A screenshot of the virtual tour available of the Musee d’Orsay, Paris offered through the Google Arts and Culture website.

While it’s not outright forbidden to head out and explore a new area or hike, the national forests and state parks have closed down trailheads, campgrounds and visitor centers across the state as a measure to try and slow the spread of COVID-19. These closures make it tricky to find an open spot to get out of the house.

Coupled with these closures are more from museums, art galleries and other places where tourists typically flock, making many of us a little stir-crazy in our homes. So what if you don’t have to leave to do a little traveling?

Several parks, historical sites and art galleries are now offering virtual tours of their facilities for those of us who are homebound for a while. Here are just a handful of these places to explore.

You don’t even need to get out of your pajamas.

National Parks

Both Google and the U.S. National Park Service websites offer many photos, trail maps and more. In fact, there are over 100 Google street views of National Parks available. Some vary in size and picture quality, but they are interesting to explore the roads and trails that have been captured.

But Google also hosts on their Google Arts & Culture website a special look at five of these spectacular parks in a more in-depth and interactive fashion through The Hidden World of National Parks.

In 2016, the centennial of the National Park Service, Google launched the virtual tour campaign of five of the nation’s parks featuring 360 degree video, audio and YouTube packages to fully immerse viewers. Led by actual park rangers, the tours dive into places sometimes rarely seen by tourists, and they are able to offer more insight — including personal connections — to the places themselves.

Kenai Fjords, Alaska — Home to nearly 40 glaciers that stem from the Harding Icefield at the edge of Kenai Peninsula, the virtual tour is lead by park ranger Fiona North and focuses on the glaciers that have cut through the earth and formed the fjords the park is named for.

North takes virtual tourists out onto the ice at Exit Glacier and down though one of its crevasses. The tour also includes an interactive animation of how far the glacier has receded over the past 15 years.

With the click of a mouse, you then travel to the terminus, or toe, of Bear Glacier and its brilliant turquoise waters of the meltwater lagoon. There you can go on a 360 degree video kayak ride through the icy waters while learning a bit about the ecology and human history here.

Hawai’i Volcanoes, Hawaii — Led by ranger and native Hawaiian Andrea Kaawaloa-Okita, we are taken down the underbelly of the world’s most active volcano, flying high above it and where the cooled lava has met the sea.

Then we are brought at dawn at the Kilauea caldera and visitor center located about a mile from the Iki crater on the mountain where you can choose to listen to the low growl of the magma as it courses underneath the earth or hop on a helicopter and fly over the active Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō vent on the eastern flank of Kilauea. Likewise, a video of flight over the park offers a great insight into the changing landscapes and how nature finds a way to recover after the lava has cooled.

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico — Here we can go spelunking into the 750 -foot-deep cave with the help of park ranger Pam Cox.

Fly around and learn about echolocation of the cave’s Brazilian free-tailed bat population with an animated interactive experience about these important creatures.

Down in the cave virtual tourists can look around the Big Room, the largest single chamber cavern in North America. Here we can choose to learn more about discoveries continuing to be made, like the Spirit World room discovered just 30 years ago. Or join Cox as she descends further into the lower cave where tourists do not normally venture, and explore using the 360 degree video feature.

Bryce Canyon, Utah — The red rocks and hoodoo rock formations that make this park a wonder are yours to explore — including the sky above them. A 16-year park ranger at Bryce Canyon, Kevin Poe begins the tour by taking a look at the cosmos and one of the darkest skies in the country through an interactive map, highlighting five night celestial features.

Coming back to Earth we are left at an overlook of the gorgeous hoodoos that make up the park at a point on the Navajo Loop trail. Here we can choose to listen to the sounds of Bryce Canyon in the early morning, complete with squawking and melodic bird songs, coyote yips, bees buzzing and the wind blowing gently through the canyon

, or take a pony ride with Poe down the Peekaboo Loop trail, one of the most strenuous hikes in the park.

