Virtual tours: Travelling in Korea from home

Since the start of 2020, the world’s situation became complicated because of COVID-19.
All tourism agencies and cultural places fell into a bad situation due to the pandemic. Because of quarantine for almost everyone in the world, it became hard to travel and some countries closed their borders. To help people discover new things from the safety of their homes, some places are now available to travel virtually! Here is how you can enjoy learning about Korea online through virtual tours. What are the virtual tours in Korea?

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Let’s discover the virtual tours in Korea!

VR tours in Palaces and Museums

Learn about the history of Korea by visiting their national palaces and museums online.

A Night at the Moonlit Changgyeonggung Palace

Changgyeonggung is one of the Five Grand Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty in Seoul. It was built in 1483, to enshrine the three Queens and connected to Changdeokgung to form a single palace called Donggweol, serving as an independent palace and supplementing the lack of residential space of Changdeokgung Palace. Changgyeonggung is very famous for its beautiful night view. So Seoul city made a VR tour to show and walk you through the beautiful palace online. Take a look at this 360 degrees VR video of the Changgyeonggugng’s night view.

The Deoksugung Palace

The Cultural Heritage Administration works with one of Korea’s major telemarketing company, SK telecom, to provide a virtual tour of the Deoksu Palace, the palace of the Joseon Kingdom between 1392 and 1910. This precious treasure of Korean History has a mix of Korean traditional style and western-style architecture. You can discover this palace thanks to a mobile application that allows 360-degree tours. At the same time, enjoy the guided speech about the Palace, the History, and the value of each piece. The tour can be seen by using the Jump VR application made by SK telecom but currently, only android users can download the application. The downside of it is that It’s all Koreans inside the app. If you can read Korean, it’s worthwhile to try it for a spin. They added Dokdo and Ullengdo Island VR films recently. Find “여행 (Travel)” menu on the app for Dokdo and Ulleungdo Island, and “갤러리 (Gallery)” menu for Deoksugung Palace and other museums.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art opened its doors for the first time in 1969. Like all other museums in Korea, this museum is temporarily closed for security reasons. But thanks to Google and the application of Google Arts & culture, it is possible to visit the museum through your mobile phone! You just have to download the application that is available for Android and IOS phones and enjoy the visit.

Korea Museum virtual tour — [Source: Imagine your Korea, Credits: https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=268077]

On the program you can see all collection pieces of the permanent exhibition and 4 online exhibits:

The 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Korean Modern Masters: Yoo Youngkuk 1916~2002
PARK HYUNKI 1942-2000 MANDALA
Garden
Birth of a Museum: Documenting the Construction of MMCA, Seoul

Click here to visit the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art by Google Arts & Culture.

National Palace Museum of Korea

Created in 1908 this museum is specialized for the Joseon royal and Korean imperial court artifacts. Originally located in Changgyeonggung Palace, the museum was first moved to Deoksugung Palace in 1991 before being moved again in 2005 inside Gyeongbokgung Palace, its current location.

You can visit the museum thanks to Google Arts & culture who displays the permanent exhibition and also 22 online exhibitions, such as The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty From Odaesan Mountain Historical Archives, ROYAL SYMBOLS, and Ancestral Rites of Royal Family in Joseon Dynasty, and more. The pictures and quality of the tour will make you feel like you are there.

Folk Museum of Korea

Opened in1946, the National Folk Museum represents the daily life and culture of Korea. Every year, 2 million people learn about Korea’s history and culture through this museum.
Thanks to Google Arts & Culture, you can visit this place through a virtual tour during the pandemic situation.

On the program: More than 25,000 objects for the permanent exhibition and 5 online exhibits :

The life of a Korean
Gyeongjikdo
Portrait of Three Jo brothers
THE COLORS IN KOREAN LIFE AND CULTURE
New and Old style astronomical chart

Click on the link for going to the virtual tour of Folk Museum of Korea by Google Arts & Culture.

National Museum of Korea

Virtual tour Korea museum — [Source: Imagine your Korea, Credit: https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=268137]

The National Museum is the main museum of Korean arts and history. Created in 1909, this museum is one of the biggest museums in the world with 137, 201m² of superficies.
NHN, an operator of Naver, started to offer the “Museum View” since the end of 2012 and wanted to share the museum’s entire permanent exhibitions to web visitors. This is a great time to discover it! Displayed in 52 galleries, the “Museum View” offers Naver Maps 3-D images of exhibition halls. This allows visitors to discover various relics from the Paleolithic to the Joseon period.

Click here to discover the virtual tour of the National Museum of Korea by NHN.

Sightseeing

Sight see the beautiful places of Korea online with virtual tours that will make you feel like you’re here.

Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival

Whenever the Spring comes, many cherry blossom festivals are held in Korea. And the most famous one in Seoul is Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival. It’s begun in 2005 and provides great Instagrammable photos to you with about 1,500 cherry trees along the street. VIsit Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival online via Seoul City’s 360 degrees VR video.

Virtual tour of Seoul – ArcGIS Online

With ArcGis Online everyone can share information through interactive maps. That’s what geog 1103 and hyunyong lee did by creating an interactive map of a virtual tour of Seoul where you can discover the main places of South Korea’s capital. You can localize all places on the map and each photo is followed by an explanation text to introduce you to the places and history. If you want to visit the interactive map, please click on the following link: Virtual tour for Seoul by geog 1103xhyunyong lee.

Traveler’s stories

Another way to travel in Korea from home is to follow stories of travelers! Korea Tourism Organization shows stories from travelers living in different parts of Korea like Seoul, Busan, and Jeju! This is an interesting way to discover Korean life through foreign residents living in Korea. To discover all the stories, go to the Korea Tourism Organization’s page.

K-pop

Can’t live without K-pop? Don’t worry as you can enjoy the best of K-pop Korea online.

V LIVE VR

Since the end of 2019, music labels started the VR concert with their artists. In 2020, a lot of concerts were canceled because of sanitary security. And because the situation remains uncertain for a long moment, some K-pop artists wanted to share some special moments with their fans. This is the best time to try a 360-degree video!

That’s what the V LiVE application wants to do with worldwide fans. At the start, the V LIVE app was used by artists for sharing small moments of their daily life with their fans. Now, the “V LIVE VR” app offers a bigger rooftop view in 360° or 180° /3 dimensions. For more information, please visit this page.

Beyond Live by SMTOWN

The most famous K-pop boyband BTS already shared a concert in 360-degree via Bang Bang Con: The Live, you can join a virtual concert of your favorite artist live! Despite this pandemic, virtual concerts allow fans and artists to share a moment in safety.
One of the big music companies of South Korea, SM entertainment also launched its own application: Beyond Live.
Through this app, you can enjoy a K-pop concert and communicate with artists from your home! These concerts have limited spots of around 200 per concert.

So if you really want to have this privilege, it might be better to buy your ticket as soon as possible! For that, you should install the application and create your account. After that, you will be able to purchase your concert ticket. Each ticket can be purchased alone or with a special package of goodies.
If you have the official lightstick of the group, it can be connected with the application to be in sync with the virtual concert as a real concert!

Though the world is hurting, we hope that you can make the best of every situation. Learn about Korea interactively and safely so that when you are here you can make the best of every moment in Korea.