How to Explore the World from Home with Kids

ByJessica Lee Updated on

Editor’s note: This article was originally written during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. While the world has changed since then, the idea behind it still matters — helping kids stay curious about the world, even during seasons when travel isn’t possible. We’ve updated this post to reflect a wider range of situations families may experience today.

Travel isn’t always possible.

Sometimes it’s because of finances, school schedules, a new baby, medical needs, work, burnout, world events, or simply being in a season of life where getting on a plane just isn’t realistic.

But that doesn’t mean curiosity about the world has to stop.

One of the things we care about most in our family is raising global citizens. Raising kids who grow up understanding that there’s a huge world beyond their own neighborhood, culture, and routines.

Even when we’re home for long stretches between trips, we still look for ways to explore different countries, cultures, foods, languages, music, and traditions together.

And honestly, some of these seemingly simple experiences become the most meaningful.

Virtual travel with kids can be educational, fun, inspiring, and a great way to keep that sense of adventure alive between trips.

Here are some easy ways to “travel” the world from home with kids.

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11 Ways to Virtually Travel with Young Kids

1. Read books about different places

  • Tiny Travelers – a group of multicultural parents created Tiny Travelers to help parents teach their children about different places and cultures. We just received a set of their books and they are so perfect and beautiful! I have a feeling I’ll be buying every new country they release.
    • Currently, you can purchase a board book on Mexico, China, Puerto Rico, India, Japan, Lebanon, Colombia, Nigeria, Australia, and more
  • Good Night Our World – this series of children’s books is a family favorite, each book features a different city or country showing various people, places, and highlights of that destination while saying goodnight to each. Our preschooler gets excited about seeing places in the book that he has been to and even more excited when I pull up a photo on my phone of us there.
  • Playtown: Airport – this multitab, lift-a-flap board book is great for young kids interested in all that goes on at an airport

2. Play music from another country

  • Music is fun for all ages and an easy way to expose the youngest of babies to different cultures, different sounds. 
  • Use your Alexa, Google Home, phone or TV to easily find international music.
    • I like to say, “Alexa, play Bollywood music” or “Alexa, play Spanish music” when we’re cooking and eating.
  • Have a freestyle dance party to the new sounds, or even let your kids try to learn some dance moves from different cultures. You can easily find Youtube videos of almost anything, such as Russian Kozachok, Irish step dancing, Cuban salsa or Indian Bollywood dances.

3. Experience a place or attraction virtually with kids

  • More and more destinations and attractions have released or created virtual access to their sights. Check these out to travel halfway around the world without leaving your home. 
  • Use Google Earth – a virtual globe that takes you to a street-view level of destinations all over the world, walk around Tokyo, check out the Eiffel Tower and more
  • Explore Central Park – NYC’s iconic park
  • Wonder at the Cliffs of Moher from home
  • Thrillist put together a great list of varying virtual travel experiences, including hiking the Great Wall of China, exploring Chile and seeing the Northern Lights
  • Take a 1 day trip to Jeruselum
  • Appreciate art at these 12 famous museums online including British Museum, London; Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Pergamon Museum, Berlin; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Uffizi Gallery, Florence; MASP, São Paulo; National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
  • Louvre Museum, Paris is also offering some virtual tours of certain exhibits
  • Don’t miss the Forbes list of live/virtual beach experiences, musical/theatrical performances, and more

4. Practice learning a new language with your kids

  • Music is a very effective way to approach teaching kids new languages, for learning Mandarin Chinese, we like Little Fox Chinese and BabyBus in Chinese
  • Read some books in another language. This will be more difficult if neither parent speaks other languages, but if you speak English and have even a beginner level of Spanish, French or some other Romance language, you can probably manage a children’s book.
  • Gus on the Go – a free app that teaches new languages using stories, 30 different language options 
  • Ni Hao Kai-lan – a show featuring a Chinese-American preschooler and her animal friends learning life lessons and teaching a few Chinese words
  • Little Pim – developed a proprietary Entertainment Immersion Method® to help teach 0-6-year-olds a new language, and they offer 12 different languages

5. Watch movies that feature different destinations and cultures

  • Coco – Miguel, a young aspiring musician, navigates the complexities of his culture and ancestors in Mexico, available on Disney+
  • Moana – works to accomplish an ancient quest of her ancestors set in the Polynesian islands, available on Disney+
  • Hayao Miyazaki films – a famous Japanese anime filmmaker
    1. My Neighbor Totoro – this is about two young girls who befriend Totoro, a giant fluffy and cuddly spirit animal
    2. Ponyo – a fish-girl befriends a human boy, a different take on a Little Mermaid-like tale
    3. Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films are critically acclaimed, but they’re different than most Western animated children’s movies.
    4. Check this out for some background information, and find additional movie options for older kids.
  • Babies – a documentary film (not the TV series) that covers the first year of life of a baby in Namibia, Mongolia, Tokyo, and San Francisco and compares and contrasts their lives. I’ve watched this on Netflix a couple of times, but sometimes they take it off.
  • Brave – spirited Merida, daughter of the Scottish King, fights to create her own path, available on Disney+
  • Princess and the Frog – a tale about Tiana who works hard to pursue her restaurant dreams in New Orleans, available on Disney+

6. Take a trip down memory lane with your kids from a previous adventure

  • Scroll through old trip photos on your phone or computer, or even pull them up on your TV for a bigger show. Our kids love to look at past photos of themselves, and of just mom and dad.
  • Let your kids help create a photo book or choose photos to print and create your own album.

