65 Virtual Field Trips for Kids of all Ages
Virtual tours, virtual visits, and virtual experiences are extraordinary and the perfect substitute when the real thing is temporarily out of reach. Take the opportunity to learn new places and take a free virtual tour or a free virtual field trip and have a free virtual experience.
WHAT IS A VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP?
Virtual field trips are an awesome way to teach your children and family through learning experiences because everyone has the opportunity to get out of a classroom and is able to experience an immersive environment. On a virtual field trip, families and children are able to open a window to explore just about anything outside. Simply observe virtually and experience amazing places from your home. Sometimes these virtual field trips even offer educational information or activities as well!
Amazing Places You Can Visit Without Leaving Home
Free virtual tours for kids and families whether it be free virtual museum tours, free zoo tours, free virtual aquarium visits, or virtual museum tours for students or virtual art museum tours— this list has it all! Take your children and families on under the sea virtual field trips, virtual field trips to the zoo, or simply head out on a mars virtual field trip or a virtual field trip to the international space station.
This list of Amazing Places You Can Visit Without Leaving Home includes 18 free virtual museum tours, 6 free adventure virtual tours, 5 free Virtual Outer Space Tours, 10 free world heritage virtual tours, 5 free virtual aquarium tours, 10 free zoo tours, and free wildlife tours, 5 free virtual theatre & performing arts tours and 6 free national parks virtual field trips.
18 FREE VIRTUAL MUSEUM TOURS
The Louvre
The hallowed halls of the Louvre is a great place to visit virtually. One of the best exhibits to explore is the remains of the moat from the original Louvre fortress and naturally the Mona Lisa. Don’t forget to head to the ancient worlds or head to the Egyptian wing. SO much to see at The Louvre.
Check out all the museum's virtual tours here and here.
The Museum of Modern Art
Check out the in-depth online galleries and take advantage of the ability to zoom way in on the likes of Georges Seurat's The Channel at Gravelines, Evening or Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Don’t forget to check out the newest exhibit of Sophie Taeuber-Arp too.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
One of the most visited museums, the National Museum of Natural History offers a wonderful range of exhibits that are now available in an online virtual tour. Click through the Hall of Mammals, Insect Zoo, Egyptian exhibit, Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals! There is so much to see here too!
The British Museum
Home to no fewer than 8,000,000 works, the British Museum's collection is one of the world's largest and finest. Check out individual pieces and play the audio to learn more and search for related works.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
Van Gogh Museum
Explore the largest collection of Vincent Van Gogh’s work with Google. Get up close with each of his masterpieces. To explore the museum, click on a painting, then click on view in street view.
The Field Museum
The Field Museum has opened its collection to the public online to view photos of animals and insects, fossils and meteorites and more!
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum
The Air and Space Museum has the ability to take everyone to the skies and outer space. It is a delight to visit this virtual tour that enables everyone to see a rocket means of transportation.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
Guggenheim Museum
Google’s Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase without ever leaving your chair. Discover incredible works of art from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary eras.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
National Gallery of Art
This American Art Museum offers 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
Virtually walk through the Musee d’Orsay gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Be sure to take a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, and various others.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
Korea’s most popular museums can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Google’s virtual tour takes you through six floors of Contemporary art from Korea.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
Pergamon Museum
Germany’s largest museums, Pergamon offer so much virtually. This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the Pergamon Altar.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
Rijksmuseum
Explore the masterworks from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Wander the halls with Google and the Street View tour of this iconic museum.
Van Gogh Museum
Vincent Van Gogh’s largest collection in one location. VIrtually visit over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
The J. Paul Getty Museum
Visit this California art museum. Take a Street View tour to discover a huge collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
Uffizi Gallery
de’Medicis were great collectors of the arts and this world owes this family a huge thanks. Florence, Italy’s houses from Cosimo I de'Medici.
MASP
Museu de Arte de São Paulo is Brazil’s first modern museum. Take a virtual tour to experience the wondrous displays that look like they are floating.
Check out the museum's full virtual tour here.
