I am an avid traveler; I typically am gone at least one weekend a month and several weeks a year. I spend all my free time and discretionary income on travel. Traveling is my therapy.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, all of my travelings has come to a screeching (and necessary) halt. I have canceled a few smaller weekend trips to Disneyland and to Texas, and am more than likely going to have to cancel or at the very least postpone my three week trip to South Africa scheduled for the end of May.

Thankfully, the traveling community has come together to offer a variety of virtual travel experiences. Below are 10 ways to travel from the comfort of your living room.

1. Peruse the halls of a world-class museum like the Louvre in Paris, the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, the Vatican Museums in Vatican City, or many others.
2. Enjoy the great outdoors from the great indoors by virtually exploring one of the national parks of the USA, including Joshua Tree, Yellowstone, and Zion, among others.
3. Tap into a bit of Disney magic at home by taking a virtual trip to any one of several Disney parks including California Adventure, EPCOT, the Animal Kingdom, and of course, the Happiest Place on Earth.
4. Are you the type that likes to get “lost” in a new city? Then you will love this game that drops you somewhere in a google street view and you have to guess where you are by navigating the streets!
5. If theater is more your thing, you can get 7 days free streaming of Broadway Musicals including Cats, Kinky Boots, Swan Lake and hundreds more.
6. Perhaps opera is your art of choice, join The Metropolitan Opera every night for a different encore presentation from the company’s Live in HD series, being made available for free streaming on the Met website, with each performance available for a period of 23 hours, from 7:30 p.m. EDT
7. Ever want to go on Safari? You are in luck, each weekday at 3 p.m., the Cincinnati Zoo is going Facebook Live with Home Safari or you can watch a live stream of the animals at the Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo.
8. Taking a cooking class in Italy was one of my favorite experiences and now Gucci Osteria’s Massimo Bottura is bringing that experience to your home kitchen by offering free virtual cooking classes from Modena, Italy while Bread Ahead is doing live bakery lessons from London, England.
9. Ever fallen in love with a language that is not your own? Now is the time to learn it; use Duolingo for free. Something about speaking and hearing a language you love will transport you back to where you first heard it.
10. And of course, there is always travel via the pages of a book. Check out these travel-inspired books or dig up some old favorites and transport yourself to the magical lands of Narnia, Middle-Earth, Hogwarts, Neverland, and Wonderland.

Is it the same as being there? No. Is it better than not exploring the world at all? Absolutely. Hopefully, some of these experiences will be just enough to keep your wanderlust in check during this unprecedented travel ban.