The Best Virtual Museum Tours for Long-Distance Couples

On this page

1. How to set up a virtual museum date
2. Google Arts & Culture: the best place to start
3. Best virtual art museum tours
4. Best virtual tours for science and history lovers
5. Games that make a museum date fun
6. Themed virtual museum date ideas
7. Conversation starters for museum dates
8. Live virtual museum events
9. If one of you isn't a museum person
10. Common problems and fixes
11. Turn it into a tradition and a travel plan
12. FAQ

You'd think clicking through photos of paintings on a video call would be dull. It isn't, because the real activity is the conversation. A slow wander through a gallery gives you things to react to, argue about and laugh at, and you learn your partner's taste in a way you rarely do over normal calls. Do they stop for every portrait? Are they bored by landscapes? Would they hang a Rothko in your future living room?

Virtual tours are free, you can go at 2am if your time zones demand it, and nobody has to queue for the Mona Lisa. Online offerings change, so if a specific tour has moved, search the museum's site for "virtual tour" or "online collection".

How to set up a virtual museum date

1. Pick the museum and a slice of it. "Dutch Golden Age at the Rijksmuseum" or "the dinosaur hall" beats "the whole Louvre".
2. Choose your call setup. One person shares a screen and drives. Zoom's free plan cuts meetings at 40 minutes; Google Meet, Discord and FaceTime (with SharePlay, on Apple devices) work for longer sessions.
3. Test screen sharing five minutes before, and use headphones so audio doesn't echo.
4. Set the scene. Coffee for a morning date, wine and cheese for an evening one. Some couples put quiet classical music on.
5. Agree on a time box. 30–60 minutes. Stop while it's still fun.

Google Arts & Culture: the best place to start

Google Arts & Culture partners with thousands of museums and archives. It's free on the web and as an app.

• Museum View (Street View inside museums): walk through real galleries in 360°.
• Gigapixel images: zoom in until you can see brushstrokes and cracks in the paint. Hugely impressive on a big screen.
• Stories and online exhibits: curated, short guided reads on artists and themes.
• Search by color, artist, movement or period, which is great for themed dates.
• Playful features such as finding artworks that look like you, games and puzzles. Which experiments are available changes over time and by country.

How to use it together: one of you searches for a museum, opens its Museum View, and shares the screen. Click on any artwork to open its details, then zoom in together.

Best virtual art museum tours

Best virtual tours for science and history lovers

Not into paintings? These are often a better fit for non-art people.

• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington, DC): a room-by-room virtual tour with dinosaurs, the Hope Diamond, ocean life and human origins.
• Natural History Museum (London): the Hintze Hall blue whale skeleton and dinosaur galleries, with online content and Google Arts & Culture views.
• The British Museum (London): the Rosetta Stone, mummies and the Parthenon sculptures, plus a searchable online collection.
• Anne Frank House (Amsterdam): a virtual tour of the Secret Annex. Moving and sobering; plan a gentler activity afterward.
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: spacecraft, planes and online exhibits; pairs well with our stargazing date.
• Historic sites in 360°: palaces, castles and archaeological sites on Google Arts & Culture and Street View.
• Aquariums and zoos: many run free live webcams. Watching otters together is a perfectly valid date.

Games that make a museum date fun

1. Favorite per room. Each of you picks one piece in every room and gets 30 seconds to defend it.
2. Our future home. You have a budget for three artworks for your shared living room. Agree on them.
3. Portrait backstories. Invent the life story of the person in a portrait. Then read the real label.
4. Heist planning. Pick the one piece you'd steal and plan how (purely fictional, obviously).
5. Gallery bingo. Make bingo cards: a dog, a skull, someone looking disapproving, a suspicious fruit bowl.
6. Recreate it. Pose like a painting on camera and send each other the side-by-side screenshot.
7. Zoom detective. Use gigapixel images to find the tiniest detail; the other has to guess what it is.
8. Mystery museum. Take turns choosing the museum in secret and revealing it at the start of the date.
9. Draw what you see. Each sketch the same artwork in five minutes and compare.
10. Art critic voices. Review a modern piece in your most pretentious accent.

Themed virtual museum date ideas

• One artist, three museums: follow Van Gogh from Amsterdam to MoMA and the National Gallery, or Monet from the Musée d'Orsay to the Met.
• One era, around the world: ancient Egypt at the British Museum, the Louvre and the Met.
• A world tour: a museum on each continent in one evening, like the Tokyo National Museum, the Louvre, the Met and Iziko Museums in Cape Town.
• Your partner's city: tour a museum in the city where your partner lives, then plan to see it in person on your next visit.
• Halloween: mummies, skulls and macabre paintings.
• Valentine's: famous lovers in art, from Klimt's The Kiss (Belvedere, Vienna) to Chagall's floating couples.

Conversation starters for museum dates

About the art

• If you could take one piece home from this museum, which would it be?
• What do you think was going on in the artist's life when they made this?
• Realistic or abstract? Why?
• What would this painting say if it could talk?

About you two

• What would you want on the walls of our future home?
• Which period of history would you visit for a day, and would you take me?
• What museum do you most want to visit together in person?
• Did you ever make art as a kid? What happened to it?

More prompts for slower, deeper conversations are in our guide to having deep conversations.

Live virtual museum events

Many museums run online talks, curator Q&As, drawing classes, concerts and film screenings, some free and some ticketed. Look under "Events", "Programs" or "What's on" on museum websites, sign up to a couple of newsletters, and search event listings for "virtual museum" or "online talk". A live drawing class is a lovely date: you each draw along with the instructor, then hold your attempts up to the camera.

If one of you isn't a museum person

• Keep it to 20–30 minutes.
• Choose dinosaurs, space, or weird history over fine art.
• Let the reluctant one drive and pick what to look at.
• Lead with games rather than learning.
• Follow it with something they love: a game, a film, a tasting date.

Common problems and fixes

Turn it into a tradition and a travel plan

A monthly museum night works well: first Friday of the month, alternating who chooses. Keep a shared board of favorite pieces, and screenshot the one you'd each take home. Over time that board becomes your shared taste, and a shortlist for the art in your future place.

It's also trip planning in disguise. Keep a "museums to see together" list, and when one of them is in a city between you, it's a great excuse to meet halfway. Our romantic getaway ideas include several museum-rich cities. For more cultural dates, try virtual concerts, a book club for two or our creative video date ideas.

Frequently asked questions

Are virtual museum tours free?

Most are. Google Arts & Culture, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the Vatican Museums' 360° tours and many museum collection sites cost nothing. Some live, guided online tours and workshops charge a fee or ask for a donation, and some are members-only.

Which video call app is best for a virtual museum date?

Any app with screen sharing works. Zoom's free plan caps meetings at 40 minutes, so a long tour may need a quick rejoin. Google Meet's free plan allows long one-on-one calls, Discord has no time limit for screen sharing between friends, and FaceTime with SharePlay lets Apple users share screens.

Can we do a virtual museum tour on our phones?

Yes, but it's cramped. Each of you can open the same tour on your own phone and navigate in parallel while on a voice call, describing where you are. A laptop or tablet makes it much easier to appreciate the art and use screen sharing.

How long should a virtual museum date be?

Shorter than you think. Thirty to sixty minutes is the sweet spot: one wing, one artist or one theme. Trying to 'do' an entire museum in a sitting gets tiring fast on a screen.