Wanderlust
Published on June 22, 2020

Virtual Wanderlust: New York City

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Summer travel plans may be stinted by the current pandemic, that doesn’t mean your sense of curiosity and exploration needs to take 2020 off. In the face of extended closures, many museums and cultural institutes have been exploring ways to bring tourism online. 

New York City is no exception! Many of the city’s landmark museums and some parks have joined Google’s Arts & Culture Platform. Plus, those who haven’t (and even some that have) are hosting their own virtual experience on their websites. 

While these are certainly not as good as being in the city, taking in the sights, smells and sounds with your own senses, virtual experiences can certainly help ease some of your wanderlust until airlines and physical travel become viable again. 

So, without further ado, here are the top NYC virtual experience picks from this newly minted New Yorker… 

Museums 

  1. Museum of Modern Art (MOMA): Every Thursday MOMA is hosting a live, virtual experience of its exhibits. These events include talks and commentary from experts. If you miss a live event, no worries, you can always go back and watch recorded versions of them later.

    https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/267

  2. The Metropolitan Museum (MET): In addition to it’s Google Culture Platform experience, which focuses in on certain exhibits and pieces of history, you can also wander the MET generally via the 360 project on the museum’s website. Both are great options depending on how you like to digest information and exhibits!

    – Google Culture: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-metropolitan-museum-of-art

    – Met 360: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/online-features/met-360-project 

Entertainment 

While many of NYC’s arts events have wrapped up for the spring season, Carnegie Hall is still going strong with a full host of online live streams. You can find the schedule and links to Facebook or YouTube live streams on their website.

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Watch-and-Listen/Live-with-Carnegie-Hall#Upcoming  

Parks 

The High Line is one of my favourite walks in NYC for a number of reasons. By transforming what use to be a train track that brought meat products into the city’s meat market district, the city has created a elevated walk that gives you fantastic views of the city. The north end of the walk is also jam-packed with street art and sculpture installations. I also love the bold architecture of some of the new condo developments that have popped-up around the walk — many of which make it feel like you are walking through a futuristic space city.

You can walk the whole High Line via Google’s Arts and Culture platform by clicking here. 

Food

While tasting some of the city’s fine cuisine is not something you can really bring online, there are a few foodies doing their best to create a virtual stand-in. 

The New York City Wine & Food Festival, has launched some online summer courses to promote the in-person festival they hope to hold in October. As of today, you are able to register for a host of amazing online cooking classes to help spruce up your at-home cooking routine: https://nycwff.org/athome/ 

Eataly, the city’s famous Italian food market and restaurant, has been training their Instagram followers on kitchen skills with a series of tantalizing recipes and live cooking events! For more advanced cooking skills, the market has also created online virtual classes to replace their standard in-person cooking courses. If live cooking isn’t your forte, you can also get written copies of their amazing recipes via their online magazine.

Those are just a few of my favourite things to do virtually in the city, but there’s so much more available on the Google’s Arts & Culture Platform and I highly recommend you check them out if you are feeling a little board of your current view and Netflix selection. 

Happy (Virtual) Travels!

Tiffany  

Photo Credit: Tiffany