7. Cook (or order delivery) international food

  • Cook international food
    • Find a new recipe, or even try to make something you loved eating on a previous trip. I use Pinterest the most to search for recipes. Our boys love to help in the kitchen, sometimes for the full project, other times they’ll only run in for a step or two.
      • Middle Eastern Mint Lemonade – my favorite drink of all time, which I didn’t learn about until our first trip to the Middle East. We had it in the UAE, Oman, and Egypt. It’s simple to recreate and so refreshing.
      • Japanese Yaki Onigiri – onigiri (rice balls) are meant to be portable and almost can be compared to our approach toward packing sandwiches for eating lunch out of the house. In Japan, I loved having yaki onigiri, or grilled rice balls. It’s nothing fancy, but the grilled aspect adds a depth of flavor and a nice crunch. You can make them as simplistic or complex as you want, grilled or not, stuffed/wrapped or not.
        • You don’t need special tools to make these, but once I started making them more, I bought these molds (triangular and round) to make it easier.
      • Hungarian Chicken Paprikash – I had the tastiest chicken paprikash on a trip to Budapest, Hungary and have been wanting to recreate it ever since. I managed to successfully make the nokedli (or Hungarian dumplings, also known as German Spätzle) the other night. Next up I need to tackle the chicken.
  • Order and go out for international food
    • You can order delivery (get takeout) or visit a nearby international restaurant and enjoy a tasty international meal. We love to order Indian, Italian, and Chinese cuisine the most.

8. Watch kids TV shows that feature different destinations and cultures

  1. Super Wings – a South Korean produced animated children’s show about transformer jet planes that travel to a different city around the world each episode to help a local child. It does a good job of showing the landscape and landmarks of different places and some of the local children and what their local life is like, streaming on Netflix 
  2. Hogie the Globehopper – a treefrog that travels the world with his friends while showcasing different places, such as Bangkok, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires, streaming on Netflix
  3. Mama Mirabelle’s Home Movies – an elephant who travels around the world filming various wildlife that she shares with her family and friends when she returns home, National Geographic and BBC archives footage

9. Virtually travel with your kids through someone else’s past adventures

  • Check out your family member’s or friend’s past travel pics
  • Jump on a video call and exchange past travel stories
  • Get inspired and discover new destinations to travel to next
    • Find a family travel blog, vlog, or Instagram account to follow
    • You can check out some of our past adventures here and see more on Instagram

10. Plan a future trip with your kids

  • Even if you don’t know exactly when you can travel next, you can still dream and plan trips tentatively.
  • Involve your child 
    • Let them pick a place if they’re old enough to indicate interest in a specific place, spin a globe or have them point to somewhere on a map.
    • Or, you can plan a trip around a place based on certain things you know your child likes. This could look like if they love guacamole – a trip to Mexico, giraffes – a trip to Kenya, or Frozen – a trip to Norway.
  • Let yourself and your child dream big!
    • Even if you can’t go on the trip for a year, ten years, or even if you never plan to actually go, planning and anticipating a trip brings joy. Science says so!
    • Truly, this is the perfect time to involve your child in some trip planning. Since they probably don’t have a concept of budgetary and vacation time restrictions, they may open your eyes to new destination ideas. Maybe it won’t come to fruition, or maybe you can create a family travel goal to make it happen in 5 or 10 years.

11. Create a themed night

  • Take your virtual travel with kids to another level and make it a whole day, night or even weekend affair.
  • Pick a city or country and combine several of these ideas together.
    • If you were supposed to go, or are dreaming of a trip to Mexico, plan a Mexico day/night/weekend:
      • Play various Mexican music throughout the day
      • Make some Mexico-related decorations
      • Pretend play beach or pool time
      • Make frozen virgin daiquiris
      • Snack on chips and guacamole
      • Read books in Spanish, try to use some of the words throughout the day
      • Discover Chichen-Itza virtually
      • Eat Mexican food
      • Look at pictures of a prior trip (whether your own or someone else’s) to Mexico
      • Watch Coco
    • Or if your child is interested in pandas, plan a China day/night/weekend:
      • Play various Chinese music throughout the day
      • Make some China-related decorations, such as red lanterns
      • Watch and learn about pandas through the virtual zoo experiences at the Edinburgh Zoo, Smithsonian’s National Zoo, and San Diego Zoo 
      • Watch Ni Hao Kai-lan (S1 E19) goes to China, try to use some of the Mandarin words throughout the day
      • Hike the Great Wall of China virtually
      • Try to cook or order delivery Chinese food
      • Look at pictures of a prior trip (whether your own or someone else’s) to China
    • Watch Born in China (about pandas)(alternatively: Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda II, Mulan)

One of our main reasons for traveling with our kids is to expose them to different people, places and cultures. While I believe firsthand experience is truly the best way, this is not the only way.

In our modern world, there are so many ways to experience other places and expose kids to other cultures. Try to take advantage of the extra family time at home and travel virtually with your kids, have fun!

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