During the pandemic shutdowns, many museums innovated by offering virtual experiences to keep art accessible. With travel safety resumed, these online collections are worth revisiting for armchair exploration or trip planning inspiration. Relive 15 top virtual tours:
1. The Louvre (Paris, France)
Explore masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory without the crowds! Browse artifacts from various collections including Egyptian antiquities, Islamic art, Renaissance sculptures and more.
2. National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., US)
The National Gallery of Art has a large online collection zooming in on favorite works. Go room to room through their galleries of European paintings, illustrations, sculptures and special exhibitions. Currently, they offer an amazing virtual exhibition in honor of the Italian painter, Raphael.
To honor the 500th anniversary of his passing, the Gallery is showcasing an intimate exhibit of 26 prints and drawings by the master himself.
Through this interactive virtual tour, you can immerse yourself in each room like never before. Simply click on the colored dots around the space to dig deeper. Learn more about specific pieces from the wall text, check out related video clips, and so on. Click on the photo below to start the tour.
3. Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Dive into the vivid post-Impressionist world of Van Gogh without leaving home thanks to the Van Gogh Museum’s digital tours and lesson plans. Get up close to Sunflowers and his iconic self-portraits. If you are a Van Gogh fan as myself, this is an amazing experience as the museum offers so many mind-blowing things like 4K virtual tours, tutorials, stories, Van Gogh’s letter and famous quotes and even games for children! A true delight!
4. Guggenheim Museum (New York, US)
Explore modern and contemporary art in the unique spiral architecture of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Scroll through images or enjoy interactive virtual tours of special exhibitions and works by Picasso, Kandinsky and more.
5. British Museum (London, UK)
Over 4.5 million objects populate this vast encyclopedia of human cultural achievements. Dive into the exquisite British Museum online collection, from Egyptian mummies to Assyrian reliefs and total coverage of world history.
6. Uffizi Gallery (Florence, Italy)
Browse masterworks spanning medieval to Baroque eras in one of the world’s finest art collections from Raphael, Michelangelo, Botticelli and more. The Uffizi Gallery in Florence houses treasured works like the famed Birth of Venus by Botticelli, which is absolutely breathtaking! I couldn’t take my eyes off of this beautiful painting for hours.
Dive into the Uffizi Gallery‘s digitized exhibits and virtual tours to gaze upon Renaissance treasures normally seen in person crowding hallways. Zoom in on every exquisite detail as you flit between magisterial canvases, learning their histories directly from the museum educators’ online materials.
7. The Prado Museum (Madrid, Spain)
For a virtual stroll through one of Europe’s top art galleries, the Prado Museum shares its masterworks by Velázquez, Goya, Rubens and others to global viewers online.
8. National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, South Korea)
Exploring over 10 separate digitized exhibitions, the Korean museum spotlights the nation’s contemporary art traditions with online access to pieces by Nam June Paik, Lee Ufan and many more innovative artists.
9. National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City, Mexico)
Immerse yourself in Mexican culture at this virtual museum, exploring Pre-Columbian artifacts, colonial art and exhibits covering the country’s indigenous people.
10. National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia)
From Aboriginal art to European masters, the National Gallery of Victoria boasts a virtual tour of its collection highlights, online exhibitions and educational resources for all ages.
