A virtual museum tour can mean very different things: a room you move around yourself, an exhibition preserved after it closed, or a short video that lets you turn the camera. Choosing the right format matters more than choosing the most famous museum.
These ten official museum experiences give you a useful place to start. They are selected for distinct collections, clear entry points and the ability to explore from home, then grouped by the kind of visit they offer rather than ranked by artistic importance. The descriptions follow the institutions’ own information, checked on November 8, 2026; this is not a claim that every room, device or accessibility feature has been tested.
Quick choice: Start with the Smithsonian for natural history, the Rijksmuseum for a focused painting tour, the Louvre for archived themed exhibitions, or The Met for short 360-degree films. Virtual displays are snapshots, not a promise that the same objects occupy the same rooms today.
1. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: choose your own route
The Smithsonian’s virtual-tour hub is a strong starting point if you want to move through museum spaces rather than watch a presenter. Its self-guided tours cover selected exhibits and areas, including permanent displays, past exhibitions and research spaces.
For a more informative visit, start with Deep Time. The museum says this tour includes fossil images, videos and exhibit-label text, making it more than a panoramic backdrop. Use the map or floor arrows to navigate and look for camera icons that provide closer views.
Know before opening: The interfaces differ between tours, and phone and desktop controls may look different. Pick one exhibition first rather than attempting the entire museum.
2. Rijksmuseum: concentrate on 18 masterpieces
Masterpieces up close takes a deliberately narrower approach: 18 works in the Gallery of Honour, supported by text and audio. The selection includes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch.
This is a good choice when wandering an enormous digital building feels aimless. Begin with a painting you recognize, read or listen to its interpretation, then move to a less familiar work nearby. The focused scope gives a first visit a manageable shape.
Know before opening: This is a selected-masterpiece experience, not a room-by-room survey of every Rijksmuseum collection. Its value is closer attention, not exhaustive coverage.
3. National Gallery, London: explore a broad painting collection
The National Gallery’s Google Street View tour presents the Gallery’s C C Land: The Wonder of Art redisplay. The institution describes the display as spanning 700 years, with more than 1,000 works, and offers a virtual tour of the entire Gallery.
Choose this when you want the feeling of moving between rooms and seeing paintings in relation to their neighbors. The official page points to works such as Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait and Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond as possible starting interests.
Know before opening: Full-screen mode helps with navigation. A room panorama is not a substitute for a high-resolution artwork image when you want to study tiny details.
4. National Gallery of Art, Washington: compare buildings and garden
The Washington museum’s Google Arts & Culture hub combines artwork images and stories with Street View captures and guided tours of the East Building, West Building and Sculpture Garden.
Its useful difference is the variety of spaces. You can choose an indoor painting-and-sculpture visit or begin outside with the garden, rather than treating the whole campus as one continuous assignment. Follow the museum’s link to the hub, then select the building or experience that interests you.
Know before opening: The hub also contains games and object records. Those are separate ways to explore, not all parts of a single walk-through tour.
5. National Gallery of Ireland: take a smaller gallery visit
The Dublin institution’s virtual-tour page offers selected spaces including the Grand Gallery, Shaw Room, Rooms 48–45 and an Irish Art 1670–1835 tour. It is a useful alternative to a huge international museum when you would prefer a clearly bounded starting point.
Begin with the Grand Gallery for a sense of the interior, or choose the Irish-art option to give your visit a specific historical focus. Selecting one space makes it easier to spend time looking instead of repeatedly deciding where to go next.
Know before opening: The museum explicitly calls these tours of some gallery spaces. Its separate past-exhibition experiences should not be mistaken for current installations.
6. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza: look closely at paintings
Madrid’s Thyssen offers virtual tours of collections and exhibitions, including a collection tour using very high-resolution imagery. This is a promising choice if you want to spend your visit examining paintings rather than covering the largest possible floor area.
Start with the collection rather than a temporary-exhibition archive, then choose a small number of works to explore. The museum’s virtual-visit guide distinguishes free self-directed exploration from guided offerings.
Know before opening: Some guided virtual visits cost money. Choose the free self-guided route if that is what you want; do not assume every service linked from the same museum is free.
7. Louvre: revisit a themed exhibition
The Louvre’s online tours are especially useful when you want a theme to organize what you see. The listed Petite Galerie exhibitions include The Advent of the Artist, Power Plays and The Body in Movement.
Choose a question rather than a famous object: how artists became recognized as individuals, how art relates to power, or how movement is represented. That gives the visit a clearer purpose than clicking through rooms hoping to encounter everything on a Paris bucket list.
Know before opening: These are archived exhibition tours, not a complete walk through the Louvre or a guaranteed route to the Mona Lisa. Their narrower scope is the reason to choose them.
8. Natural History Museum, London: mix a tour with specimen stories
The museum’s Virtual Museum page brings together Google Arts & Culture tours, digital exhibitions, collection stories and other ways to explore from home. It also points to a Hintze Hall audio tour narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
This is a useful choice for visitors who want some explanation alongside the spectacle of a large natural-history museum. Pick a gallery tour first, then follow a related specimen story rather than treating the entire resource page as one continuous experience.
Know before opening: The online Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature experience preserves an exhibition that closed in January 2022. It is an archive, not an announcement of a current London show.
9. Vatican Museums: focus on a celebrated room
The Vatican Museums’ official virtual-tour directory provides separate entries for spaces including Raphael’s Rooms, the Sistine Chapel, the New Wing and the Pio Clementino Museum.
Choose this approach when architecture and decoration are part of what you want to examine. Starting with one named room gives the visit a clear destination, rather than requiring you to navigate the physical museum route before reaching it.
Know before opening: These are individual virtual experiences. Do not use their sequence as a physical visitor itinerary or assume a panorama includes a detailed explanation of every painted figure. The museum’s collection pages can provide additional context.
10. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: watch a short 360-degree film
The Met 360° Project consists of six short spherical videos, including views of the Great Hall, The Met Cloisters and the Temple of Dendur. On a desktop, you can drag the view while the video plays; on a phone, movement can change the viewing direction.
This suits a short break better than an open-ended digital walk. Choose one space, turn the view as the film runs and let the camera’s route supply the structure.
Know before opening: A 360-degree video lets you look around, not freely walk anywhere. The series also includes an archival Met Breuer film, so it should not be read as a list of current museum locations.
Make the visit feel less like scrolling
Choose one museum and one goal: examine a painting, explore a decorated room or follow an exhibition theme. Keep the institution’s page open beside the tour when you need context. If panoramic movement is uncomfortable or controls are difficult, try the linked object images, text or audio instead; accessibility varies between platforms.
For an eventual in-person trip, our guide to 10 free museums in London separates permanent-collection admission from booking requirements. A virtual tour is a useful introduction, but current opening arrangements and displays still need a separate check.