virtual art tour

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10 of the world’s best virtual museum and art gallery tours

The originals are out of reach for now, but you can still see world-class art – without the queues or ticket prices – with an online tour of these famous museums

A rt lovers can view thousands of paintings, sculptures, installations and new work online – many in minute detail – as well as explore the museums themselves. There are various platforms: from interactive, 360-degree videos and full “walk-around” tours with voiceover descriptions to slideshows with zoomable photos of the world’s greatest artworks. And many allow viewers to get closer to the art than they could do in real life.

So, take a break from the news, enter full-screen mode and start your art adventure in sunny California …

J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

With more than 6,000 years worth of creative treasures, the Getty is one of the best places for art on the west coast of the US. Go from neolithic clay figures to Van Gogh’s Irises and Renoir’s La Promenade – just two of many artworks that feature in the virtual tour . As with several of our selection, Google Arts and Culture offers a “ museum view ” tool to look inside gallery spaces, with clickable artworks presenting further information. The Getty’s sunny sculpture plaza and garden terrace are worth adding to your digital trip, via another viewing platform, Xplorit . getty.edu

Vatican Museums, Rome

Soaring vaulted ceilings, intricate murals and tapestries, the Vatican’s museums are creatively rich sites. Don’t forget to look up when exploring the seven spaces in the museum’s virtual tour, to gawp at a series of 360-degree images, including the Sistine Chapel. Wander around the rest of Vatican City with a You Visit tour that takes in Saint Peter’s Basilica and Square, complete with a tour guide narrating each interactive space. museivaticani.va

Guggenheim, Bilbao

Frank Gehry’s sculptured titanium and steel building, on the banks of the Nervión River, is one of the world’s most distinctive art spaces. The interactive tour takes viewers around its collection of postwar American and European painting and sculpture – Rothko, Holzer, Koons, Kapoor – and even down between the weathered curves of Serra’s Matter of Time (turn left at the entrance). guggenheim-bilbao.eus

Natural History Museum, London

From the diplodocus to the dodo, botany to butterflies, giant crystals to specimens in jars … the Natural History Museum’s vast collection has long been a favourite of both Londoners and tourists. Get lost in the corridors and gallery spaces – one treat is Dippy the dino, who despite recently going on tour still makes an appearance in the entrance hall in this interactive online guide . nhm.ac.uk

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

This grand museum has a vast collection of art and historical objects across 80 galleries. A 10-year renovation project was completed in 2013, transforming the space and combining elements of 19th-century grandeur with modern lighting and a new glass-roofed atrium. The interactive tour helps viewers get up close to every brush stroke by Vermeer, Rembrandt and other Dutch masters while exploring the Great Hall and beyond. rijksmuseum.nl

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea

There are several sites making up this museum: the main gallery in Gwacheon and branches in Deoksugung, Seoul and Cheongju. The virtual tours explore an inspiring mix of print, design, sculpture, photography, new media and other large-scale installations. From Joseph Beuys to Warhol and Nam June Paik, the collection includes an international lineup of established artists, contemporary Korean artworks and emerging names. mmca.go.kr

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

In the former Gare d’Orsay, a Paris railway station and hotel, the musée is home to Cézanne, Monet and other French masters. Under a 138m-long curved glass roof, sits the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist works in the world. The virtual tour also includes an online exhibition charting the history of the building. And over on Tourist Tube there’s a 360-degree view of the magnificent exterior. m.musee-orsay.fr

British Museum, London

There are 3,212 panes of glass in the domed ceiling of the British Museum’s Great Court, and no two are the same – and the 360-degree view in this virtual tour lets viewers examine each and every one. Beyond this magnificent space, viewers can find the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies and other ancient wonders. The museum’s interactive infographic platform, History Connected , goes into further depth of various objects with curators, along a timeline. britishmuseum.org

MASP, São Paulo, Brazil

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo has one of the broadest historical collections available to view via its virtual gallery platform , spanning from the 14th to 20th centuries. Paintings appear suspended in the air around the open-plan space, on glass panels or “crystal easels” as the museum calls them. There’s also a temporary retrospective exhibition by Brazilian pop artist Teresinha Soares beside the building’s statement red staircase. The glass and red-beam structure, built in 1968, is worth a look from the outside too, via Google Street View . masp.org.br

National Gallery, London

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The 75 Best Virtual Museum Tours Around the World [Art, History, Science, and Technology]

Jarrod West

Senior Content Contributor

440 Published Articles 1 Edited Article

Countries Visited: 21 U.S. States Visited: 24

Keri Stooksbury

Editor-in-Chief

29 Published Articles 3081 Edited Articles

Countries Visited: 45 U.S. States Visited: 28

Google Arts and Culture

1. the albertina museum (vienna, austria), 2. art institute of chicago (chicago, illinois), 3. benaki museum (athens, greece), 4. the broad (los angeles, california), 5. centre pompidou (paris, france), 6. the dalí theatre-museum (figueres, spain), 7. detroit institute of arts (detroit, michigan), 8. frick collection (new york city, new york), 9. galleria dell’accademia (florence, italy), 10. georgia o’keeffe museum (sante fe, new mexico), 11. grand palais (paris, france), 12. hermitage museum (saint petersburg, russia), 13. high museum of art (atlanta, georgia), 14. the j. paul getty museum (los angeles, california), 15. kunsthaus zürich (zürich, switzerland), 16. la galleria nazionale (rome, italy), 17. los angeles county museum of art (lacma) (los angeles, california), 18. mauritshuis (the hague, netherlands), 19. the metropolitan museum of art (new york city, new york), 20. musée du louvre (paris, france), 21. musée d’orsay (paris, france), 22. museo nacional del prado (madrid, spain), 23. museo frida kahlo (mexico city, mexico), 24. museo nacional centro de arte reina sofía (madrid, spain), 25. museu de arte de são paulo (são paulo, brazil), 26. museum of broken relationships (los angeles, california and zagreb, croatia), 27. museum of fine arts, boston (boston, massachusetts), 28. museum of fine arts, houston (houston, texas), 29. the museum of modern art (moma) (new york city, new york), 30. national gallery (london, england), 31. national gallery of art (washington, d.c.), 32. national gallery of victoria (victoria, melbourne, australia), 33. national museum of china (beijing, china), 34. national museum of korea (seoul, south korea), 35. national museum, new delhi (new delhi, india), 36. national museum of modern and contemporary art (seoul, south korea), 37. national palace museum (taipei, taiwan), 38. national portrait gallery (washington, d.c.), 39. pergamonmuseum (berlin, germany), 40. picasso museum (barcelona, spain), 41. rijksmuseum (amsterdam, netherlands), 42. san francisco museum of modern art (san francisco, california), 43. sistine chapel at the vatican museums (vatican city), 44. solomon r. guggenheim museum (new york city, new york), 45. tate modern (london, england), 46. thyssen-bornemisza museum (madrid, spain), 47. tokyo national museum (tokyo, japan), 48. uffizi gallery (florence, italy), 49. van gogh museum (amsterdam, netherlands), 50. victoria and albert museum (london, england), 1. american museum of natural history (new york city, new york), 2. the british museum (london, england), 3. national museum of anthropology (mexico city, mexico), 4. national museum of natural history (washington, d.c.), 5. natural history museum (london, england), 1. london science museum (london, england), 2. museo galileo (florence, italy), 3. the museum of flight (seattle, washington), 4. the museum of natural sciences of belgium (brussels, belgium), 5. museum of science, boston (boston, massachusetts), 6. national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) (washington, d.c.), 7. national air and space museum (washington, d.c.), 8. national museum of computing (bletchley park, england), 9. national museum of the united states air force (riverside, ohio), 10. oxford university’s history of science museum (oxford, england), 1. acropolis museum (athens, greece), 2. american battlefield trust virtual battlefield tours, 3. anne frank house (amsterdam, netherlands), 4. franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum (hyde park, new york), 5. national museum of african american history and culture (washington, d.c.), 6. national museum of american history (washington, d.c.), 7. national museum of scotland (edinburgh, scotland), 8. national women’s history museum (alexandria, virginia), 9. terra cotta warriors of xi’an at emperor qinshihuang’s mausoleum site museum (xi’an, china), 10. u.s. holocaust memorial museum (washington, d.c.), final thoughts.

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You can now access collections from many of the world’s top museums without ever leaving home! We’ve put together an ultimate list of 75 world-class museums that offer virtual tours you can visit from the comfort of your couch.

Many of the virtual tours include exhibit walk-throughs and the ability to examine some of the world’s best paintings, sculptures, and other pieces up close and personal. These virtual tours are jam-packed with enough details to make you feel like you’re really visiting the museum. The experiences are sure to entertain the whole family, an art or history buff, or even those who want to imagine the joys of travel!

We’ve broken our list into 4 easy-to-review sections, including art, natural history, science and technology, and history museums. So whether you prefer to take in a painting at the Van Gogh Museum, check out an SR-71 Blackbird at the Museum of Flight, or gaze upon the Rosetta Stone, this list has it all!

Many of the virtual exhibits in this article are offered through a collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. If you’re not familiar, Google Arts and Culture is an online platform that showcases high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from more than 2,000 museums throughout the world. You can zoom in and out of images in great detail and view some of the best pieces of artwork ever created without leaving your couch.

