Here's how to virtually explore US national parks
We’ve learnt a lot of things during the coronavirus lockdown, one of which being how much we took for granted.
Millions of people have had to cancel their travel plans in order to stop the spread of COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean you can’t virtually explore these places.
Sure, it’s not the same as being there, but these little snippets of our favourite places might offer us a bit of light relief in difficult times.
With travelling out of the question for now, people are turning to the internet to virtually travel around their bucket list locations.
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Virtual travel is on the up, with many tourist attractions forced to close to visitors, said places are bringing the attraction to us.
Free webcams tours and websites have allowed us to glimpse at the world from our sofas and we’re all grateful for the distraction.
We like to see it as a look around the places we plan to visit one day so we can get our adventure planning hats on ready for when lockdown is over.
One of the apps on our must-download list is Google Arts & Culture. The app is helping us to travel around five different US national parks without leaving our homes.
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The five national parks available for a snoop around are: Alaska’s Kenai Fjords, Hawaii’s Volcanoes, New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns, Utah’s Bryce Canyon and Florida’s Dry Tortugas.
Each of the parks is presented to us by a local ranger who guides us through the beautiful areas. They also talk through a range of artefacts that are usually available to look at in the national park museums, to add to the overall experience.
If you fancy taking a look at Bryce Canyon, for example, you can admire views across the canyon either at night or in the day.
With Bryce Canyon being home to one of the darkest skies in North America, you can even sit and explore star constellations without leaving the living room.
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National parks aren’t the only tourist attractions to have opened their webcams to the public. We’ve seen virtual tours of everything from zoos to historical landmarks. Social media is a great place to pick up the latest ones.
There’s also a host of restaurants sharing recipes to their famous dishes whilst they’re unable to be open.
There are worst ways to spend the coronavirus lockdown than sitting back with a fakeaway and watching the world go by.
