That said, this image is amazing, and lets you see a lot more detail than you can easily manage at the museum.
Particularly true about the Sistine Chapel. This virtual view is outstanding, but can't possibly come anything close to seeing it in person. https://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.htm...
A couple of years ago I did a trip to Belgium and France. Saw all of the sights, loads of museums, and did a tonne of wandering. It was a great time, but was overwhelming. I came home and maybe a week later we were browsing YouTube on the TV and came across a channel that just walks around neighbourhoods of Japan (e.g. Shibuya, Tokyo, among others. The channel is Virtual Japan). A couple of hours of walking a stabilized camera through the streets of a Japanese city. My son came in and watched with me while we looked at storefronts, read restaurant menus, walked through malls, virtually participated in pedestrian scrambles, etc). The weirdest thing is that days later my "trip" to Japan felt much more real than my trip to Belgium and France (or any prior trip I'd ever taken). Absent all of the worries and hustle and overwhelming inputs, somehow this completely not real experience felt much more real, and to this day I feel like I've been to Japan, while so many other countries that I've physically been to and experienced for weeks seem like almost a dream. It really was a fascinating experience for me.
It made me wonder if there is a business in on-demand telepresence for this sort of virtual travel. "Uber" someone technologically enabled to walk around an area, look at things you want and follow directions. Add some dystopian elements to it and soon they're getting in fights at your request.
They have weeks off of work and expect you to as well. They don't save up for 5 day trips across 3 day weekends to rush rush rush. They* just dip out and live in the different place for a while, take classes, get to know locals, etc. (*not everywhere has this privilege, but it is very common)
I’m never going back to the other way I just hang out with richer Americans. More people have been doing something equivalent over the last year, they're usually also richer Americans just still career focused as well, compared to trust funders.
Lol this is not very common at all. You thinking that's common tells me you don't actually know how normal people from European countries actually live. Might be helpful to actually meet these "locals" that you talk about.