The platform is available in 18 languages and has been praised internationally for increasing access to art to those who may have not had the opportunity otherwise. It’s available for web , iOS , and Android .

50 Art Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened:  1805

The Albertina Museum features one of the most important European collections of international modern art and houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and 1 million old master prints. Hundreds of the works housed in the museum, like “Study for the Last Supper” by Da Vinci and “The Water Lily Pond” by Monet, can be viewed online thanks to a partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

To view the online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1879

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the U.S., hosting approximately 1.5 million people annually. Its collection features more than 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world and contains more than 300,000 works of art in 11 curatorial departments.

The online tour allows you to view major pieces from the museum’s collection, such as “American Gothic,” “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” and “Nighthawks.” The site also offers projects to get creative at home, educator resources, and JourneyMaker, a digital tool that allows visitors to create unique, personalized tours of the museum.

To view the online tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1930

Established in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, the Benaki Museum houses Greek works of art from prehistoric to modern times and an extensive collection of Asian art. It also hosts periodic exhibitions and maintains a state-of-the-art restoration and conservation workshop.

The entire museum can be viewed virtually in great detail.

To view the online virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 2015

The Broad is a contemporary art museum named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. The Broad houses a nearly 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, featuring 200 artists including works by Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Notable installations include Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirrored Room” (pictured above) and Ragnar Kjartansson’s expansive 9-screen video “The Visitors.”

The Broad has put together a series of YouTube videos to give you a first-hand look at the museum.

Year Opened : 1977

The Centre Pompidou, named after the president of France from 1969 to 1974, is the largest museum for modern and contemporary art in Europe and the second-largest in the world. The museum has more than 12,000 pieces of artwork on display, including works by Kandinsky, Dalí, and Valadon.

The Centre has dozens of videos available on its YouTube channel that provide walk-throughs of the museum and explanations of its most important works.

To view the video tours, click here .

Year Opened : 1974

Dedicated to the life and work of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, the Dalí Theatre-Museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by the artist. In addition to Dalí paintings from all decades of his career, there are Dalí sculptures, 3-dimensional collages, mechanical devices, and other curiosities from Dalí’s imagination. Through the website, guests can take a virtual tour in 360-degree of the entire museum.

To view the virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1885

With more than 100 galleries covering over 658,000 square feet, the Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the U.S. Its collection features works spanning from ancient Egypt and Europe all the way to modern contemporary art.

The museum has put together “ At Home With DIA ” to offer school field trips from home, weekly film screenings, senior resources, and home projects. DIA also has a partnership with Google Arts and Culture to provide online exhibits including:

• Frida Kahlo in Detroit
• Ordinary People by Extraordinary Artists
• Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry
• Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States

Year Opened: 1935

Located in the Henry Clay Frick House, the Frick Collection houses the art collection of industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists, including Bellini, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, as well as numerous works of sculpture and porcelain.

The entire museum can be viewed virtually.

Year Opened : 1784

The Galleria dell’Accademia, while small compared to other museums featured, is still the second most visited museum in Italy. Its command of visitors is in large part due to its display of perhaps the most famous sculpture in history — Michaelangelo’s statue of David.

You can view a short, video-guided tour of the museum, which includes 360-degree viewing, allowing you to get a close look at the museum’s offerings.

To view the video tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1997

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and her contributions to American Modernism. The museum’s collection includes many of O’Keeffe’s key works, ranging from her innovative abstractions to her iconic large-format flower, skull, and landscape paintings, to paintings of architectural forms, rocks, shells, and trees. Initially, the collection was made of 140 O’Keeffe paintings, watercolors, pastels, and sculptures, but now includes nearly 1,200 objects.

The museum website offers creative activities, stories, and education about Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, along with several virtual exhibits available through Google Arts and Culture, including:

• Georgia O’Keeffe
• American Modernism
• United States

Year Opened : 1900

The Grand Palais is a large historic site, exhibition hall, and museum dedicated to the organization of exhibitions, publishing books, art workshops, photographic agency, and hosting major fairs and events. The museum receives 2.5 million visitors each year. The partnership with Google Arts and Culture brings extensive online exhibits to life, from the construction of the building to the masterpieces that lie within it.

Year Opened : 1764

The Hermitage Museum is the second-largest and eighth-most visited art museum in the world. The Hermitage has more than 60,000 pieces of artwork on display, including the “Peacock Clock” by James Cox, “Madonna Litta” by Leonardo Da Vinci, and works by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Antonio Canova.

The online tour is extremely comprehensive and allows you to virtually walk through all 6 buildings in the main complex, treasure gallery, and several exhibition projects.

Year Opened : 1905

The High Museum of Art offers over 15,000 works of art in its collection and is the leading art museum in the southeastern U.S. The museum focuses on 19th- and 20th-century American art, historic and contemporary decorative arts and design, European paintings, modern and contemporary art, photography, folk and self-taught art, and African art.

The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture also offers online exhibits for viewing including:

• Bill Traylor’s Drawings of People, Animals, and Events
• How Iris van Herpen Transformed Fashion
• Incredible, Innovative, and Unexpected Contemporary Furniture Designs
• Photos From the Civil Rights Movement

Year Opened: 1953

The J. Paul Getty Museum is made up of 2 campuses — the Getty Center and Getty Villa — that receive more than 2 million visitors per year. The Getty Center features pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts and photographs from the 1830s through present-day from all over the world. The Getty Villa displays art from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.

The museum has put together online resources like art books, online exhibitions, podcasts, and videos, all viewable on its website .

It has also partnered with Google Arts and Culture to showcase online exhibits including:

• 18th Century Pastel Portraits
• The Art of Three Faiths: Torah, Bible, Qur’an
• Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
• Getty Museum Acquisitions 2019
• Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well

To view the online galleries, click here .

Year Opened : 1910

The Kunsthaus Zürich features one of Switzerland’s most important art collections from the 13th century to the present day. While the museum places an emphasis on Swiss artists, including Alberto Giacometti, you’ll also find work from the likes of Monet, Picasso, and Warhol.

The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture has digitized several of the museum’s best collections for viewing.

Year Opened: 1883

La Galleria Nazionale displays about 1,100 paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries — the largest collection in Italy. It features work from famous Italian artists including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Alberto Burri, and foreign artists including Cézanne, Monet, Pollock, Rodin, and Van Gogh.

It has teamed up with Google to offer 16 virtual exhibits for online viewing.

Year Opened: 1910

LACMA is the largest art museum in the western U.S., attracts nearly a million visitors annually, and holds more than 150,000 works spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present.

The website (click LACMA @ Home ) includes exhibition walkthroughs, soundtracks and live recordings, online teaching resources, and courses.

To view the LACMA’s online virtual tour from Google Arts & Culture, click here .

Year Opened : 1822

The Mauritshuis is home to some of the best Dutch paintings from the Golden Age of Art. The museum consists of 854 works by artists like Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt Van Rijn, and Jan Steen. Famous works include “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (pictured above) and “View of Delft” by Vermeer, and “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” by Rembrandt.

The museum has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring several of its best works to life for virtual viewing.

To view the Mauritshuis’ online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1870

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, also known as “The Met,” is the largest art museum in the U.S. and the fourth most visited museum in the world with more than 6 million visitors each year. The permanent collection contains more than 2 million works from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all of the European masters (including Monet’s Water Lillies), and an extensive collection of American and modern art. It also has extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, and Islamic art.

The museum has extensive different online exhibits available for viewing through Google and its own Art at Home website .

Year Opened:  1793

The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, began as a fortress under Philip II in the 12th century to protect the city from English soldiers that were in Normandy. It wasn’t repurposed as a museum until 1793. Now, the Louvre is easily one of the most historic art museums in the world. Not only is the Louvre the largest art museum in the world at 782,910 square feet (72,735 square meters), but it also had 9.6 million visitors in 2019, making it the most visited museum in the world as well. Featured masterpieces include “Mona Lisa,” “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” “Venus de Milo,” and “Hammurabi’s Code.”

The Louvre has several virtual galleries on display, including:

• The Advent of the Artist, including works from Delacroix, Rembrandt, and Tintoretto
• Egyptian Antiquities, featuring collections from the Pharaonic period
• Remains of the Louvre’s Moat — visitors can walk around the original perimeter moat and view the piers that supported the drawbridge dating back to 1190
• Galerie d’Apollon, destroyed by fire in 1661 and recently rebuilt for viewing

To view the Louvre’s virtual tour page, click here .

Year Opened: 1986

The Musée d’Orsay is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe and had more than 3.6 million visitors in 2019. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, including works by Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Sisley, and Van Gogh.

The museum allows you to virtually walk through one of its popular galleries, featuring hundreds of paintings from French artists.

To view the Musée d’Orsay online gallery, click here .

Year Opened : 1819

The Museo Nacional del Prado is considered to have one of the greatest collections of European art in the world and offers guests the single largest collection of Spanish art. The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings, 7,600 paintings, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures. Well-known works include “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez, “The Third of May 1808” by Francisco De Goya, and “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch.

The museum’s online gallery allows you to get a close look at over 10,000 different pieces of art. The Prado also offers a 1-hour live show on Instagram every morning at 4 a.m. EST.

To view the online gallery, click here .

