While humans are stuck inside, wildlife is roaming around unfazed by the pandemic.

Many of the national parks are being closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to national park service staff and overwhelming rural hospitals that have limited resources like ICU beds and ventilators.

Just because you can’t travel to these places, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy art, culture, the outdoors and connect with nature from the comfort of your couch.

Check out these virtual tours and live-streamed expeditions and get the cocktails ready!

Watch an African Safari Live

Can’t attend an African safari right now? Join and sunrise or sunset safari watching WildEarth’s safariLIVE broadcast directly from Africa to your home.

For broadcast times and to meet characters of the safari here.

Tour Famous Museums and Art Galleries Around the World

When I visited the The Netherlands a couple years ago during an eight-hour layover on my way to Egypt, eight hours may seem like a lot of time to visit Amsterdam, but with the amount of time having to get back to the airport, go through security, and get to your gate, places to visit had to be priortized.

One place I didn’t have time to visit was the Van Gogh museum. Luckily technology allows us to travel virtually anywhere.

2500 museums and art galleries offer virtual tours that allow you to go to any one of these museums without leaving the couch through Google Arts & Culture.

New York’s Metropolitan Opera

New York has a close place to my heart for many reasons.

Twice a year, I visit to watch ballet at the Lincoln Center in the Spring and return in late summer for the US Open to watch my tennis heroes.

On my bucket list is to watch a live opera at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. That dream will have to wait for now, but there is some good news for opera enthusiasts.

You can enjoy a night at the opera with no dress code!

Every night at 7:30 p.m., the Met offers free nightly opera streams.

Click here for list of nightly met opera stream dates and time. Please consider donating to their urgent fundraising campaign.

Experience 5 US National Parks

For those of us who don’t live by or have one of 61 US National Parks in our backyards to walk out the door and down the street for a brisk walk with nature, the National Park Service has made it possible to explore and tour the following parks virtually:

• Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

• Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii

• Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

• Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

• Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

I have been to a few of these and can say once you complete these virtual tours to national parks in the US, when the time comes to safely travel again, you will want to add one or all of these national parks to your next vacation list.

Check out my travel diary posts on the best national parks trips to:

• Cuyahoga Valley National Park

• Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

• Rock Mountain National Park

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