Stay-at-Home Fun & Virtual Entertainment Options
April 16, 2020
Stay-at-home mandates and social distancing guidelines for the good of the community are much easier to bear when there’s something fun to do at home! From guided tours of famous cities in Europe to virtual tours of the most inspiring museums and National Parks, you will feel like you’ve been around the world while never leaving your couch.
Another great way to keep the family entertained is games! Whether hands-on games with the family you’re sheltering with or virtual board games with those you don’t, the experience is one that still brings people together. And there are even a few events going on right here in Denver that you can virtually attend!
European Walking Tours with Local Guides
Who isn’t craving a spring getaway to a distant destination? As one of the premiere walking tour companies in the world, the Walks company offers personable guided tours by locals in famous European cities in normal times.
Now that it’s anything but normal times, they’ve brought their local expertise online through their Tours from Home series. Take a walk through the Sistine Chapel, along a canal in Venice, or at the Changing of the Guard in London. This LIVE online experience with a local guide is the next best thing to being there! One-hour tours from $10!
Have an Air BnB Experience
If you’ve always loved the personalized experience of staying at an Air BnB and getting to know the hosts, check out these interactive Virtual Air BnB Experiences, run by the talented hosts who aren’t able to open their homes to guests right now.
Visit some rescue goats on a Catskills farm, take a magic lesson with a British magician, or learn how to make pasta with a family in Italy. Online experiences range from 1-2 hours and are priced from $4 to $35.
Museums, National Parks and Opera
Better Homes and Gardens has put together a list of Google Maps’ virtual tours of some of the most famous museums in the world, including New York’s Guggenheim Museum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
If you’re more in the mood for outdoor natural wonders, check out their list of National Park Tours, in parks from Alaska to Florida, with stops in Hawaii and Bryce Canyon in Utah!
None other than the renowned Metropolitan Opera in New York is streaming encore presentations from the award-winning Live in HD series of cinema productions of famous operas such as Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte. Check out the schedule here!
Fun and Games for Family!
You don’t need to sit in front of a screen to have fun with the family at home. VRBO, the website dedicated to great family vacations, has put together a list of games and activities for families to take part in at home during the coronavirus pandemic, including family talent shows and growing an indoor garden!
With one day endlessly melting into the next, why not come up with a special weekend event for the family that makes it feel like a weekend? A scavenger hunt may be just the ticket! Kids Activities.com has 40 scavenger hunt riddles you can adapt for your own backyard or living room to create a fun treasure hunt that will engage kids of all ages.
There’s something about the coronavirus pandemic that’s a little like hunkering down during a blizzard—alone in the house with the family and whatever provisions you have on hand. At such times, people always resort to board games as a way to entertain themselves, but what if you don’t have any?
Remote and Virtual Game Play
The Denver Game Lounge has you covered—you can order some great munchies and drinks and also rent or buy a board game, all available for curbside pickup or delivery! For an impressive list of games and a great menu and cocktails, too, checkout the options here.
When you want to connect with friends and family outside of your household, playing a game over Zoom can be a fun way to spend time “together.” Some of the most popular board games are perfect choices to play on a Zoom chat, including Bingo, Yahtzee, and Pictionary.
Have you heard about the 21st Century version of board games? A hybrid of video gaming and more traditional board games played on the internet with a group of people you can choose. Inside Hook describes all the platforms and available games, from a simple game of Go Fish or Checkers to a spot-on rip-off of Catan.
Quilting and Yarn Crafts
After you’ve gone on every virtual vacation you’ve ever dreamed of and played board games you didn’t even know existed, what’s left to do? How about quilting? During these sheltering-at-home times, the American Quilter’s Society is offering Free Online Quilting Classes! To take advantage of their offer, Southern Living says you just need to enter the promotion code IQUILTFREE at checkout.
Grab a crochet hook or a pair of knitting needles and yarn and head to YouTube for lessons and how to videos that will get your next hobby launched in an afternoon. Learn the stitches and techniques to make scarves, blankets, headbands, purses, pet toys and more.
Active Minds Online
If you enjoyed the Active Minds Seminar series that offered free lectures on a wide range of historical and cultural subjects, you’ll be delighted to hear they are continuing the series via real-time Zoom conferences. Each week will feature a different topic brought to you every Thursday—so stay tuned for details!
This week’s lecture presents the Ukraine—including their complicated history right up to present day. The seminar runs from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. this Thursday, April 16. You can connect via the internet at any time after 12:30 by using this link, or visit their website for other ways to join.
Wings Over the Rockies
While we all miss those inspiring afternoons roaming through the Air and Space Museum, leave it to the technologically-advanced to come up with a really cool way to keep us connected!
Wings at Home is the museum’s way to continue to bring cutting-edge air and space technology directly into our living rooms with their Aerospace Thrust Campaign, a video series of media that’s fun, educational and FREE!
Rekindle Some Romance
Being together with your sweetie 24/7 may make a romantic evening at home seem like a stretch. Why not enjoy each other’s company again by taking an online salsa dance class together?
Denver’s My Destiny Dance is offering a wide range of their regular classes in a real-time online format, so you can not only dance cheek-to-cheek with the one you live with but also make some friends who are dancing from their homes, too! Or, just log on to YouTube and swing your partner to any number of tunes and classes.
Entertainment and Games at Southshore
Southshore is a family-friendly planned community with a great location and amenities you will appreciate once things get back to normal. You can check out model homes from the comfort of your couch with a virtual tour or a live-streamed walk-through from Richmond American Homes, Toll Brothers, and Taylor Morrison. Choose from ranch and two-story designs, priced from the upper $400s to the $700s.