Year Opened: 1958

The Frida Kahlo Museum, also known as the Blue House due to its blue walls, is a historic museum dedicated to the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The building was Kahlo’s birthplace, the home where she grew up, lived with her husband Diego Rivera for many years, and where she later died in a room on the upper floor. The museum contains a collection of artwork by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and other artists, along with the couple’s Mexican folk art, pre-Hispanic artifacts, photographs, memorabilia, personal items, and more. Find out more in our guide to the best museums in Mexico City .

Year Opened: 1990

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, also called the Museo Reina Sofía, is one of the most popular art museums in the world. The museum includes large collections of Spain’s 2 most popular artists, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Famous works on display include “Guernica” and “Woman in Blue” by Picasso and “Cubist Self Portrait” by Dalí.

You can view collections of artwork at the Reina Sofía through its partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

Year Opened: 1947

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is Brazil’s first modern art museum. The museum is internationally recognized for its collection of European art, as it’s considered the finest museum in Latin America and all of the Southern Hemisphere. The museum primarily features Brazilian art, prints, and drawings, as well as smaller collections of African and Asian art, antiquities, decorative arts, and others, amounting to more than 8,000 pieces. MASP also has one of the largest art libraries in the country.

You can now take a virtual tour of online galleries the museum has to offer, including:

• Art from Brazil until 1900
• Art from Italy: Rafael to Titian
• Art from France: from Delacroix to Cézanne
• Art in Fashion
• Histories of Madness: The Drawings of Juquery
• Picture Gallery in Transformation

Year Opened: 2010

The Museum of Broken Relationships is dedicated to failed love relationships. Its exhibits include personal objects left over from former lovers, accompanied by brief descriptions. The museum was founded by 2 Zagreb-based artists, film producer Olinka Vištica and sculptor Dražen Grubišić, after their 4-year relationship came to an end.

The virtual tour includes a close-up collection of dozens of the museum’s most interesting pieces.

The 17th largest art museum in the world, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) hosts one of the most extensive art collections in the U.S. It houses over 8,000 paintings, surpassed only by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and exceeds 1 million visitors each year. Pieces by world-renowned artists like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Monet are featured alongside sculptures, mummies, ceramics, and other artifacts from ancient civilizations.

There are currently 16 online exhibits available for viewing.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is one of the largest museums in the U.S., and its collection features over 64,000 works from 6 continents. The collection places emphasis on pre-Columbian and African gold, Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture, 19th- and 20th-century art, photography, and Latin American art. Read our guide to the best museums in Houston for more information.

The museum has 14 online exhibits available for viewing in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture.

Year Opened: 1929

Regarded as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world, MoMA’s art collection features an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books, and artist’s books, film, and electronic media. MoMA’s holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces including Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills.

MoMA’s website offers 86,000 works of art that can be viewed online, along with a partnership with Google Arts and Culture to create a virtual display of its Sophie Taeber-Arp exhibit.

To view the website’s collection, click here . To view the Google exhibit, click here .

Year Opened : 1824

The National Gallery features more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900, including works such as “Sunflowers” by Van Gogh, “The Virgin on the Rocks” by Da Vinci, and “The Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan Van Eyck.

Its website offers a few virtual tours, showcasing many rooms in the museum, the Sainsbury Wing, and a Google Virtual tour.

Year Opened: 1937

The National Gallery of Art and its attached Sculpture Garden are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and are open to the public free of charge. The museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress.

The National Gallery is widely considered to be one of the greatest museums in the U.S. It ranks second in total visitors of all American museums, 10th in the world, and features incredible pieces including Jackson Pollock’s “Number 1,” Leonardo da Vinci’s “Ginevra de’ Benci,” and Degas’ “Little Dancer Aged 14.”

The museum has put together a collection of educational resources on its website for teachers, families, and children. It also features online exhibits through Google Arts and Culture including:

• American Fashion — highlights from 1740 to 1895
• Johannes Vermeer — Dutch Baroque painter

To view the National Gallery of Art online collection page, click here .

Year Opened: 1861

The National Gallery of Victoria is Australia’s oldest, largest, and most visited art museum. The museum offers a wide variety of international and Australian art in its collection, including paintings, drawings, photography, and sculptures.

The online tour includes walk-throughs of exhibits, including highlights from the NGV Triennial 2020 and Chinese Collection, as well as exhibits featuring Goya and KAWS.

Year Opened : 2003

The National Museum of China covers Chinese history from 1.7 million years ago to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Notable works include the “Houmuwu” Rectangle Ding, a rectangular bronze sacrificial vessel made in the late Shang Dynasty, the heaviest piece of ancient bronze ware in the world, and a Han Dynasty jade burial suit laced with gold thread. It is one of the largest museums in the world, and the second most visited art museum in the world, just after the Louvre.

The museum has virtual exhibits available for 360-degree viewing including:

• Resplendence of the Tang Dynasty
• Sunken Silver

Year Opened : 1909

The National Museum of Korea is the top museum of Korean history and art and has been committed to various studies and research activities in the fields of archaeology, history, and art, continuously developing a variety of exhibitions and education programs.

The museum’s virtual tour provides a 3D walk-through of exhibits, including 1,000 years of Korean design and 500 years of the Joseon Dynasty.

Year Opened: 1949

The National Museum, New Delhi is one of the largest museums in India. The museum has around 200,000 works of art, both of Indian and foreign origin, including paintings, sculptures, jewelry, ancient texts, armor, and decorative arts ranging from the pre-historic era to modern works — covering over 5,000 years.

The museum has partnered with Google to bring its online exhibits to life, including:

• Art of Caligraphy
• Cadence and Counterpoint
• Indian Bronzes
• Nauras: The Many Arts of the Deccan
• Pottery from Ancient Peru
• Treasures of National Museum, India
• Radha and Krishna in the Boat of Love

Year Opened: 1969

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was first established in 1969 as the only national art museum in South Korea, accommodating modern and contemporary art of Korea and international art of different time periods. The museum features over 7,000 pieces of artwork, including works of contemporary Korean artists such as Go Hui-dong, Ku Bon-ung, Park Su-geun, and Kim Whan-ki.

Google’s virtual tour takes you through 6 floors of contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.

Year Opened : 1965

The National Palace Museum has a collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of ancient Chinese imperial artifacts and artworks. The collection encompasses 8,000 years of history of Chinese art, including jade, paintings, bronzes, and porcelain that were formerly held in the Forbidden City of Peking.

The museum offers 360-degree virtual tours of many different exhibits.

To view the virtual tours, click here .

Year Opened : 1962

The National Portrait Gallery has a collection of over 21,000 works of art. The collection focuses on images of famous Americans and how they’ve shaped U.S. culture. A major attraction of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection is the Hall of Presidents, which contains portraits of nearly all American presidents. It is the largest and most complete collection in the world, except for the White House collection itself.

The museum has several collections featured on Google Arts and Culture, but also offers digital workshops, and distance learning resources for children and teachers.

To view the online resources, click here .

The Pergamonmuseum houses monumental buildings, such as the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, and the Market Gate of Miletus reconstructed from the ruins found in Anatolia, as well as the Mshatta Facade. The museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. It is visited by over 1 million people every year.

The museum has dozens of structures and other artifacts that can be viewed online.

Year Opened: 1963

The Picasso Museum, located in the heart of Barcelona’s Latin Quarter, is visited by millions every year. They come to marvel at the best works of Picasso, perhaps the most famous painter of all, but stay to marvel at the best-preserved medieval architecture in Barcelona. With 4,251 works by the painter exhibited, the museum has one of the most complete permanent collections of his works.

The online tour offers a large selection of Picasso’s finest works, as well as virtual tours of the museum’s beautiful courtyards.

Year Opened: 1798

The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1798 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1885. The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history from the years 1200 to 2000, and a total collection of 1 million objects. The museum features masterpieces including Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” and “The Jewish Bride,” plus works by Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer, who are known to have been major contributors to the Golden Age of Dutch art.

Google offers a street view tour of some excellent art pieces located in the museum, and the museum has put together an entire virtual tour of all of the museum’s masterpieces viewable on its website.

To view the Google street view tour, click here . You can also view the museum’s From Home microsite and masterpieces tour .

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is composed of over 33,000 works of art spread throughout 7 gallery floors and 45,000 square feet of space. Following a 3-year closure for expansion, the museum reopened in 2016 and is now one of San Francisco’s must-see destinations.

SFMOMA’s website is updated regularly with videos and articles regarding current exhibits, projects, and artist showcases and provides behind-the-scenes looks of the museum. 

To view the museum’s multimedia features, click here .

Read our guide to the best museums in San Francisco to find out more.

Year Opened: 1483

The Sistine Chapel, located inside of the Apostolic Palace (the official residence of the pope in Vatican City), is easily the most popular chapel in the world. The chapel is famous for its magnificent ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, and is considered to be one of the best artworks to come out of the Italian Renaissance. The primary panels of the ceiling showcase 9 scenes from the Book of Genesis, of which “The Creation of Adam” (pictured above) is the best known and most recognized.

Its website offers a virtual tour of the chapel’s most stunning sites, including the ability to marvel at Michelangelo’s ceiling from the comfort of your couch.

Year Opened: 1939

The Guggenheim Museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year.

Google’s  Street View feature lets you tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase and some of its art pieces. It also offers a handful of online collections on its website .