Dry Tortugas, Florida — The Civil War-era Fort Jefferson is located at the southernmost tip of the contiguous United States and home to the national park that is 99% underwater.

Led by park ranger and diver Curtis Hall, we’re taken beneath the turquoise waters to explore in 360 degree video the reef up close and learn a little about the vibrant yet sensitive ecology here.

We can also dive through the bones of the Avanti shipwreck, sometimes called the Windjammer, that ran aground in 1907 and has since been reclaimed by the sea creatures and plants.

On dry ground, we can explore the fort.

The island can only be reached by boat or seaplane, making this virtual tour the easiest way to check out what the park is all about.

Art galleries

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California — Sitting above Los Angeles from the Santa Monica Mountains, the Getty is not only known for its art, but also for the architecture of the building itself. Take a tour of the outside, including views of L.A., then step inside to see the collections of works by the old masters, early photography and contemporary sculpture. The museum is packed with spectacular pieces for any taste.

The Vatican Museums, Vatican City — Showcased in stunning high definition, the museums are full of rich history and art. The virtual tours specify seven main areas tourists can explore and, because the images are such high quality, you can get lost for hours staring at the details of the Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or Raphael’s rooms, zooming in on each fresco and scene painstakingly painted hundreds of years ago.

Be sure to also take a moment to look down at the ornate tile work under foot.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam — For a detailed look at several of the Dutch masters, check the premier Netherlands museum. While the Google Arts & Culture website offers a great walk -through of the museum, the museum’s website dives a little more specifically into the works themselves, including a great narrative on the work currently underway on Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch.”

Several other works have been meticulously scanned and photographed to capture every fine detail of the piece.

Musee d’Orsay, Paris — Home to masterpieces from Vincent van Gogh , Claude Monet, Jean Renoir, Edgar Degas and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and housed in an old train station, the Orsay is beautiful inside and out. The Google Arts & Culture page is full of a substantial amount of its collection.

The building has undergone extensive renovations to bring the museum to life while still maintaining the iconic glass roof above and elaborate clocks.

Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City — Featuring the most extensive collection of ancient Mexican anthropological artifacts and art in the world, this is also the largest museum in Mexico, highlighting the indigenous peoples of the country throughout its rich history.

Featured in its impressive collection are pre-Columbian pieces including the Stone of the Sun (often mislabeled as simply the Aztec calendar) as well as displays from contemporary rural Mexican life.

Other museums and points of interest

The Natural History Museum, London — From the gorgeous entry hall, drawings and research from Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, fossils and dinosaur bones, this museum is a beauty.

Explore a good portion of the museum (in person it can take a solid day to explore all of it) including the hall of mammals, which uses taxidermic remains (some from the museum’s early days) to highlight the size and scale of the animals that roam the Earth.

NASA’s Glenn and Langley research centers — For all space nerds out there, this website includes 360 -degree walk-throughs, video and more. Learn about not only the history of the space program, but also what they are doing currently with aerospace technology.

National Aquarium, Baltimore, Maryland — Check out the fish, sharks and plant life that inhabit all waterways including the Amazon River. While not as fully immersive as other virtual tours, the images are spectacularly clear.

The Anne Frank House, Amsterdam — Both the Frank’s home in Amsterdam before the annexation by the Nazis and the secret annex where they hid for two years are available for virtual tours with many extra videos and articles to give meaning to the objects and rooms explored.

Though visiting the places may not carry the same weight as stepping foot inside in person, it is still a powerful resource and story to uncover.

The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California — While not as self-guided as the other tours on this list and maybe less poignant than some, the mystery surrounding the infamous house still can intrigue. It’s a 40-minute narrated tour of the house built by Sarah Winchester, as the story goes, to confuse the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles. Construction on the house lasted 38 years, nonstop. Architecturally interesting, the tour gives great historical context to the house and its owner.