National Museum of Anthropology
This anthropology museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 23 exhibit rooms filled with ancient artifacts.
6 FREE ADVENTURE VIRTUAL TOURS
Northern Lights
The traditional version of a Northern Lights tour is not something everyone is able to experience. But one advantage of watching from home is the ability to cut straight to nature’s most amazing light show. And late winter into early spring happens to be among the best times to be tuning in.
The Great Wall of China
Of the Great Wall's 4,000 total miles, 3,000 or so are walkable. I have had the opportunity to walk the Great Wall of China myself, but if you don’t, do so virtually.
Check out the whole tour here.
Deep Dives
If you don’t want to get in a wetsuit, visit virtually. Gear free, license-free and ocean free. Explore virtual dives through National Marine Sanctuaries around American Samoa, the Florida Keys or various other spots.
Statue of Liberty
Take the Virtual Tour of the Statue of Liberty at Ellis Island. This unique experience will enable a global audience with equal and unprecedented access to one of the world's best-known symbols of the United States of America: The statue of Liberty.
Check out the Virtual Liberty Statue here.
Virtual Coral Reef Field Trip
Take a trip to the Bahamas to view the coral reefs. You’ll find various videos as well as a teacher’s guide to learn about coral reefs and their importance to the Bahamian people.
Pyramids
Begin an online journey to the pyramids of Egypt. The National Museums Scotland has an Egyptian Tomb Adventure. PBS NOVA has another Online Pyramid Adventure. Discovering Ancient Egypt has The Pyramids & Temples of Egypt. National Geographic lets everyone Explore the Pyramids. KingTutOne.com has an online resource center for ancient Egyptian content.
5 FREE Virtual Outer Space Tours
Mars
NASA has teamed up with Google to create an interactive Mars virtual tour using the data collected from the Mars Curiosity Rover launched in 2011. Learn about the Curiosity mission, click around the terrain to move the Rover across the surface, and travel to different mission sites.
International Space Station
NASA has provided videos to tour the ISS with the astronauts on board.
Planets
3D interactive tours of several our space destinations including Saturn, Jupiter, the International Space Station, Neptune and Triton, and more
Check out all the planets here.
Sun
Take a virtual tour from the Earth to the Sun with stops at our moon, Venus, and Mercury. Bring something cold to drink it’s going to get pretty hot where we’re going.
Johnson Space Center
Blast off to the Johnson Space Center with the Innovating the Future virtual field trip. Join Boeing and Discovery Education on a mission to inspire the world through aerospace innovation with an exclusive virtual field trip to historic Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
10 FREE WORLD HERITAGE VIRTUAL TOURS
Niagra Falls
Visit Niagra Fall through different virtual tours that will allow the viewer to see this amazing world wonder from a variety of angles.
Vatican
The Vatican Museum features virtual tours. This is another one not to be missed! The best is perhaps the Sistine Chapel, which consists of various videos, a 360 tour and detail photos with in-depth descriptions of the artwork.
The Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is one of the most lavish and romantic architectural tributes on earth. You'll see how the marble exterior seems to change color throughout the day, from early-morning pinks to dusky blues, while the persistent thrum of tour groups makes the scene that much more realistic. This World Heritage Site attracts as many as eight million visitors a year.
The Palace of Versailles
This virtual tour will help if you can’t visit in person. Escape to the gilded palace of Versailles, home to French King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette before the revolution. Explore their extravagant bed chambers, the Hall of Mirrors, the pastel ceiling of the Royal Opera House and follow the gravel paths of the renowned royal gardens.
Buckingham Palace
Explore this magnificent building on a virtual tour. The first tour will take you to the Grand Staircase. Click on the small images below to access further tours of the White Drawing Room, the Throne Room, and the Blue Drawing Room.
Check out Buckingham Palace here.
Paris Catacombs Virtual Tour
The Catacombs is Paris' Empire of Death and consists of a 200-mile honeycomb of tunnels. The system is so enormous that no one knows exactly how many tunnels or chambers exist. During WWII, the French Resistance used the tunnels. This virtual tour gets you even closer
Check out the virtual Catacombs tour here.
