We’re all still sheltering in place here on the U.S. West Coast and elsewhere, so here’s a new list of ways to get out and explore without leaving home.
Listen to music from around the world
World Music Network/Riverboat Records covers world, jazz, blues, folk, and undiscovered sounds.
Start on their music guides page, scroll through their pages of graphics with links, click on a part of the world whose music you’d like to hear, and you’ll be taken to a page of information with embedded videos you can watch and listen to. As an example, the first page includes links to sounds as different as Mugham music from Azerbaijan and English folk roots. They also sell MP3s, CDs, and Vinyl.
If you have young children at home the Music Teachers National Association has put together a lengthy page of listening options.
Read translated work from other countries
Words Without Borders translates work from around the world into English. You can visit their site or sign up for their newsletter. They’ve begun a Decameron via their newsletter, described below in their own words:
“Voices from the Pandemic. We are commissioning new work from our contributors based all over the world to offer humanistic perspectives on and literary responses to the COVID-19 crisis, beyond what the twenty-four-hour news cycle conveys. The first dispatch is from Italian screenwriter Silvia Ranfagni.”
Take a virtual vacation
No passport or airport check-in required. The website SmarterTravel has put together a list of 21 sites, with links, that let you visit museums around the world, a zoo in Australia, the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, a park conservatory in Seattle, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Sistine Chapel, as well as sites like 360Cities that allow you to visit rainforests or cities via panoramic photographs and videos.
Thanks for visiting, enjoy your virtual travel, and stay healthy!
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