Year Opened: 2000

Tate Modern is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world, consisting of art dating from 1900 until today. The gallery receives over 5 million visitors a year, making it the sixth most visited art museum in the world and the most visited in the U.K.

The Tate Modern has published dozens of videos on its YouTube channel that give you an in-depth look at many of its exhibits, including the Andy Warhol exhibit and the Aubrey Beardsley exhibit.

To view the Tate Modern’s YouTube channel, click here .

Year Opened: 1992

Located in Madrid, the Thyssen has over 1,600 paintings inside its walls and was once the second-largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. It includes works from the Italian primitives, the English, Dutch, and German schools, Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the 20th century. It also features pieces from the continent’s most celebrated artists including Rembrandt and Dalí.

The virtual tour includes a detailed look at the permanent collection, along with exhibits including the Rembrandt and Impressionist galleries.

Year Opened : 1872

The Tokyo National Museum is the oldest and largest art museum in Japan, and one of the largest art museums in the world. At the museum, you’ll find a collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, ancient and medieval Japanese art, and Asian art along the Silk Road.

The museum has teamed up with Google’s Arts and Culture to provide an inside look at what the museum has to offer.

Year Opened: 1581

The Uffizi was designed by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo I de’ Medici, whose family members were by far the largest patrons of art in Renaissance Italy. The museum now spans over 139,000 square feet with 101 different rooms that house its art pieces, including famous pieces such as “The Birth of Venus.” Over 2 million people visit the Uffizi each year, making it the most viewed art museum in Italy.

The museum has teamed up with Google to showcase online galleries including:

• Piero di Cosimo, Perseus Freeing Andromeda
• The Santa Trinita Maestà, Cimabue
• The Creative Process Behind Federico Barocci’s Drawings
• Drawings by Amico Aspertini and other Bolognese artists

Year Opened: 1973

The Van Gogh Museum is dedicated to perhaps one of the most famous artists of all time — Vincent Van Gogh. The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters. The museum has over 2 million visitors each year and is the 23rd most visited art museum in the world. Find out more in our review to the best museums in Amsterdam .

The museum has teamed up with Google to create online exhibits on Vincent Van Gogh’s love life and the books he loved to read. You can also visit the museum’s website for a selection of things to do for young children, including school lessons and coloring pages.

Year Opened : 1852

The Victoria and Albert Museum collection spans 5,000 years of art from Europe, North America, Asia, and North Africa. The collection of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings, and photographs is among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

The virtual tour, in partnership with Google Arts and Culture, offers several online exhibits ranging from fashion to surrealism.

5 Natural History Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 1869

One of the largest natural history museums in the world, the American Museum of Natural History contains 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts.

The museum’s 360-degree virtual tours offer an up-close look at permanent exhibits, current exhibits, past exhibits, and research stations.

Year Opened: 1759

The British Museum is one of the largest in the world and houses over 8 million works within its walls. Established in 1759, it was the first public national museum in the world. Visitors can tour the great court and view some of the most famous objects in history, like the Elgin Marbles of Greece and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.

The Museum is the world’s largest indoor space on Google Street View and you can go on a virtual visit to more than 60 galleries.

The British Museum also has virtual galleries on display, including:

• Prints and Drawings

To visit the British Museum’s virtual tour page, click here .

Year Opened: 1964

The National Museum of Anthropology is the largest and most visited museum in all of Mexico. The museum contains significant archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage, such as the Stone of the Sun (or the Aztec calendar stone) and the Aztec Xochipilli statue.

The museum has made more than 100 items available for Google visitors to explore from home.

To view the museum’s online collection, click here .

Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is the 11th most visited museum in the world and the most visited natural history museum in the world. With over 325,000 square feet of exhibition space, the museum’s collections contain over 145 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts — the largest natural history collection in the world. Highlights of the collection include the Hope Diamond and the Star of Asia Sapphire.

You can view all of these specimens from the comfort of your home as the museum has dozens of different online exhibits that can all be accessed on its website.

To view the museum’s virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1881

Undoubtably one of the best Museums in London , the Natural History Museum in London showcases 80 million life and earth science specimens of great historical and scientific value, even housing pieces collected by Charles Darwin. There are 5 categories within the museum: botany , entomology , mineralogy , paleontology , and zoology . Over 5 million people visit this museum each year, making it the most visited natural history museum in Europe.

One of the museum’s most prominent displays is the skeleton of an 82-foot long blue whale named Hope, which you can learn more about through a self-guided virtual tour, along with several other galleries. 

10 Science and Technology Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 1857

The London Science Museum holds a collection of over 300,000 items, including famous items such as Stephenson’s Rocket, Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), the first jet engine, some of the earliest remaining steam engines, and documentation of the first typewriter.

Thanks to Google Street View, guests can take a virtual tour of the entire museum, or watch curator gallery guides on the museum’s YouTube channel.

To view the virtual tour or videos, click here .

Dedicated to the scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, the Museo Galilei is housed in an 11th-century palace known as the Palazzo Castellini. The museum has a collection of over 5,000 ancient scientific instruments dating back to the 13th century, and among its most notable items is the telescope Galileo used to discover the satellites of Jupiter.

Visitors from around the world have the opportunity to explore the inside of the museum and can access more than 1,000 permanent exhibition objects through the online catalog.

Year Opened: 1965

The Museum of Flight is the largest private air and space museum in the world and attracts over 500,000 visitors every year. The museum has more than 150 aircraft in its collection, including the Lockheed Model 10-E Electra (the aircraft Amelia Earhart was piloting when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean), Boeing 747s, and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (pictured above).

The museum offers 360-degree tours that let you step inside dozens of these iconic aircraft.

Year Opened: 1846

The Museum of Natural Sciences of Belgium is dedicated to natural history and is part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. The dinosaur hall of the museum is the world’s largest museum hall completely dedicated to dinosaurs, and its most important pieces are 30 fossilized Iguanodon skeletons, which were discovered in 1878 in Bernissart.

It has partnered with Google to set up virtual exhibits for viewing, including:

• 360-degree guided tour
• The Bernissart Iguanodons
• From Salehanthropus to Homo Sapiens
• Over 250 Years of Natural Sciences
• Past, Present, Future: The Marvels of Evolution

To view the museum’s online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1830

The Museum of Science, Boston, receiving over 1.5 million visitors annually, is a museum and indoor zoo with more than 700 interactive exhibits and over 100 animals, many of which have been rescued and rehabilitated.

The museum offers a phenomenal virtual tour full of digital exhibits, videos, and audio presentations.

NASA, founded in 1958, was created by the federal government to develop the civilian space program, as well as to conduct aeronautics, space, and astrophysics research. Since its inception, NASA has been responsible for historic space missions including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the space shuttle.

NASA has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring many online exhibits to life to showcase the beauty of space exploration.

Year Opened : 1946

The National Air and Space Museum is a center for the history and science of aviation, spaceflight, planetary science, terrestrial geology, and geophysics. It is the fifth most visited museum in the world (the second most visited in the U.S.), and contains the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the Friendship 7 capsule, the Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer airplane, and Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

The virtual tour offers a 360-degree walk-through of the entire museum.

Year Opened: 2007

The National Museum of Computing is dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is home to the world’s largest collection of working historic computers dating back to the 1940s, including a rebuilt Mark 2 Colossus computer, alongside an exhibition of the most complex code-cracking activities performed at the Park.

In the 3D virtual tour, viewers can move around the galleries looking at the machines and their descriptions with the added bonus of hyperlinks to video and text explanations providing further detail and history of the exhibits.

Year Opened: 1923

Located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Riverside, Ohio, the National Museum of the United States Air Force is the oldest and largest military aviation museum in the world, with more than 360 aircraft and missiles on display.

The virtual tour allows visitors to take a virtual, 360-degree, self-guided tour of the entire museum by navigating from gallery to gallery.

Year Opened: 1683

Oxford’s History of Science Museum holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

The museum, ever ahead of the times, has offered virtual tours since 1995. You’ll get to explore the fantastic exhibits and artifacts of some of the most important scientific discoveries in science history.

10 History Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 2009

The Acropolis Museum is centered around the archaeological findings at the site of Athens’ most important structure — the Acropolis. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece.

The museum has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring the museum to life virtually. Now you can view rock, marble, and sculptures certificates, all of which are thousands of years old, all from the comfort of your couch!

The American Battlefield Trust Virtual Battlefield Tours offers the incredible opportunity to experience 360-degree virtual tours of more than 20 American Revolution and Civil War battlefields. You can explore Gettysburg, with 15 different stops, each of which features icons that discuss in great detail the history and significance of the battle.

Year Opened: 1957

What was once the house where Anne Frank went into hiding during WWII is now a museum dedicated to increasing awareness of Anne’s story and life in the attic. The Anne Frank House was established in cooperation with Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, and now welcomes over 1 million visitors from around the world each year.

The museum’s website offers a virtual reality tour of the annex, along with other educational resources about Anne’s life.

Year Opened: 1941

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum holds the records of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. president (1933 to 1945). The museum showcases the history behind FDR’s story, his presidency, New Deal policies, assassination attempt, and wartime decisions.

The 360-degree online tour gives you a close look at original documents, artifacts, and videos from FDR’s life.

Year Opened: 2003

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African-American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African-Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 36,000 artifacts.