Great Barrier Reef
Dive into the largest coral reef and explore the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The Great Barrier Reef collection was part of the first group of underwater panoramic images added to Google Maps.
Check out the Great Barrier Reef here.
Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope, in Vatican City. I have been here in person and it is absolutely stunning!
Eiffel Tower Virtual Tour
The Eiffel Tower is Paris' iconic landmark. It was built for the World Fair in 1889 in record construction time and considered an engineering marvel at the time. Visit the tower virtually. On the Google Arts & Culture virtual tour, you can enjoy the view from the top over the Champs de Mar and learn about the history of the Eiffel Tower.
Check out the virtual tour here.
Machu Picchu
The ruins of Machu Picchu continue to reveal the mysteries of the Inca Empire in the Andes Mountains.. This archaeological site draws scores of visitors to Peru annually.
5 FREE VIRTUAL AQUARIUM TOURS
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Aquarium have several live-streamed exhibits. Be sure to watch the sea otters.Don’t forget the aquarium’s famed Kelp Forest or Moon Jellies either.
Check out all the aquarium's cams here.
Georgia Aquarium
Georgia Aquarium has compiled a myriad of resources to help you and your little ones learn about our animals and the ocean from afar. From live streams to lesson plans, they have it all covered.
Clearwater Marine Aquarium
Clearwater Marine Aquarium has educational activities to do from home. Take a virtual field trip and complete a fun activity with Clearwater Marine Aquarium every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to learn more about marine life and explore our local environment!
Check out the Clearwater Marine Aquarium here.
National Aquarium
The National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland has cameras placed in three exhibits: Blacktip Reef featuring blacktip sharks, rays, and colorful fish. Jellies Invasion features jellyfish; and Pacific Coral Reef.
Check out the virtual tour of the National Aquarium here.
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is not just an aquarium. The San Francisco facility is also a natural history museum with a rainforest exhibit and planetarium. There are a few webcams that enable the user to visit right from home. Visit penguins, stingrays, a coral reef, and even take control of a camera at the top of a lighthouse on the nearby Farallon Islands. The site also has lesson plans and materials for kids from preschool through high school.
Check out the virtual tours California Academy of Sciences here.
Ocean School
Ocean School is a free, innovative inquiry-based learning experience. At Ocean School, learners explore habitats at the bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence with virtual reality. They strike a pose with a life-sized augmented reality whale, and dissect virtual cod! Through stunning original animation, they learn about the history of cod through the eyes of an Indigenous artist. 360° videos transport them to places they could never go—diving in a kelp forest or hiking on a tropical island 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica.
Check out all that Ocean School offers here.
SeaWorld Teacher’s Guides
Teacher's Guides have been developed at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens to help you teach your students - in an active, hands-on way - about how people interact with the environment and how we can best care for Earth's resources. Each guide includes goals and objectives, information, vocabulary, a bibliography, and classroom activities. Activities strive to integrate science, mathematics, geography, art, and language.
MUSIC
Berlin Philharmonic
The legendary Berlin Philharmonic is essentially playing house concerts with no door charge. Listen to hundreds of performances from your sofa.
10 FREE ZOOS TOURS & FREE WILDLIFE TOURS
San Diego Zoo
San Diego Zoo has more than 3,500 animals in residence. Virtually watch a number of its animals. Koalas and penguins and a new baby orangutan of the Lost Forest — all are live streaming. Panda cam too!
Check out all the zoo's cams here.
Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Check out the famous pandas and other animals through live webcams, learn about wildlife careers, and take a tour to learn about the animals that call this zoo home.
Check out all the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, Washington D.C. here.
Edinburgh Zoo
Set in over 82 acres of wooded hillside, Edinburgh Zoo is home to over 1,000 rare and endangered animals. We want our visitors to have an unforgettable day out, so please browse the pages below in order to make the most of your visit.
Melbourne Zoo
Live stream cameras from Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary, and Werribee Open Range Zoo, so you can enjoy the zoo from anywhere.
