How to Take a Virtual Vacation- The Ultimate Guide

Are you wondering how to take a virtual vacation?

This guide will help you plan a virtual vacation in 5 easy steps, plus give you links to some of the best places you can visit virtually.

For the last two months my kids and I have taken a virtual trip every week to give us something fun to do while we are stuck at home.

How do I travel virtually?

With the use of virtual tour software or Google Street View, tour videos and 360° tour videos of popular attractions (and rides and shows) and some fun at-home activities related to the destination we visit.

With a bit of creativity, it’s easy to make virtual field trips and tours more interactive and fun.

Whether you’re planning a virtual vacation day for yourself or looking for ideas for virtual vacations for families, these tips will help you turn a virtual tour into a virtual vacation day.

What Is A Virtual Vacation

A virtual vacation is a staycation that involves touring some new places or old favorites through a computer, tablet, or other device.

You can do this through virtual tour software on a website, through Google Street View, by watching attraction and tour videos, by using virtual reality vacation software on a VR headset, or a combination of all of the above.

What is a virtual tour?

A virtual tour is a sequence of 360° pictures of a destination, that you can navigate as if you are actually walking around.

How does a virtual tour work?

Virtual tours allow visitors to navigate around an area by clicking on arrows or locations on the image or using arrows on a keyboard. For each virtual step you take, you can look around at the area from all angles and often zoom in on things.

While these tours are just taking you from one 360° picture to the next, they are done in a sequence that makes it feel as if you are really walking through the area.

What’s a video tour?

A video tour is just a video someone films while walking through a destination. Usually you can only see the destination from one angle, though there are now 360° video tours.

Some may be guided tours, telling you all about the things the video is showing you. Some only have background noise or play background music.

What are virtual reality vacations?

Virtual reality vacations are a step up from the above options. Instead of just staring at your screen, you use a VR headset to tour the destination in 3D. If you are interested in learning more you can read about the Kayak virtual vacation software.

What is National Virtual Vacation day?

National Virtual Vacation day was founded in 2016 by Terrance Talks Travel and occurs annually on March 30^th.

What is the purpose of a virtual tour?

While virtual tours are great for taking a virtual vacation when you can’t go to the real destination, they are also often used to help plan a vacation. They can help you chose the best destination or help you prepare for your trip.

Why take a virtual vacation?

Even if you aren’t planning on visiting a destination in real life, taking a virtual vacation can be fun and relaxing. While you may miss out on being able to do some of the things you could do if you visited a destination in real life, you still get to explore a new place and see new things.

These virtual vacations, with some other added activities, can also be a great way to spend some family time with your kids.

How To Plan a Virtual Vacation

Taking a virtual vacation involves more than just taking a virtual walk through a destination.

Would you go to Disney World just to walk through the park and look around, without going on any rides?

To make a virtual vacation out of a virtual tour, you need to add some videos of rides and shows, live camera feeds of animals, or other online resources and plan some related at-home activities.

Here are the 5 steps to follow to plan a complete virtual vacation day.

1. Find A Virtual Tour

There are hundreds of tourist destinations that have virtual tours, many through Google Street View.

To check if a destination has a Google Street View tour find it on Google Maps. Then zoom in and pick up the Pegman icon (the yellow icon that looks like a person on the bottom right in Google maps) and drag it over to the destination.

If there is a Street View tour for the destination the roads and walkways inside the location will turn blue and you will be able to drop the Pegman icon on them to switch to Street View mode.

If you haven’t used Google Street View before, check out this article to learn how to navigate.

While there are many places you can tour virtually with Google Street View, not all tourist attractions have this option. Some museums and other destinations do use other virtual tour software that is similar though. Check the destinations website to see if they have one.

As a last resort, if you are not able to find a virtual tour, you can always look for a video tour on YouTube. Just search for your destination and add the terms “walkthrough tour”, “walkthrough” or “walking tour”.

2. Plan Your Walkthrough Route

Since you are going to be adding other online resources or activities to your virtual trip, you will want to plan out the route you will be walking through the destination. This will help you keep all the links organized.

Use Google Docs or Microsoft Word to create a virtual tour plan.

If you are using Google Street View find a good starting point for your destination on Google Maps, like the entrance, to drop the Pegman icon on to begin your tour. Then, copy the link to the Google Street View webpage and past it in your virtual vacation plan.

Just like if you were visiting the place in real life, it’s a lot easier to navigate your way around when you have a map to refer to. Check the destinations website to see if they have one you can view or download.

Using the destinations map, plan out your walking route and write the name of each area/exhibit/attraction you will be visiting in the order you will visit them in your plan. If you are using a video tour, write out the order it shows you the attractions in.

3. Add the Attraction Video’s

Once you have your walking route planned, you can start looking for attractions for each area.

If you’re visiting an amusement park look through their website to see what rides they have, and if they have any parades or shows you may want to watch. Write the names of each attraction you want to see in your plan under the area it is in.

Then go to YouTube and search the name of each ride with the term “POV” (point of view) and the name of each show to find videos of the attractions and entertainment.

Once you find a video add it to your virtual tour plan by copying the URL and pasting it under the area/attraction it is in on your Google Docs/Word document.

This will make it easy for you to quickly find the links when you get to each ride/attraction/exhibit on your virtual vacation day.

For museums, aquariums, and zoo’s check their website to see if there are any educational pages to read during your virtual field trip. For zoos and aquariums look for live cameras of the animals. You can also check YouTube for any shows and educational videos from destinations.

4. At-Home Activities

To make this virtual trip for kids more interactive, add in some at-home activities for them to do too.

Check the destinations website to see if they have any activities you can do at home or even online games. Some museums and zoos will have coloring pages and other printable activities for kids, or articles offering instructions for activities.

Pinterest can also be a great resource for finding crafts and activities related to your destination.

For more ideas for how to come up with at-home activities for kids for different types of destinations read about Making Virtual Tours for Kids Interactive and 50+ Virtual Field Trip Amusement Park Links (+ Activity Ideas).

5. Meal Planning

Of course, you can’t forget about the food.

To get the full experience of a destination, look at their menus online and chose something you can make at home to eat during your virtual vacation.

Or, if you want a vacation from cooking too, find somewhere local that delivers and has food similar to what’s on your destination’s website.

Complete Virtual Tour Plans

If you want to take a complete virtual vacation without doing all the prep work, the virtual vacation tour guides below have everything planned out for you.

Each guide includes links to resources you can use to make the trips more interactive and fun for kids, as well as links for Google Street View starting points and directions for following the walking route.

Check back to see more soon.

Virtual Vacation Destination Links

Free Virtual Vacations for Families

Need some ideas for fun destinations for family virtual vacations?

Here is a list of some of the best virtual vacations you can take with kids through Google Street View.

The Best Virtual Vacations for Students

Looking for something more educational for your kids or students?

Here are some educational destinations that you can visit virtually.

United States National Parks (through Google Earth)
The White house
Mount Rushmore
The International Space Station
The Adler Planetarium
San Diego Zoo

Best Virtual Museum Tours

Want to enjoy a virtual museum tour by yourself?

There are over 3000 results listed for museums you can tour virtually on Google’s Museum Views webpage.

Here are a few of them.

I hope these tips and virtual tour ideas help you with how to plan a virtual vacation to the destination you choose too.

If you have any suggestions for other destinations that would be great for taking a virtual vacation, let me know in the comments.