The museum website offers more than 15 different online exhibits covering African American history and culture.

Check out its online virtual tour  and digital resources guide .

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has more than 1.8 million objects that highlight the history of the U.S — including the original Star-Spangled Banner, Julia Child’s kitchen, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Indiana Jones’ fedora and whip, and more!

The museum offers about 100 online exhibits from its encyclopedic collections, each with a mix of photos, video, graphics, and text on topics ranging through the nation’s entire history.

Year Opened : 1866

The National Museum of Scotland is dedicated to Scottish antiquities, culture, and history. The museum contains artifacts from around the world, encompassing geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology, art, and world cultures. Popular items from the collections include Dolly the Sheep, the Arthur’s Seat coffins, and the Cramond Lioness sculpture.

The Museum’s galleries have been captured digitally in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, along with a virtual walk-through thanks to Google Street View.

Year Opened: 1996

Founded in 1996 by Karen Staser, the National Women’s History Museum researches, collects, and exhibits the contributions of women to the social, cultural, economic, and political life of our nation in the context of world history.

Its website currently features 29 different online exhibits!

Year Opened: 1974 (created third century B.C.)

The Terracotta Army at Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210 to 209 B.C. to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The sculptures include warriors, chariots, and horses. Estimates from 2007 were that the 3 pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits near Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum.

The online experience allows you to get up close and personal with the sculptures in a full 360-degree experience!

To view the online virtual experience, click here .

Year Opened: 1980

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is the country’s official memorial to the Holocaust. It is located on the National Mall alongside other monuments dedicated to freedom. Each year, the museum encourages its 1.6 million visitors to promote human dignity, confront hatred, prevent genocide, and strengthen democratic values. The museum’s collection includes millions of archival documents, artifacts, photographs, footage, and a list of over 200,000 registered survivors and their families, among other historical items.

Its website offers a wide selection of educational resources, including a virtual tour, and is available in 16 languages.

There you have it — 75 amazing #MuseumsAtHome options filled with one-of-a-kind artifacts covering art, science, history, and natural history, all of which can be “visited” virtually while you lounge in your pajamas! So whether you’re a massive fan of art, looking for an educational experience for your children, or simply need a way to keep yourself entertained, you can’t go wrong with a virtual tour of any of these world-class museums.

Frequently Asked Questions

What museums have virtual tours.

There are dozens of museums worldwide offering virtual tours — we have 75 on this list alone! But some of our favorites are the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum!

How much do virtual tours cost?

Every single virtual tour included on our list is completely free of charge!

What is a virtual museum tour?

A virtual museum tour is, in essence, a simulation of what you might experience when visiting the museum in person. Virtual tours are usually comprised of a collection of videos, still images, 3D walkthroughs, and narration that help you feel as though you’re visiting the museum — without actually doing so!

How do you do a virtual tour?

Doing a virtual tour is easy! Often, the museum will have a dedicated website page allowing you to view all of their virtual resources on 1 page.

In the case of museums that have a 3D walkthrough, you can “walk” yourself through the museum by clicking from artwork to artwork, and exhibit to exhibit, as if you were actually visiting the museum in person!

Are virtual tours worth it?

Absolutely! If you’re currently not able to visit a museum in person, but want to experience all it has to offer, a virtual tour allows you to do just that — all from the comforts of your home!

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These 12 Famous Museums Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take on Your Couch

Experience the best museums — from London to Seoul — from the comfort of your own home.

While there's nothing like setting foot inside an iconic museum and laying eyes on a world-famous sculpture created by a renowned artist centuries ago, it's not always possible to hop on a plane to New York City , Paris , or Florence to tour the gallery halls in person.

But there is a way to get a little culture and education while you're at home, gaining inspiration and intel for future trips as well. Google Arts & Culture has teamed up with more than 1,200 museums and galleries around the world to bring anyone and everyone virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.

You get to "go to the museum" and never have to leave your couch.

Google Arts & Culture's collection includes The British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Guggenheim in New York City, and literally hundreds more places where you can gain knowledge about art, history, and science.

Take a look at just some of Google's top museums that are offering online tours and exhibits. And if you're seeking more thoughtful inspiration from the comfort of your own home, museums around the world are sharing their most zen art on social media . Or, for a dose of nature, you can go "outside" with incredible virtual tours of some of America's best national parks .

The British Museum, London

This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on The Museum of the World interactive website, a collaboration between The British Museum and Google Cultural Institute.

Guggenheim, New York

Google's Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim's famous spiral staircase without ever leaving home. From there, you can discover incredible works of art from the impressionist, post-impressionist, modern, and contemporary eras.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

This famous American art museum features 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, Paris

You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Get a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others.

Don Eim/Travel + Leisure

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

One of Korea's popular museums can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Google's virtual tour takes you through six floors of contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.

Pergamon Museum, Berlin

As one of Germany's largest museums, Pergamon has a lot to offer — even if you can't physically be there . This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and, of course, the Pergamon Altar.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Explore masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Google offers a Street View tour of this iconic museum, so you can feel as if you're actually wandering its halls.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Anyone who's a fan of this tragic, ingenious painter can see his works up close (or, almost up close ) by virtually visiting this museum, home to the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh, including more than 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 750 personal letters.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

European artworks from as far back as the eighth century can be found in this California art museum. Take a Street View tour to discover a huge collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs.

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This less well-known gallery houses the art collection of one of Florence's most famous families, the de' Medicis. The building was designed by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 specifically for Cosimo I de' Medici, but anyone can wander its halls from anywhere in the world .

MASP, São Paulo

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a nonprofit and Brazil's first modern museum. Artworks placed on clear, raised frames make it seem like they're hovering in midair. Take a virtual tour to experience the wondrous display for yourself.

National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

Built in 1964, this museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico's pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 22 exhibit rooms filled with ancient artifacts, including some from the Maya civilization.

Not all popular art museums and galleries are included in Google Arts & Culture's collection, but some have taken it upon themselves to offer online visits. For example, the Louvre offers virtual tours on its website .

To see more of Google Arts & Culture's collection of museums, visit its website . There are thousands of museum Street Views on Google as well. Google Arts & Culture also has an online experience for exploring famous historic and cultural heritage sites .

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The 18 Best Virtual Art Museum Tours You Can Enjoy Online

The world’s art museums are full of treasures. Thanks to advances in technology we can view them from the comfort of our armchairs. Virtual art museum tours are a great way to see incredible artworks without travelling. Whether you’re into contemporary painting or traditional artworks, you’re sure to enjoy these virtual museum tours.

Best Virtual Art Museum Tours

While it would be fun to visit all the best museums in the world, that’s not easy to do. However, with these art museum virtual tours, you can explore them from your own home.

More and more museums are making their collections accessible to all online. Quite a few of the famous museums featured here have special kid friendly online museum tours too.

Google Arts & Culture have also partnered with hundreds of museums and art galleries worldwide to create virtual tours of art museums. These include The Guggenheim and MoMA in New York and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea.

18. Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Let’s start with a museum that is as beautiful inside as outside. Belvedere Museum, or The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere to give its full name, is located within the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Austria .

The former Summer residence of Prince Eugene, it’s now as UNESCO World Heritage Site. The palace is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture.

After Prince Eugene’s death, it became an art gallery. Among the permanent collection highlights are works by Egon Schiele and Hans Makart.

The Upper Belvedere houses the largest collection of Gustav Klimt artworks in the world. This includes the famous painting, The Kiss, which shimmers thanks to the use of gold leaf.

The Belvedere has several online digital guided tours on their website and social media channels. They have also made available 360° museum views of the Upper and Lower Belvedere galleries, and a Smartify app offering free audio tours. In Wintertime, The Belvedere hosts one of the best Viennese Christmas markets in its grounds.

17. Art Institute of Chicago

One of the most impressive museums in the United States, the Art Institute of Chicago boasts a variety of interactive online resources. You can search the permanent collection, take part in virtual events or watch recordings of previous virtual events.

16. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Housed in an extraordinary building inspired by Venetian palaces, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum showcases over 2000 objects from around the world. Isabella Stewart Gardner was an art collector who sadly lost her only child to pneumonia.

Travelling around the world with her husband gave Isabella a renewed purpose in life. She built this three floor museum to house her collection of artifacts, including sculptures, paintings, photographs and textiles.

In 1990, two men committed the world’s largest unsolved art theft, stealing thirteen artworks. A virtual museum tour shows you where these masterpieces originally hung. A $5 million reward is offered for their safe return.

15. British Museum, London

This famous London museum is actually the largest indoor space in the world on Google Street View. There are 60 galleries to explore, with historical artefacts like the Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery .

The British Museum also has two virtual galleries on their own website : Oceania and Prints and Drawings. Another good way to view the museum’s online exhibits is on their Google Arts & Culture pages. There are over 50 to choose from including Guatemalan Masks and Buddhist Art in Myanmar.

14. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Known as The Met for short, this is the largest art museum in the USA. After opening in 1870 at 681 Fifth Avenue, New York City , the main museum moved to its current location in 1880.

The spectacular Beaux-Arts facade was designed by Richard Morris Hunt. There are also two other branches of The Metropolitan Museum: The Met Breuer on Madison Avenue and The Met Cloisters in Northern Manhattan.

The Met is one of the best virtual museum tours for kids, thanks to its #MetKids map , created by children. They can explore the online collection map or hop in the Time Machine.

