Jem Jenkins Jones was stuck at home in Wales for much of the past year amid COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, but fulfilled a promise to her 10-year-old daughter to see the northern lights from Iceland and South Africa’s game reserves — in virtual reality (VR).
“She was amazed,” Jones said, calling the VR travel experiences “a lifesaver for us.”
Strict lockdowns and travel limitations during the pandemic have sparked fresh interest in immersive virtual travel experiences, which have become more accessible and affordable with new apps and VR hardware.
Photo: AFP
Even those confined to their homes can take a virtual jaunt to Machu Picchu, the rainforests of Borneo or a road trip across the US in a convertible.
Data on VR travel usage is limited, but developers have seen surging interest since the pandemic hit.
“It has been skyrocketing,” said Cezara Windrem, creator of the Alcove VR platform at AARP Innovation Labs. “We’re getting more adoption every month.”
Alcove enables users to visit exotic locales such as Australia’s coral reef or the island of Malta, while adding a “shared” experience that enables people to interact and even “lead” a family member without the technical skills to navigate in a VR headset.
“We’ve heard from a lot of people who discovered Alcove and decided to buy a headset for their elderly family members,” Windrem said.
This allows for shared travel even during a lockdown and other kinds of experiences such as “playing chess with someone on the other side of the planet,” Windremm said.
With the tourism industry largely obliterated amid the pandemic, VR has emerged as a substitute for real-world travel and a complement to help people plan their next trip.
App developers have created a range of travel experiences: touring the pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, the savannahs of Kenya or Antarctica from a kayak.
These come from commercial operators or organizations such as National Geographic or WWF.
Users can opt for hardware from Facebook’s Oculus, Sony’s PlayStation or Google Cardboard, among others.
Some gear costs as little as US$300 and many apps are free.
“I have traveled every week since the pandemic from the comfort of my home,” said Rafael Cortes, a computer professional from San Antonio, Texas, who uses Alcove and YouTube VR.
“I’ve been to London, the glass bridge in China, Angel Falls in Venezuela, the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, a helicopter tour of New York,” Cortes said.
Amy Erdt lives in Portland, Oregon, but with VR she said that she likes “to walk around my sister’s town in Wallingford, England, occasionally because I can’t be there.”
Erdt, who administers a Facebook group of VR users, said there are “some great travel experiences” in virtual reality that can be remarkably realistic.
“I once sat at VR poker table at 1am with a guy in Australia who was eating KFC,” she said. “I could hear his KFC crunch. It was a trip.”
VR’s most popular applications are in gaming and fantasy worlds, but travel is seen as a new growth vector.
“During the pandemic when everyone is socially isolated, it may seem strange to isolate yourself further to transport yourself somewhere else, but it does allow us to experience things we can’t experience today,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst with consultancy Techsponential.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion