Experience Five (Virtual) Tours of National Parks in Just One Hour! (aka How to Travel while Sheltering at Home)

I am in desperate need of a vacation, and with the world’s current turn of events, I will be waiting even longer than originally hoped.  Saying that, I decided that it was worth checking out one of the many sites available that allow for virtual tours, and I chose to play tourist from the comfort of a cushioned chair at home.  I won’t even pretend to imply that virtual tours were anything like the real thing, but I certainly enjoyed them and have a desire to visit these sites in person someday.

I recently posted about multiple websites that might be of interest while we are spending more time at home.  I used some of my free time to check out one of the sites. Although many of us are not as busy as usual, we still like to have an idea of how we are going to spend our time.  The purpose of this post is to give you an idea of what you can see and how much time you may need to go on this set of virtual tours of national parks.

I started with this article and clicked on the virtual tour link listed under Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.  You can also just click here to take you directly to the welcome page. Once you start, you can tour through five different national parks.  I went through each park in 10-15 minutes; overall I spent approximately an hour “touring.”  This included listening to some sections more than once and “looking around.”

I will list the rundown of the tours, but you should check them out yourselves!   There are no photos here. I want you to enjoy the discovery yourselves! All of the tours are narrated by a tour guide/park ranger.  There are audio and visual elements to each tour, and you can check some of the areas with a 360 degree view.

You start in Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska.  On this tour, you can see a climb into a crevasse, see a timelapse about icebergs, and visit Bear Glacier Lagoon.  There, you can go on a kayak journey, watch a whale breach, listen to icebergs underwater, see glaciers crash into water, and fly over Bear Glacier.

Your next stop will take you from ice to fire as you visit Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii.  Upon arrival, you can see and learn about a lava tube as well as a volcanic cliff. You can explore an active volcano.  As you explore, you can watch a video of the 1959 eruption, fly over an active volcano, witness the power of lava, and listen to a volcano roar.

Heading back to the continental United States, you will visit Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.   I will simply summarize this tour with two words: BAT and CAVE (it wasn’t until I typed that out that I started thinking about Batman).  Check it out!

The next tour, Bryce Canyon in Utah, was a little different.  There you first have the chance to learn more about and explore the night sky.  Then with the benefit of daylight, you can learn how hoodoos form, listen to the sounds of Bryce, ride horseback through a canyon, and look up from what is named Wall Street.

The final stop on this virtual tour of national parks is Dry Tortugas in Florida.  Here you can swim through a coral reef, dive the Windjammer Shipwreck, and explore Fort Jefferson.

Certainly, a virtual tour is nothing like the real thing, but since no one is visiting the real thing right now, here is your opportunity to be introduced to these national parks, learn a little, and be amazed by the beauty and power of parts of this country.   Take an hour out of your day to enjoy your escape to several of the great national parks of the United States. Safe travels!

(Since I obviously did not visit any of the national parks in person, the photo you see at the top of this post was taken across the street from my house.  I’m staying local!)