The Met 360° Project is a series of six award-winning videos created with 360° technology. They enable viewers to discover the museum’s key spaces with a virtual visit including The Great Hall and The Temple of Dendur.

13. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

One of the things that make this famous Parisian museum so special is the building it’s located in. A former railway station, it was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900.

Designated a historical monument, the Musee d’Orsay was designed by Victor Laloux. These days, it features a fine collection of Impressionist works and Post-Impressionist paintings.

Take a virtual art museum tour of the Musée d’Orsay building. You can admire works by some of the most famous artists in the world including Degas, Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh.

12. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

The Getty Museum has partnered with Google Arts & Culture for a new exhibition in Pocket Gallery. This immersive exhibition feature creates a life sized virtual space using augmented reality.

Choose from several virtual rooms and explore the artworks by moving your phone. There are four virtual rooms, on the themes A Breath of Fresh Air , City Life , Music and Merriment and Around the Table . The app is available for iOS and Android phones.

11. National Gallery of the Cayman Islands

Discover artworks from the Caribbean in the online exhibitions of Grand Cayman’s National Gallery. Founded in 1996, the  National Gallery of the Cayman Islands (NGCI) is the leading arts museum and education centre in the country.

They curate up to 6 exhibitions each year in Grand Cayman and also host over 25 education and outreach programs monthly for all age groups.  There are currently four colorful exhibitions available as virtual tours.

These include an online tour of the National Art Collection ; Cross Currents – Cayman Islands Biennial , showcasing 42 local artists; Bendel Hydes – A Retrospective , a retrospective of the artist’s 50 year career and Tidal Shift, featuring 26 artists. The current NGCI exhibition Island of Women – Life at Home During Our Maritime Years will also be available soon.

Access all the tours here:  https://www.nationalgallery.org.ky/see/virtual-tours/ .

10. National Palace Museum, Taipei City

With almost 700,000 objects, the National Palace Museum in Taiwan is the largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts in the world. Featuring rare items from the Neolithic period to the present day, the museum was founded in 1965.

There’s a fantastic range of guided virtual tours online, including the exterior as well as the interior of the building. Admire Zhishan Garden, the Pavilions and the Cage Changing Goose sculptue before heading indoors to explore the rest of the collection.

You can take one of  four featured routes  or simply click around the galleries depending on your interests. Handy floor plans will prevent you from getting lost! There’s also a fun time lapse of the museum.

9. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Spread over 80 galleries and showcasing 8,000 objects,  The Rijksmuseum  is one of the best art museums with virtual tours. Focusing primarily on Dutch art and history, it is housed in a magnificent Renaissance-Gothic style building designed by Pierre Cuypers.

Highlights of the museum’s collection include the Delft pottery collection, the 17th century dolls’ houses and the  Night Watch  by Rembrandt.  The Milkmaid , by Dutch painter Vermeer is another subtly brilliant artwork.

8. Tate Britain, London

Featuring the finest British art, Tate Britain is located in a magnificent building on Millbank that dates from 1897. Kids will enjoy author Jacqueline Wilson’s Magical Tour of Tate Britain .

You can also take a  Google  virtual tour of the Pre-Raphaelite galleries. Works such as Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent and Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais have an ethereal charm.

7. The Louvre, Paris

Famous for its incomparable collections, The Louvre is also the largest art museum in the world. The building itself is a historical monument, with the main section dating from the 12th century.

The glass pyramid by I. M. Pei was added in 1989. The Louvre is known for works of art such as the  Mona Lisa  by Leonardo da Vinci and  The Venus de Milo  by Alexandros of Antioch.

It also has an extensive collection of French crown jewels and Egyptian antiquities. The Great Sphinx of Tanis and the ancient mummy are particularly impressive.

There are several Louvre online tours including The Advent of The Artist exhibition in the Petite Galerie with works by Rembrandt and Tintoretto. Don’t miss the virtual exhibits in the recently restored Galerie d’Apollon, with its central panel by Delacroix.

6. The National Gallery, London

With over 2,300 paintings, The National Gallery has an impressive collection of artworks from 1260 to 1900. One of the most visited museums in the world, it has an enviable location on Trafalgar Square.

The main building was designed by William Wilkins and opened in 1838. The Sainsbury Wing extension opened in 1991.

There are several virtual tours of the National Gallery, including a VR tour of the Sainsbury Wing, created in collaboration with Oculus. Using Matterport 3D technology, it showcases over 270 Early Renaissance paintings .

You can either enjoy the virtual 360° tour or experience it in virtual reality if you happen to have a VR headset. There’s also a Google virtual tour of 7 rooms and the Central Hall, which showcases works by Holbein, Titian and Veronese.

5. The Smithsonian, Washington D.C.

One of the best virtual art museums, The Smithsonian Institution is also the largest museum, research and education complex in the world. Several of the 19 galleries and museums have virtual tours available.

These include The National Museum of Natural History , the National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of Asian Art . There are also lots of online resources for educators available here . Kids will love the wide range of activities including how to make an Art Bot and Color Our Collections .

4. The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

One of the largest museums in the world, The Hermitage has over 3 million exhibits! Founded in 1764, the incredible collection spans 5,000 years.

The most popular visitor attraction in St Petersburg, it wows not only with its artworks but also with its architecture. Designed by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in the 1750s, The State Hermitage Museum was founded by Catherine the Great.

There are over 17,000 paintings including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens and Picasso. The Knight’s Hall examines the history of armoury in the 15th to 17th centuries.

Check out the Google virtual museum for other highlights including the Kolyvan Vase. It weights over 19 tonnes and is the largest single piece of jasper in the world.

3. The Vatican, Rome

If you want to have The Sistine Chapel to yourself, then don’t miss The Vatican virtual tours. Pope Julius II founded The Vatican Museums in the 16th century.

There are 7 Vatican City virtual online tours including Raphael’s Rooms, the Chiaramonti Museum and the Niccoline Chapel. The latter is known for its fresco paintings by Fra Angelico.

2. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has a fun Unravel Van Gogh app . One of the best virtual art museum tours, it allows you to discover how Vincent Van Gogh worked.

Peel back layers of paint and comparing his paintings with postcards of the time. There are also quite a few resources in the Google Arts & Culture app, including virtual room tours of the museum.

1. Uffizi Gallery, Florence

One of the best art museums in the world, the Uffizi Gallery has an incredible collection of works from the Italian Renaissance period. Located in the centre of Florence , the Uffizi complex has been open to visitors since the 16th century.

Designed in 1560 by Giorgio Vasari, it features a top floor gallery that was intended to display the artworks of the Medici family. Over the years, it grew into the world famous collection that we know today.

You can admire several online exhibits in their virtual art gallery such as The Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, La Primavera by Botticelli and Medusa by Caravaggio. The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli has a timeless appeal.

Here’s a recap of these virtual art museum tours:

• Uffizi Gallery, Florence
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
• The Vatican, Rome
• The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
• The Smithsonian, Washington D.C.
• The National Gallery, London
• The Louvre, Paris
• Tate Britain, London
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• National Palace Museum, Taipei City
• National Gallery of the Cayman Islands
• J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• British Museum, London
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
• Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Final Thoughts on the Best Virtual Art Tours

There you have it, the best virtual art tours to take from the comfort of your home. While nothing can replace an in-person viewing experience, these virtual art tours provide the next best thing.

From world-renowned museums like The Louvre and The Metropolitan Museum of Art to smaller, lesser known institutions, there is something for everyone on this list. So whether you’re missing your local museum or looking to explore somewhere new, be sure to check out one (or all) of these amazing virtual art tours.

And if you’re interested in learning more about the art world, be sure to check out our other articles on everything from up-and-coming artists to must-see exhibitions.

Which of these virtual art tours do you like best? Are there any others that you would recommend?

You might also enjoy:

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Virtual Travel

A Smithsonian magazine special report

Smart News | March 20, 2020

Ten Museums You Can Virtually Visit

Museums are closing their doors amid the coronavirus crisis, but many offer digital exhibitions visitors can browse from the comfort of home

Nadine Daher

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, museums and cultural institutions across the globe are closing their doors to the public. But while visitors can no longer roam the halls of these institutions, virtual tools and online experiences mean anyone with an internet connection can browse world-class collections from home.

The Smithsonian Institution , of course, has its own array of virtual tours, experiences and educational resources . Among the other experiences on offer: Scroll through an extensive trove of 3-D photographs from the Minneapolis Institute of Art , explore online exhibits from the National Women’s History Museum in Virginia, or admire artistic masterpieces from the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Spain. Additionally, around 2,500 museums and galleries, including the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, are offering virtual tours and presenting online collections via the Google Arts and Culture portal.

For those in search of armchair travel inspiration, Smithsonian magazine has compiled a list of ten museums that have found new ways to fulfill their critical mission of cultivating creativity and spreading knowledge.

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Home to the world’s second largest private collection of art, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza owns masterpieces by giants of virtually every art movement—to name just a few, Jan van Eyck, Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Picasso and Dalí. To spotlight these artistic treasures, the Madrid museum offers an array of multimedia resources . Users can take a virtual tour of the entire building (or a thematic tour covering such topics as food, sustainability, fashion and even “inclusive love”); browse current and closed exhibits ; and watch behind-the-scenes videos featuring interviews, lectures and technical studies.

