These 16 Famous Museums Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take From Your Couch

If you're a dedicated art lover, you likely go to great lengths to visit renowned museums and galleries. But even when you’re not traveling, you can still get a look at their masterpieces and architecture through interactive virtual tours—what's more, they'll let you skip the lines and crowds, enter for free at any hour, and stay as long as you like. Sure, you're visiting through a screen, but you're also visiting without leaving the house at all.

You can find online tours of more than 2,000 museums and archives on Google Arts & Culture. Other institutions offer virtual tours on their own websites, among them the Vatican Museums and the Louvre. Below, we've curated 16 of the best virtual tours of museums around the world.

The British Museum, London

This virtual tour drops you right into the Great Court of the British Museum—a soaring, glass-capped architectural marvel redesigned in 2000. From there, you can navigate Street View-style into the Egyptian sculpture gallery, where the iconic Rosetta Stone awaits in high-res detail. The virtual tour also threads through galleries showcasing ancient Greek statues and vases, Aztec artifacts like the famed double-headed serpent sculpture, and rare Chinese artifacts, including digitized scrolls.

Vatican Museums, Vatican City

The next best thing to an after-hours tour, the Vatican Museums offer virtual access to more than a dozen of its galleries and ornate, treasure-packed spaces. Glide through the lavish Raphael's Rooms, where every inch of wall and ceiling is covered in frescoes. Then make your way to the Sistine Chapel, where you can pan across Michelangelo’s iconic ceiling and “Last Judgment” at your own pace—without the usual shoulder-to-shoulder shuffle with other tourists. The tour includes 360-degree views of lesser-trafficked gems too, like the Pio Clementino Museum and the Room of the Chiaroscuri.

The Louvre, Paris

The Louvre’s official virtual tours focus on curated themed exhibits rather than full gallery immersions. You can explore exhibitions like "Traveling Materials and Objects," which traces ancient trade through materials like ivory and lapis lazuli, and "Power Plays," which explores art and political power (through a lot of paintings of royalty). While you won’t be able to virtually enter the gallery of the "Mona Lisa" here, the Louvre’s separate online collection hosts over 500,000 works, letting you zoom in on art with impressive clarity.

The Met, New York City

Explore some of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's most famous spaces without leaving your living room, thanks to Google Arts & Culture and The Met’s own virtual tours. Through Google, you can circle the Egyptian Temple of Dendur and walk past paintings by van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet. The museum's 360° Project includes sweeping videos of its grand halls and The Met Cloisters, which can be viewed with a VR headset for an immersive experience, complete with moody ambient music.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

One of South Korea's most popular museums, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) offers a dynamic virtual tour via Google across its four locations: Seoul, Gwacheon, Deoksugung, and Cheongju. You can explore modern and contemporary Korean works spanning painting, sculpture, and media art, from early 20th-century realism to bold digital installations. Even Cheongju’s art storage center is viewable, offering a rare behind-the-scenes peek. The museum’s own site also hosts immersive VR tours of select exhibits.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

For anyone drawn to Vincent van Gogh’s swirling skies, luminous yellows, or haunting self-portraits, the Van Gogh Museum’s virtual tour is a rare gift. Home to the largest trove of his works anywhere in the world, the Amsterdam museum lets you wander online through his artistic evolution, from the dark, earthy "The Potato Eaters" to the vivid "Sunflowers."

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

This renowned American art museum offers virtual walk-throughs that let you explore everything from Alexander Calder’s funky mobiles to the museum’s serene sculpture garden. As a bonus, there are also three online exhibits. "Fashioning a Nation" traces American style from 1740 to 1895 through delicate watercolors, while "Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting" offers a glimpse into 17th-century Dutch life. You can also take a close look at "Ginevra de’ Benci," Leonardo da Vinci’s only painting housed in the Americas.

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Admire the historic planes and rockets on a virtual tour of the world's biggest collection of air- and spacecraft. It's a front-row seat to some of humanity’s greatest leaps: You can inspect Neil Armstrong's spacesuit from the Apollo 11 moon landing, view the Wright Flyer, the Wright Brothers' original pioneer airplane that first took flight in 1903, and even climb inside the cockpits of U.S. Navy fighter jets.

Guggenheim, New York City

Google Street View lets you glide up the Guggenheim’s iconic spiral ramp, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed swirl of light and space. You'll see works by artists like Cézanne, Kandinsky, and Picasso, with pieces spanning impressionism to postwar surrealism. The virtual tour also links to curated online exhibits, so you can explore the museum’s permanent collection without ever setting foot in New York.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Skip the L.A. traffic and get a taste of the J. Paul Getty Museum's extraordinary European art collection through Google. On a virtual tour, you can peruse everything from illuminated medieval manuscripts to baroque sculptures and 19th-century portraits. Zoom in on van Gogh’s "Irises" or follow a Street View path past Renaissance paintings, ancient Roman busts, and richly detailed tapestries, with online exhibits offering deeper dives into the stories behind the works.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Step inside this former beaux arts train station turned world-class museum. Thanks to Google Arts & Culture, you can virtually stroll the Musée d’Orsay’s airy halls filled with impressionist and post-impressionist works. See masterpieces by Monet, Degas, Cézanne, and van Gogh up close and wander past Rodin sculptures and art nouveau furniture—all without the crowds.

Pergamon Museum, Berlin

The Pergamon Museum is closed for years of renovations—though parts of it will reopen in 2027—making its virtual tour all the more valuable. Through Google Arts & Culture, you can explore some of antiquity’s most jaw-dropping monuments, such as towering Assyrian reliefs and a reconstruction of the massive, cobalt-blue Ishtar Gate of Babylon. It’s a rare chance to wander through ancient Mesopotamia, Rome, and Greece, all from your browser.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum’s virtual tour moves room by room through Dutch art history. You’ll come face to face with 17th-century masterpieces like Rembrandt’s "The Night Watch" and Vermeer’s "The Milkmaid," the latter glowing with the artist's signature soft light. Beyond the big names, the collection spans everything from intricate Delftware to naval models to centuries-old fashion and furniture. It’s an elegant, slow scroll of a tour, where even the ornate frames and parquet floors get their moment.

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Housed in a 16th-century palace, the Uffizi Gallery showcases the art collection amassed by the wealthy and powerful Medici family. Today, you can wander its halls lined with ancient Roman sculptures before entering galleries housing Botticelli’s "The Birth of Venus" and "Primavera." You'll also find rooms dedicated to art by Caravaggio and Michelangelo, plus online exhibits that closely analyze specific paintings by zooming in on their different elements.

MASP, São Paulo

Founded in 1947, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) is Brazil's first modern museum, housing about 10,000 pieces of art from around the world. In its open-floor galleries, artwork seems to float in midair on crystal-clear glass easels. Through Google, you can walk through the brutalist space designed by Lina Bo Bardi, navigating between works by van Gogh, Modigliani, and Brazilian greats like Candido Portinari and Tarsila do Amaral. With no crowds and no walls, it's just you and the art. It's an intimate way to explore one of the most daringly displayed art museums.

Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City

Step inside Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo's bright blue childhood home, which is now the Frida Kahlo Museum. On a virtual visit, you can wander through the garden thick with cactus and bougainvillea, peek into her kitchen, and explore her airy studio, where her wheelchair still sits by the easel. Throughout, soak in the traditional Mexican decor and vibrant artworks by Kahlo and her husband, the artist Diego Rivera. There's also an online exhibit examining her wardrobe, including her signature Tehuana dresses and medical corsets, offering a vivid sense of how she lived and styled herself.