If you’re feeling it’s strange waking up every morning and commuting to the dining room table for a day of work, or if you are having trouble comprehending why there is no toilet paper on the store shelves, or if you are just worried that your children are missing out on all the best parts of their senior year as they study from home in front of their laptops, you’re not alone. This strange new world we are living in can be confusing and scary, but we are adjusting as best as we can to this time out, turning to our families for love and support. We’re playing games again, learning what teachers experience during regular life, and discovering how the internet can expand our horizons as the walls close in around us. And because we at Tahoe Signature Properties are experiencing the same feelings and fighting the same battles, we thought we’d share some of our favorite online resources that we’ve discovered for at-home entertainment!
Go to Library Without Leaving Your Home
The local library may have shut its doors, but as much of us have already learned, the internet allows it to stay open 24 hours! Checking out books, renting movies, even taking classes on topics that interest you are all activities that can be performed with nothing more than a few clicks on your mouse! Even small-town libraries such as the Tahoe City Branch or the Truckee Library offer services that allow you to escape your four walls without ever leaving your house or unnecessarily needing to put on pants!
Browse Online Travel Guides
We cannot express vehemently enough how much we love the internet, especially during these troubled times. Allowing us to explore other cities, countries, or even cultures during the dark days helps keep our spirits high, and if you had to temporarily postpone your planned getaway to North Lake Tahoe, you can lift your spirits with a virtual tour of the area! Expedia offers a series of video travel guides on YouTube for cities all over the world, including Lake Tahoe, and when you open the videos to full screen, it will feel as if you are really here exploring the museums, hiking the trails, and enjoying all the water activities we offer.
Venture Further Out for At-Home Entertainment
Because you aren’t limited by time or budget, you can expand your journeys even further during this pandemic crisis! World-renowned museums are offering virtual tours, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris as well as the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., allowing us to “visit and explore” any time of the day or night!
Go to the Aquarium
The most fantastic part of staying home is discovering all the opportunities to escape, without actually escaping! Aquariums all over the United States are offering webcams and virtual tours that offer educational purposes for your children while still remaining interesting and entertaining! The Georgia Aquarium, for example, has set up a beluga whale cam, as well as piranha, gator, jellyfish, African penguin, and California sea lion ones; the opportunity to explore the antics of these water creatures is something your entire family will appreciate. Other aquariums following this trend include Monterey Bay, the New England Aquarium, and there is even an Indo-Pacific Barrier Reef cam!
Talk to the Animals
In additions to the aquariums, zoos from all over the United States are providing their own webcams that let us see the lives of our favorite wild creatures in far more detail than an actual walk around the zoo! We’ve been watching the live webcams of giraffes, pandas, and even hippos giving birth for years, so these options aren’t new, but they do offer new distractions. Fiona, the hippo from the Columbus Zoo, has been a much-loved star of her own webcam show since her birth, and her cute antics have made kids all over the world beg for their own baby hippo! The Smithsonian Zoo elephant cam is another popular choice in the world of zoo cams, and the Virtual Tour offered by the San Diego Zoo really does make you feel as if you’re there. Perhaps you could pull the curtains shut, play some zoo sounds from the YouTube Channel, and spend an afternoon exploring the zoo with your kids. As frightening and off kilter as the world is today, these are the moments your children are going to remember with joy after the return to normalcy.
It Takes Some Imagination
Traveling via the internet may not be the ideal way of experiencing new places, but with a little imagination it will help tide you over until the world’s borders open once again. And when the planes are full of travelers and your North Lake Tahoe vacation is back on the itinerary, our Tahoe Signature Properties vacation escapes will have their doors open to welcome you once again. Stay safe and enjoy at-home entertainment!