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Committed to offering a culturally rewarding experience since opening its doors in 2013, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul (MMCA) has established itself as a prominent cultural platform and leader in Korean art. In collaboration with Google Arts and Culture, the MMCA is now offering a virtual tour of its collections. This experience takes visitors through six floors of modern and contemporary art from Korea and around the world. Those seeking an educational walkthrough can follow along by tuning into curator-led recorded tours.

The Anne Frank House

The Anne Frank House , established in cooperation with the famed diarist’s father, Otto, in 1957, strives to inform the public through educational programs and tours of the building where the teenager and her family hid during World War II. To delve deeper into the story detailed in Frank’s diary, online visitors can watch videos about her life; virtually explore the Secret Annex ; look around the house where she lived before going into hiding; and view the Google Arts and Culture exhibition “ Anne Frank: Her Life, Her Diary, Her Legacy .”

The Vatican Museums

Home to some 70,000 artworks and artifacts spanning centuries, continents and mediums, the 5.5-hectare Vatican Museums are among Italy’s finest cultural institutions. Virtual visitors can tour seven different sections of the sprawling complex, enjoying 360-degree views of the Sistine Chapel , perhaps best known for Michelangelo’s ceiling and Last Judgment fresco; Raphael’s Rooms , where the Renaissance artist’s School of Athens resides; and lesser-known but equally sumptuous locations such as the Pio Clementino Museum, the Niccoline Chapel and the Room of the Chiaroscuri.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

“Since its founding, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has maintained a belief in the transformative powers of art,” reads the Manhattan museum’s website . “In uncertain times such as these, art can provide both solace and inspiration.”

In a nod to this mission, the Guggenheim , a cultural center and educational institution devoted to modern and contemporary art, has opened up its collections to online visitors. The building itself, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is an architectural masterpiece; audiences can listen to an audio guide of its history or journey up its spiral halls via a Google Arts and Culture virtual tour . For those who want to take a deeper dive into the museum’s collections, the Guggenheim’s online database features some 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists.

The London National Gallery

Take a virtual tour of 18 gallery rooms, enjoy a panoramic view of the museum’s halls and click through a wide collection of artistic masterpieces using the National Gallery ’s virtual tools . Based in London, this museum houses more than 2,300 works reflecting the Western European tradition between the 13th and 19th centuries. Collection highlights include Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers and J.M.W Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire .

NASA Research Centers

For those fascinated by space exploration, NASA offers online visitors the chance to take a behind-the-scenes look inside its facilities. Visitors can take virtual tours of the organization’s research centers, where aeronautic technology is developed and tested, and learn more about the functions of different facilities. The online tour of Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, covers 16 locations, including the Flight Research Hangar and the Katherine Johnson Computational Research Facility. The virtual tour of the Glenn Research Center in Ohio, meanwhile, takes visitors inside facilities such as the Supersonic Wind Tunnel, where high speed flight is researched, and the Zero Gravity Research Facility, where microgravity research is conducted.

The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City

Home to the world’s largest ancient Mexican art collection, in addition to an extensive collection of ethnographic objects, the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City preserves the country’s indigenous legacy and celebrates its cultural heritage. In collaboration with Google Arts and Culture, the museum has made some 140 items available for online visitors to explore from their homes. Among the objects available for viewing are the famous Aztec calendar sun stone and the striking jade death mask of ancient Mayan king Pakal the Great.

San Francisco’s De Young Museum

One of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco , the de Young Museum ’s new copper-clad building in Golden Gate Park combines art with architecture. The collection features a priceless array of American art dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries, as well as artifacts from Africa and Oceania, modern and contemporary art, costumes, and textiles. Through Google Arts and Culture, the de Young offers 11 exhibits, including “ Cult of the Machine ” and “ Ruth Asawa: A Working Life .”

Housed in a large fortress along the banks of Paris’ Seine River, the Louvre regularly tops rankings of the most-visited museums in the world, with millions of visitors flocking to its halls in search of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa , the Venus de Milo and other instantly recognizable artworks. Virtual tours offered by the Louvre include a walkthrough of the Egyptian antiquities wing and a view of the museum’s moat, which was built in 1190 to protect Paris from invaders.

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Nadine Daher | | READ MORE

Nadine Daher is a digital intern at Smithsonian magazine. She is a senior at Northwestern, where she studies journalism and international studies.

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The 13 best virtual museum tours in the world

By Jo Ascherl

Hands up – who is missing art ? While in early 2021 we can only dream of visiting exhibitions in far-flung destinations, we can experience the next closest thing: being transported to world-class museums and galleries, via European courtyards and faraway sculpture gardens, and lose ourselves in virtual tours and talks. Google Arts and Culture has also collaborated with a whole load of venues to place viewers right at the heart of the action. Here are the 13 virtual museum tours to take now.

LOUVRE, PARIS

Initially hesitant to take part in the Covid-induced digitisation that many galleries around the world have launched over the past year, the Louvre has finally succumbed to demand. While not technically offering a virtual tour, the world’s biggest museum has put almost its entire collection online – that’s more than 480,000 works of art. They're available to view for free on the new platform, Louvre Collections, which is updated on a daily basis. Explore by collection and filter to discover some of the world’s most precious paintings, as well as sculptures, inscriptions, objects, textiles and artists until we are able to travel to France and re-experience the museum in all its 4D glory. collections.louvre.fr

Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museums, Rome

It may just be that you had always intended to go to Rome and marvel at Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling masterpiece, instead of seeing it endlessly replicated in the media, but you somehow never got round to it. Here you can place yourself in the chapel, which is inside the pope’s official palace residence, and get a more complete impression of how it would be for real. You can even take a tour guide option to wander around the Vatican City and really ramp up the virtual experience. museivaticani.va

NASA, Washington DC

Who isn’t fascinated by NASA and space? Short of getting on a plane to Washington DC (which you can’t do even if you wanted to), this experience gives a glimpse into how the US government agency that deals with National Aeronautics and Space Administration operates. There’s some incredible video footage on it’s website’s Galleries page of test-firing launch systems and missions to the moon, plus you can see a number of exhibitions online via Google Arts and Culture. artsandculture.google.com

Natural History Museum, London

There’s pretty much something for everyone at the Natural History Museum: a 360-degree tour of the Fantastic Beasts exhibition, a gallery full of extraordinary Photographer of the Year images, as well as an up-close experience with Hope the blue whale – with audio guides by the reassuringly knowledgeable Sir David Attenborough . Our top tip: every Tuesday at 3pm you can spend time with a scientist online, and take part in interactive discussions. nhm.ac.uk

The National Gallery, London

If you missed the much-talked-about Titian: Love, Desire, Death exhibition when the National Gallery reopened its doors after the first lockdown in 2020, now is your chance to see the glorious works of the Italian Renaissance painter. There are also video highlights from the gallery’s considerable British collection with The Wonderful Everyday tour. While you’re there, sign up for the family half-term Zoom session (Monday 15 February 2021) on decoding paintings with the help of clues. nationalgallery.org.uk

The Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City

Frida Kahlo’s eventful life has been well documented – along with her eyebrows – but so have her unmistakable colourful masterpieces, from brilliant self portraits to original clothing designs. There is no place more fitting to view her work than in the house where she spent most of her years: La Casa Azul (the Blue House), which was set up as a museum after her death, as she wished. Through this virtual tour, which will transport you straight to Mexico , its possible to explore the house and gardens , as well as view a selection of Kahlo’s art. museofridakahlo.org.mx

Picasso Museum, Barcelona

A very uplifting way to bring a piece of Spain into your living room. Picasso was born in Málaga, but he spent many of his formative years in Barcelona , so many of his most important pieces are housed in this museum. A heady virtual stroll takes in works from his Blue and Rose periods, as well as his series of insightful reinterpretations of Velázquez’s Las Meninas . There are separate tours of the place’s pretty, plant-strewn courtyard and the various places where Picasso lived and worked. bcn.cat

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, USA

Big, bold flowers will forever be associated with O’Keeffe, along with her other distinctive American modernist works including paintings, sculptures and objects, in this collection entirely dedicated to the artist. You can take a virtual tour, and there are also some excellent online lectures and classes, such as drawing with colour, which is suitable for ages 12+, but make sure to book in advance. okeeffemuseum.org

The British Museum, London

No stone (literally) has been left unturned when it comes to exploring the British Museum from home, with a staggering 60-plus galleries to visit via Google Street View. Virtual collections on the museum site cover Oceania, with art and artefacts from the South Pacific islands , and a large selection of prints and drawings. Special online shows worth seeing, meanwhile, include the recent Arctic: Culture and Climate exhibition. artsandculture.google.com

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Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Spain

So in early 2021 you can't hop over to San Sebastián for some pintxos on a trip to Bilbao , but you will can see this brilliantly designed Frank Gehry museum with an interactive tour that shows a mesmerising video of a photographer catching a free runner scaling the outside of the building before exploring its outstanding modern art collection, with paintings by greats from Mark Rothko and Yves Klein to Willem de Kooning and Anselm Kiefer. artsandculture.google.com

