided for the time being, you don't need to miss out on the scenery. Virtual Yosemite is absolutely stunning and one of the best, replete with audio. Both Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore offer virtual tours as well. 

Google has similar 360 degree audio-visual tours of five select national parks, including Kenai Fjords, Hawai'i Volcanos , Carlsbad Caverns, Bryce Canyon , and Dry Tortugas, as well as 31 more on Google Earth . You can also get an up-close look at almost 4,000 pieces of artwork, artifacts, and other treasures related to the history and culture of the national parks, and view online exhibits .

Digital safaris

Wildlife is a big draw for travelers, whether it's sighting some of the Big Five in Africa, glimpsing whales in North America, or introducing your children to new animals in person on a family safari . But if you're forays into the bush are grounded for now, many zoos and aquariums have created digital access to their habitats.

You can easily watch several live webcams of some of the nation’s greatest zoos and aquariums, including the  San Diego Zoo , Houston Zoo , Zoo Atlanta , the Tennessee Aquarium , and the Georgia Aquarium . Additionally you can see Canadian farm animals doing their thing , or you could watch Stella the Dog jump endlessly into huge piles of Maine leaves.

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Virtual hiking

Thanks to panoramic video, you can get a really good idea of what a hike looks like well before you arrive at the trailhead. For example, you can experience all of the following top-rated hikes right now from your computer or tablet:  Bryce Canyon , Grand Canyon , GR20 , Inca Trail , and the death-defying Angel's Landing . For even more great hikes, simply YouTube one of Lonely Planet’s top 10 treks or any other hike that suits your fancy. Bonus points if you follow along during a workout to enhance the realism.

Famous landmarks

You can visit many wonders of nature, including the Amazon Rainforest , Iguazu Falls , the Komodo Islands , or Table Mountain , using virtual tours. Or you can explore the Statue of Liberty , the Sahara Desert , Niagara Falls , or even a guided tour of the Eiffel Tower . For even more virtual tours, search your bucket list of adventures with  AirPano , Google Earth , or YouTube .

Travel to outer space

The moon hasn't made it to Lonely Planet's Best In Travel list (yet!), and even without self-isolation and shelter-in-place measures for COVID-19, many of us may never travel to space. But thanks to technology, now is as good of a time as any to do so virtually. Before blasting off, considering touring some of NASA’s offices first. Then relive the last lunar missions and moon walks in stunning HD. Or take a virtual tour of Mars with the help of Google. 

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This article was originally published March 2020 and was last updated October 2020.

This article was first published March 2020 and updated October 2020

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Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) museum - virtual tour

• Thread starter Silencer1
• Start date 1 April 2017

That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

• 1 April 2017

Here is the virtual tour to see the exhibition of MAI' museum. Lot of personnel' photos and memorabilia. No real aircraft, but a number of scale models and some curious projects. http://artstudio-3d.ru/www-77/mai/index.html Use the navigation arrows on the page' down edge. Some teasers:  

Attachments

ACCESS: USAP

Amazing find my dear Silencer, but who can ID them ?,and thanks.  

From left to right - Grach (Rook), Foton (Photon) and Semurg  

Thank you my dear Flateric.  

• 2 April 2017

As supplement to MAI museum - page of OSKBES (Design Bureau of an Experimental Aircraft Construction of Aircraft Constructing Faculty) of the same university. English and Russian versions available. Some historical background: http://www.oskbes.ru/about-h-e.html Flying machines (from aircraft to dirigibles, from UAVs to autogyros): http://www.oskbes.ru/prod-e.html Including Photon, testbed for wing boundary layer control.  

There were two various MAI aircrafts dubbed Photon. First one - an multipurpose general aviaton type based on several students projects under auspices of chief designer Badyagin - is on exibit at museum. corrected  

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Here's why you must visit the Gulag Museum in Moscow

Children who were once labeled "enemies of the people" are now advanced in their years, but they can still recall the most terrible moments of their lives, when people in uniforms came for their parents late at night - the last time they ever saw them. Today, a young woman watches these video interviews in a room at the Gulag Museum. She starts to cry. A group of high school students hang on the guide's every word, dismay written on their faces. It seems they find it difficult to imagine that in the 1930s kids their own age found themselves behind barbed wire. Meanwhile, a group of foreigners sit in the museum cafe, trying to digest what they have just seen and unable to say a word.

In a prisoner's shoes

The Gulag History Museum  used to be based in a tiny building, but it recently moved to new premises and, with its huge archive, it now has a home of its own. The designers tried to make it look like a prison camp: intimidating steel gates, brickwork, dim light and lots of sullen and drab black color. From the very first minute, a visitor is immersed in the atmosphere of the darkest side of Soviet power - the terrible years of the Great Terror and repressions.

In the first room, you're greeted by numerous doors – a door from a camp barracks, a door from a cell in a remand prison in Magadan, a door from one of the Seven Sisters buildings in Moscow, from where people were taken away forever – it is a metaphor of moving to another, terrible world .

In the execution chamber, the floor is strewn with empty casings, while portraits of the murdered are projected onto a brick wall, one replacing another to the sound of cocking the gun. Archival footage shows prisoners working at a logging camp. There are personal items, including those found in mass graves. Once you're surrounded by all this, it is difficult to recover.

A system of reprisals from 1917 to Stalin's death

The purpose of the museum is to trace not only the history of the camps themselves, but of the entire system of political repressions. In order to show how executions without trial and investigation became part of the legal practice of the USSR, the museum displays documents, NKVD resolutions and quotes from leaders of the Revolution .

The Soviet authorities believed that in order to build a new world, it was necessary to exterminate people who, in one way or another, allegedly sabotaged it. The list of these categories of people was forever expanding. “Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist dictatorship,” said one of the main ideologists of the revolution, Leon Trotsky .

The first political prisoners in the USSR were put into existing prisons and monasteries, from where monks were being expelled. A separate section of the exhibition is devoted to the Solovki Special-Purpose Camp, the first of its kind. Later, in the 1930s, during the years of the Great Terror, camps were built across the country and convict labor became one of the pillars of the Soviet economy.

For the first time, Gulag is presented through multimedia

The museum also offers audio versions of memoirs of people who went through the camps: the author of The Kolyma Tales , Varlam Shalamov; Alexander Solzhenitsyn (who has a separate room dedicated to his life); Leo Tolstoy’s daughter Alexandra; and many others .

An interactive map of the Gulag shows the chronology, location, number of prisoners and types of camps (corrective labor, special, screening and filtration) throughout the country. It is available online, so you can see it without visiting the museum - gulagmap.ru .

With the help of a VR helmet, you can take a virtual tour with museum director Roman Romanov around what remains of the Butugychag camp in the Russian Far East, where inmates worked in uranium mines without wearing any radiation protection. The museum plans to develop more virtual tours like this .

All information in the museum is translated into English; same as all the audio materials, and the videos have English subtitles. The museum has a documents center, where one can get information about victims of repressions.

In the last room, a voice on the speaker system reads out the names of people who were wrongfully convicted and killed. A young couple, holding hands and motionless, listen to the seemingly endless list. As part of the finale, there are horrifying figures displayed on the black wall: during the Great Terror, more than 20 million people were sent to prison camps; two million died there, and 700,000 were executed.

Watch Russia Beyond documentary: The memory of the Solovetsky islands  

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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