Free Virtual Tours and Other Entertainment

  • Alvin Ailey Dance Company All Access allows users to watch performances, learn more about the troupe’s dancers, and take online dance classes.
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber’sYouTube channel will air one musical every Friday starting April 3, 2020. It will remain up for 48 hours. First up: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond.
  • The Art Institute of Chicago’s collection is searchable online and includes additional information for each artwork.
  • Austin City Limits, the PBS series featuring live music from today’s most celebrated artists, has made its last three seasons available for streaming. Watch Billie Eilish, Willie Nelson, Khalid, and Buddy Guy. Search for your favorites or discover new acts.
  • The British Museum has an interactive timeline. Just pick a date and learn more about the thousands of artifacts that make up their collection.
  • Brookfield Zoo’s Bringing the Zoo to You, the Brookfield Zoo’s YouTube channel, has a variety of videos featuring their animals, including the Bringing the Zoo to You series. Learn about armored animals or camouflaged snakes while on your couch.
  • Coupon Follow recently published an article of Virtual COVID-19 Friendly Field Trips Around the World. The list includes Museums, Zoos, Aquariums, Farms, Historical Locations, Parks and Nature Locations around the world. There’s even an option to explore outer space!
  • Experience the Field Museum at Home and watch videos, play games, chat with a dinosaur, or print off field guides while you take walks (leaving six feet between others, please). Plenty of teacher resources are also included.
  • Architecture lovers can virtually tour historic Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. A new tour is added each week.
  • Free Streaming Opera lists more than 30 worldwide opera companies streaming free performances.
  • Ken Burns Baseball, the Ken Burns PBS nine-part series on America’s pastime, is available for streaming.
  • The Metropolitan Museum Digital Digest offers a webpage amazing online resources for first-time visitors to The Met, arguably the most famous New York City museum. Browse through books, listen to audio tours, and visit resources for kids.
  • The Metropolitan Opera will live stream an opera each evening at 6:30 pm central time. The recording will stay on their homepage for 20 hours.
  • The Monterey Bay Aquarium Live Cams highlight penguins, sea otters, and sharks.
  • The Museum of Modern Art is offering free courses on Coursera.
  • Museum of Science and Industry Science at Home includes experiments, games, and videos for kids and families, compiled by the museum staff.
  • The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has a variety of online resources, including family activities and recorded lectures.
  • National Theatre at Home will air a play on YouTube each Thursday starting on April 2. The play will be available to stream for one week. The next three plays will be Twelfth Night, Frankenstein, and Antony & Cleopatra.
  • The Newberry Library is recruiting volunteers to transcribe their digital collections.
  • Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art Collection Spotlight showcases its collection, including paintings, photographs, and sculptures.
  • Palace of Versailles Virtual Tour lets you tour Louis XIV’s home from your computer.
  • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland has opened up its archive of induction class concerts. It has also created playlists for you to listen to while you work from home.
  • The Stratford Festival will post a film version of a Shakespeare play every Thursday. Each film will be available for three weeks and includes education materials.
  • The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Museum Resources, E-Learning, and Online Collections curated by the Museum Computer Network, includes archives and libraries, virtual tours, art collections, and resources for kids.

Other Museums

  • The Louvre:You don’t have to book a ticket to Paris to check out some of the famous pieces in the world’s largest art museum. The Louvre has free online tours of three famous exhibits, including Egyptian Antiquities.
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum:The works of Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian,Jeff Koons, and Franz Marc are just some of the 625 artists whose work are a part of the Guggenheim’s Collection Online.
  • Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History:Move at your own pace through the 360-degree room-by-room tour of every exhibit in the museum.
  • Van Gogh Museum:You can get up close and personal with the impressionist painter’s most famous work thanks to Google Arts & Culture.
  • Getty Museum:Los Angeles’s premiere gallery has two virtual tours, including “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry,” which is a closer look at food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
  • The Vatican Museum:The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Raphael’s Room, are just some of the sites you can see on the Vatican’s virtual tour.
  • Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum:Madrid’s must-see art museum has the works of some of the continent’s most celebrated artists like Rembrandt and Dali available online.
  • Georgia O’Keeffe Museum:Six virtual exhibits are available online from this museum named for the “Mother of American modernism.”
  • National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City:Dive into the pre-Hispanic history of Mexico with 23 exhibit rooms full of Mayan artifacts.
  • British Museum, London:The Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies are just a couple of things that you’re able to see on a virtual tour of the museum.
  • NASA:Both Virginia’s Langley Research Center and Ohio’s Glenn Research Center offer online tours for free. Also, you can try some “augmented reality experiences” via The Space Center Houston’s app.
  • National Women’s History Museum:Have a late International Women’s Day celebration with online exhibits and oral histories from the Virginia museum.
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art:Though the Met Gala was cancelled this year, you can still have a peak at the The Costume Institute Conversation Lab, which is one of the institution’s 26 online exhibits.
  • High Museum of Art, Atlanta:This museum’s popular online exhibits include“Civil Rights Photography” — photos that capture moments of social protest like the Freedom Rides and Rosa Park’s arrest.
  • Detroit Institute of Arts:Mexican art icon Frida Kahlo is the focal point of two of the four available online exhibits.
  • Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam:The Golden Age of Dutch art is highlighted in this museum which includes the work of Vermeer and Rembrandt.
  • National Museum of the United States Air Force:You can’t take a ride in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential airplane, but you can check it out, in addition to other military weapons and aircraft, online in the Air Force’s official museum.
  • MoMA(The Museum of Modern Art): New York’s extensive collection is available for view online.
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:The 16 virtual exhibits include a special section on 21st Century Designer Fashion.

Zoos and Aquariums

  • The Cincinnati Zoo:Check in around 3 p.m., because that’s the time the Zoo holds a daily Home Safari on its Facebook Live Feed.
  • Atlanta Zoo:The Georgia zoo keeps a “Panda Cam” livestream on its website.
  • Georgia Aquarium:Sea-dwellers like African penguins and Beluga Whales are the stars of this aquarium’s live cam.
  • Houston Zoo:There are plenty of different animals you can check in on with this zoo’s live cam, but we highly recommend watching the playful elephants.
  • The Shedd Aquarium:This Chicago aquarium shares some pretty adorable behind-the-scenes footage of their residents on Facebook.
  • San Diego Zoo:With what may be the most live cam options, this zoo lets you switch between koalas, polar bears, and tigers in one sitting.
  • Monterey Bay Aquarium:It can be Shark Week every week thanks to live online footage of Monterey Bay’s Habitat exhibit.
  • National Aquarium:Walk through tropical waters to the icy tundra in this floor-by-floor tour of the famous, Baltimore-based aquarium.

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