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This powerhouse of a gallery is home to too many Renaissance greats to mention, but its selection of curated tours goes some way to conjuring up the magic of the Uffizi experience – and the upside is you don’t have to queue behind hordes of visitors to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation or Botticelli’s The Birth Of Venus . You can look up paintings or take a virtual stroll through various parts of the museum, and there are also video stories on lesser-known artists and educational projects. uffizi.it

The Vasa Museum, Stockholm

The behemoth Vasa ship, seen on entering this museum in Stockholm in real life, is one of the most striking pieces of history in the city, and it remains the best preserved example of a 17th-century vessel worldwide – retrieved after it sank in harbour waters in 1628. The audio guides online go through the history of the ship, along with realistic background sounds of the moment it sank, as well as up-close images and a historical timeline of events. stockholm360.net

Anne Frank House, Amsterdam

Anne Frank’s name is indelibly inked in history books as a result of her evocative World War II diaries, published after her death. This is a fascinating, if unsettling, tour around the museum dedicated to her attic hiding place, where she stayed to escape from the Nazis – something she managed until she was found and transported to a concentration camp, aged just 15. The site also has photographic footage of her childhood, along with extracts from her diaries. annefrank.org

MOMA, New York

Manhattan ’s awe-inspiring museum of modern art has a huge online display of work, from paintings and design to sculpture, architecture and film, including virtual views of Van Gogh’s Starry Night , the Surrealist Women exhibition and the gallery's Sculpture Garden. The New York, Open City video is a must for an immersive and historic NY experience. If you sign up to MOMA’s newsletter you can be updated on specific virtual events and live Q&As. moma.org

Now watch a tour around Milan's Fondazione Prada:

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20 Famous Art Museums You Can Visit from Your Living Room

Art from around the world has never been closer to home.

Did you know that you can access art museum virtual field trips, tours, and resources from around the world for free ? Why not take your students on virtual museum tours to the lavish Louvre in Paris? Or the majestic Metropolitan Museum of Art? Or any one of these historic art museums from around the world? Check out the list below to get started!

1. Benaki Museum

Located in Greece, the Benaki Museum features European and Asian pieces of artwork dating all the way back to prehistoric ages. In addition to having a massive collection of art you can explore virtually, the Benaki also offers audio tours for several of their larger exhibits. Our favorites include Chinese and Korean Art, Historic Heirlooms, and Childhood, Toys, and Games.

2. The Frick Collection

Frick, yeah! Click your way through this interactive map for a tour of the beautiful building and collections of art from the likes of Bellini, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and more.

3. The J. Paul Getty Museum

Explore thousands of items in the Getty’s collection  with help from Google Arts & Culture. The J. Paul Getty Museum specifically has several interactive options for exploring their collection: a “museum view” virtual tour, three ebook-style online exhibits, and the library of over 15,000 collected pieces of art.

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4. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

The largest art museum in the western United States is offering art museum virtual field trips. Watch videos and museum walkthroughs, listen to soundtracks and live recordings, learn with online teaching resources and courses, browse their art collection, and more on LACMA’s redesigned website.

5. The Louvre

One of our favorite art museum virtual field trips—and the world’s large museum—is the Louvre with options for some of their best exhibition rooms and galleries. Explore rare Egyptian artifacts, iconic paintings, the beautiful structure of the building, and much more through their 360-degree viewing feature.

(NOTE: Several of these virtual tours require Flash Player.)

6. Metropolitan Museum of Art’s #MetKids

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met) developed #MetKids for, with, and by kids—but we think parents and teachers will have just as much fun using it. Our favorite features include a fun and highly interactive map, a “time machine” search function, informational and how-to videos, and so much more.

7. Musée d’Orsay

Instantly transport to the middle of Paris with the Musée d’Orsay and their online tours and art collection. Here you can explore art history with the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces from renowned artists such as Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and many more.

8. Museo Frida Kahlo

Also known as La Casa Azúl (the Blue House), this historic art museum was developed where renowned artist Frida Kahlo lived and created masterpieces. While there, you can learn about her life, her art, and more as you take a virtual tour through her former residence.

9. The Museum of the World

The British Museum and Google Cultural Institute teamed up to create one of our favorite interactive projects: The Museum of the World. The British Museum’s digital art collection lets users travel through time—starting with 2,000,000 BC—while seeing how each historical piece in their collection connects with others. Wow!

10. The National Gallery

Click and scroll your way around the National Gallery in London with their three interactive virtual tour options. The National Gallery has hundreds of paintings in its collection ready to be viewed online, many of which are from the Renaissance period.

11. The National Gallery of Art

Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art has a wide variety of great educational resources,  including video tours of their exhibitions, in-depth looks at the best pieces of their collection, downloadable learning resources and exercises, pre-recorded lectures by artists and curators, and more.

12. Pergamon Museum

One of Germany’s largest museums, Pergamon is home to a variety of ancient artifacts, including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the Pergamon Altar.

13. Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum is the museum of the Netherlands and contains an online collection of well over 160,000 items. Not only is their digital collection incredibly stocked, but it’s also one of the more immersive collections online today. In addition, we highly recommend you try their “stories” feature (shown above), which walks users through the story and emotions behind the artwork created.

14. San Diego Museum of Art

Step inside the San Diego Museum of Art from anywhere! Enjoy 360-degree scans of your favorite galleries, zoom in to see art details, and read full label text in both English and Spanish, all from the comfort of home.

15. San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts

The San Francisco MoMA offers exclusive content featuring artists and their work online. Watch videos, read articles, and more right on their website.

16. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has several art museums around the world, which means more history to absorb virtually! Their Collection Online has over 1,700 diverse artworks by over renowned 600 artists—and it is definitely worth checking out as one of our top art museum virtual field trips!

17. Tate Modern: Andy Warhol Exhibit

The Tate Modern put together this video tour of their famous Andy Warhol exhibit. Museum curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran talk in-depth about Andy Warhol and his work through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQ identity, and more.

18. Uffizi Gallery

Here you’ll find the art collection of one of Florence, Italy’s most famous families, the de’Medicis. Wander the halls from any classroom!

19. The Van Gogh Museum

With an obvious focus on Vincent van Gogh, the Van Gogh Museum is home to the largest collection of van Gogh pieces in the world. The museum, virtual tours, ebook “stories,” and online collection dive into the life of van Gogh and the inspiration behind his art. Moreover, we think teachers everywhere will appreciate how big a fan he was of reading books!

20. The Vatican Museums

You can finally say you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel thanks to this online program! And, you can also virtually visit the Raphael Rooms, the Chiaramonti Museum, and more historic sites through these virtual tours by the Vatican Museums.

Did we miss one of your favorite art museum virtual field trips? Share them with us, and we might just add it to this list!

Also, check out the best field trip ideas for every age and interest (virtual options too).

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40 Amazing Educational Virtual Field Trips

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Welcome to The Hub for online Jewish classes and events. Find an upcoming event hosted by Jewish organizations across the world, or explore our on-demand section to view recordings of past events.

Navigating the Spring 2024 NYC Art Scene: A Virtual Gallery Tour with Artist Tobi Kahn

Hosted By: Orange County Community Scholar Program (CSP)

Join artist Tobi Kahn for a virtual Spring 2024 tour of multiple New York City galleries, as featured in New York Magazine’s “Best Bets.” The tour includes viewing exhibitions and virtually meeting artists, curators, and art historians, providing their perspectives on the showcased works. Participants will be introduced to what is new and important in the art world.

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Perm vodka distillery "PermAlko" excursion Vodka... probably there is no stronger Russian cliche than the country's most adored drink. Ever since the spirit appeared over a millenium ago, there has been a quarrel between the Russians and the Polish about who invented vodka first. Some say that the Polish started producing vodka using potato whereas the Russians used grain. Nevertheless, it is a fact that nowhere in the world more vodka is produced and consumed than in Russia. There are over a thousand registered brands of vodka in Russia, not taking into account the probably even larger number of "samagon" - the notorious home-made version, which is illegally sold everywhere. Although, during its long history of consumption, vodka has probably brought as much grief (alcoholism) as it brought joy, it has undeniniably integrated with Russian culture in many ways. Even today, no celebration goes without it... There are a few leading distilleries in Russia of which PermAlko, Perm's largest distillery, is one. Apart from local brands such as "Great Perm", "Old Ural", "Permskiy Krai", "Dimidovskaya" and "Permskaya Luxe", PermAlko also produces vodka for export among which are "Moskovskaya", "Smirnoff" and "Stolichnaya". The factory started producing vodka since 1895. Later, PermAlko also started producing a number of variations on plain vodka, for example: cranberry vodka, honey vodka, peppered vodka and several balzams. Balzam is a spirit varying from 25 to 50 percent alcohol, which is made using a large number of herbs and spices as a main ingredient for taste. During the 2-hour excursion at PermAlko, you are told about the factory and its products. The guide explains you about the distillation process of vodka - from water, sugar and grain until the bottled product - as he/she takes you past the different sections of the distillery. At the end of the tour, you are invited to the 'tasting room' to sense the flavours and aromas of different vodkas. There, in the form of a small lunch, you will be offered the typical snacks that Russians traditionally take with consuming vodka. And naturally you will not leave the distillery without a big souvenir...! Excursion possible Monday-Thursday, apart from national holidays PermAlko excursion Persons 1 2 3 4 5 6 Duration: 2 hours 212 122 104 86 76 70 Prices p.p. in euro (€), subject to change       Back to excursion page