Discovery Education
Discovery Education has teamed up with Polar Bears International to host a series of shared learning experiences to engage students and inspire their interest in studying the science of polar bears and their Arctic habitat.
Check out the Polar Bears here.
Cotswold Wildlife Park
Live webcams give you your very own window into the Cotswold Wildlife Park. Watch the lively Humboldt Penguins go about their day and see the Meerkats as they play and take turns at sentry duty.
Check out the Cotswold Wildlife Park here.
African Wildlife Live
See all kinds of African animals, both day and night with these live cams located within a variety of different locations across Africa.
Check out the African Wildlife Cams here.
SafariLive
SafariLive tracks lions, leopards, and hyenas as well as herds of wildebeest and elephants, all while expert rangers explain what you're seeing.
Explore Org
Explore.org has numerous live streams from all over the world that you can choose from. There are virtual visits to view the outside of a zoo, aquarium, or farm setting. Some of these also have great audio.
Check out the Explore Org LiveCams here.
Cumbria Wildlife
Cumbria Wildlife shows virtual webcams of a few different animals. There is a camera pointed at the bird feeders at Plumgarths Wildlife Garden, Grey Seals at the South Walney Nature Preserve, a Badger cam from Rydel, Ambleside, and an Osprey cam from Foulshaw Moss Nature Preserve.
Check out the Cumbria Wildlife here.
National Wildlife Federation Lesson Plans
The lesson plans presented here are a sampling from the National Wildlife Federation's collection of more than 1,000 lesson plans designed to introduce students to life science, ecology, wildlife biology, scientific identification, and observation. All lesson plans are aligned with the National Science Education Standards.
Check out the National Wildlife Federation Lesson Plans here.
5 FREE VIRTUAL THEATRE & PERFORMING ARTS
National Theatre
National Theatre has the largest archive of recordings of any theatre in the world, and it will be streaming past performances from the vaults for free on its YouTube channel.
Find out more about the National Theatre at Home here.
Vienna State Opera
The Wiener Staatsoper is now streaming recorded operas and ballets.
Sydney Opera House
Accompanied by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, cellist Benjamin Schwartz and soprano Nicole Car take everyone through a day.
Check out the whole tour here.
Australian Ballet
Australian Ballet is streaming full-length performances. Ballet At Home with Ballet TV digital season with premium-quality productions right to your couch for free. They have hand-picked a selection of their most beloved and inspiring ballets, and each will have a limited two-week season on their streaming platform, Ballet TV.
Check our At Home With Ballet TV here.
Metropolitan Opera House
The Metropolitan Opera House will stream Live in HD series through its website. The daily stream begins at 7:30 pm and will be available for 20 hours which will feature various operas.
6 FREE NATIONAL PARKS VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
Volcanoes National Park
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island is one of the most unforgettable and is hosting this ranger-led tour.
Check out the whole Volcanoes National Park visit here.
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone was the first national park in the US, established in 1872. Yellowstone remains an absolute jewel, sprawling across parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and featuring some almost alien geological and hydrothermal landscapes.
Yosemite National Park
California's Yosemite National Park contains a little bit of everything inside its 1,200 square miles: rugged peaks, scenic valleys, massive sequoias, and an abundance of wildlife and plant species.
Check out the virtual tour here.
Grand Canyon
Take a virtual hike into Grand Canyon or a virtual raft trip through the Grand Canyon. Also, be able to discover ancient places within Grand Canyon where people lived long ago through an Archeology Virtual Tour. Learn about the Grand Canyon through virtual tours, interactive programs, history, archaeology, and more.
Check out the Grand Canyon here.
Bryce Canyon
Bryce Canyon is hosting ranger-guided tour -- one of several created by the Park Service -- that takes you into the canyon, providing behind-the-scenes clips throughout the journey.
Check out the virtual Bryce visit here.
Glacier National Park
Visit Glacier virtually with the park's webcams! Webcams are located throughout the park to provide views of the vast diversity of landscapes found in Glacier. If you are planning a trip to Glacier you might enjoy these resources, the visitor’s guide, and the ranger-led activity guides.
Check out the virtual glacier tours here.