The message around the world is clear, no non-essential travel – both domestically and internationally. But with the world going digital don’t let travel bans stop the explorer in you. Virtual Reality has given the new age travelling a whole new dimension to explore. You catch the latest live shows and popular tours either individually or as a shared experience with an expert guide online. From cooking with a MasterChef to joining NASA and exploring outer space, here are a few experiences you can enjoy from the safety of your living room.

Blast off to Outer Space

If being part of NASA has been a life long dream, you can check out the complete virtual experience on their website. You can train like an astronaut, in an online tour at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. You could also check out the Kennedy Space Centre’s educational live streams on Facebook.

The Houston Space Center has a special app to journey into space via their Location-Aware Audio Tour (with fun facts along the way). If you have a VR headset, you’ll love their virtual reality experience of the Moon.

Access Mars takes you on a space expedition with a 360-degree virtual tour of the red planet with Google.

Cook with a MasterChef

Now’s your chance to take that once-in-a-lifetime cooking class you’ve always dreamed of.

There are a number of online cooking tutorials with celebrity chefs. Interact with Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura’s Kitchen Quarantine class on Instagram or Iron Chef Michael Symon on the Food Network Kitchen Facebook page every day. The Borough Market cooking classes are also very popular. You can join a cooking class live streamed on this beloved London market’s Instagram. Or share recipes with other fans on the Borough Market Community Facebook page. If you want traditional local experiences you could also look at pasta-making with Nonna Neria. This 84-year-old Italian grandma is combating a decline in business by live-streaming her cooking classes direct from Italy.

Get the full Airline Pilot Experience

If you’ve ever dreamt of becoming a pilot, this is the closest you’ll get to flying a commercial plane. You can even choose from a variety of flight simulator programs at locations around the world, from Prague to Dubai. In a replica cockpit you’ll learn how to take off and land from your preferred airports, navigate, and experience being both the pilot and co-pilot. In fact, the entire experience is so realistic that for safety reasons you’ll need to provide proper ID.

Airbnb Virtual Tours Online Experiences

Cooking, dancing, meditating, travelling and more is what the Airbnb virtual experience has on offer. A variety show of experiences, individual and group, is what this platform has included in its listings. Take a Zoom tour of Paris, one on one, with a local. From Harry Potter to the Queens Gambit, your favourite Netflix series has a fan club that will take you on a relevant tour. If you are looking at salsa classes in Columbia or meditation with the monks, the Airbnb platform has consolidated it all, to bring it to your doorstep.

Deep Sea Diving

Without the actual dangers, fearless dive into the underwater world to explore the great barrier reef, swim with sharks or explore ship wrecks.
One of the most rewarding virtual dives are the guided tour with David Attenborough through the stunning Great Barrier Reef. The virtual tour is quite interactive, with short videos, quick facts, maps and time lapse. You could also experience BBC Earth’s adorable turtle hatching experience. Airpano has a 360 degree diving experience with Jellyfish in Indonesia or sea turtles near Cuba. You could also consider diving with white sharks in the Discovery Channel’s 360-degree video. It isn’t very long but captures them mid feeding and allows viewers to observe them in great detail.

Shipwreck expeditions are not everybody’s cup of tea, but we suggest you give their virtual version a chance. Xlvisuals Limited offers immersive, 360-degree videos of warships and ocean liners; these videos are the only way to see MS Mikhail Lermontov as parts of the warship was collapsed after an earthquake in 2016. The Smithsonian allows viewers to explore 17th-century Melckmeyt without the freezing waters of Iceland.

There is no age bar for learning and experiencing the wonders of nature. Take advantage of the new digital world and travel to places you have always wanted to visit.

The post 5 Interesting Virtual Experiences appeared first on Unmukt - The Senior Hub.