This article was updated 21 June 2023
Virtual excursions are an immersive experience that can transport your child to the most talked-about history museums, art galleries, zoos and even space stations in the universe. The best online tours for kids offer more than simply a live feed of video streaming – they make the experience engaging and mentally nourishing by complementing the virtual tour with compelling information, exciting interfaces and activities for kids to learn from.
There is also an entire amazing and inspiring world that can come to you in your home – if you know where to look. So the next time it’s pouring with rain outside and the kids are hollering that they’re bored, get them out of the house while they’re sitting on the couch with these incredible virtual field trips for kids.
The NGV
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) may be the oldest gallery in Australia, but it’s embraced all the wonders of modern technology with its huge offering of virtual exhibitions and collections. Its wide range of more than 50 self-guided online tours include everything from Japanese modernism and photography to Australian portraiture and Indigenous art. Grab the kids on the couch with a device, then make a beeline for The Gecko and the Mermaid, an engaging exhibition that introduces young visitors to the stories, culture and language of two contemporary Yolŋu artists from North-East Arnhem Land: the award-winning Ms N Yunupiŋu and her sister, Eunice Djerrkŋu Yunupiŋu.
Best for: older and middle primary
Google Arts & Culture
This is a one-stop digital excursion shop. Google has partnered with over 2000 of the world’s museums and galleries to bring to dining tables everywhere the most incredible artworks, artefacts and virtual tours. While Google Arts & Culture does have a family section with educational learning opportunities and kid-friendly activities, there’s some out-and-out fun too, like the Art Selfie. Just snap a pic of yourself and discover your artwork doppelganger.
Best for: all kids
The British Museum
An innovative and exciting interface lets kids explore this iconic museum that chronicles two million years of history and culture. Choose an historical time, a continent and cultural theme and dive into the past through artefacts from that period. Kids can add to their experience by listening to British Museum curators share their deep knowledge.
Best for: older and middle primary
San Diego Zoo
There are live feeds of animals going about their day (but not all animals want to be big-screen stars and may be asleep or hiding), fact sheets, activities and videos of animals narrated by zookeepers in this entertaining zoo site. There is also a special, and extremely thorough, teacher resource and activity guide for years K-5 for the rhinoceros.
Best for: all kids
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NASA Kids’ Club
This is not so much a virtual field trip as a virtual smorgasbord of all things amazingly outer space. NASA Kids’ Club features STEM activities for school kids, a picture of the day from outer space, guided tour videos from the space station and NASA astronauts chatting about the big universe questions, like what Earth really looks like from a spaceship.
Best for: all kids
The Deep Sea
Sometimes the simplest things are the best. This site lets kids dive deep into the ocean and, as they descend, shows them what sea creatures live at different depths. At 150 metres below the surface there’s the bull shark, at 1475 metres, big red jellyfish, and cusk eels are doing their thing at 8365 metres. It’s also peppered with interesting facts about sea creatures and basic information about human deep-sea adventures.
Best for: young and middle primary
Boeing’s Virtual Field Trips
Choose between digital excursions to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where kids can discover the latest in aerospace innovation by going behind the scenes of the mission to launch the Starliner/CST-100 spacecraft, and an ecoAction Virtual Field Trip to meet STEM experts working on sustainability projects across Washington State in the US.
Best for: older primary
Machu Picchu
With expert narration and 360-degree images of this ancient site, around 2400-metres high in the Andes mountains in Peru, kids will be captivated by the experiential website and its stories of the construction, engineering and culture of this man made wonder.
Best for: middle and upper primary
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Storyline Online
This is the ultimate field trip to the library. Where else can you sit down in your own home and have famous actors such as Rose Byrne read The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Chris O’Dowd tell the story of Arnie the Doughnut and Chris Pine flip the pages of Clark the Shark? The star power is endless. There’s Betty White, Viola Davis, Kristen Bell, Oprah Winfrey and many more famous faces reading fabulous kids’ books that are interspersed with cartoon animations during the storytelling.
Best for: young primary and pre-schoolers
