The Faroe Islands have launched an innovative virtual tour by directing a local around the islands in real-time.
Armchair tourists can now visit the remote Faroe Islands – a remote nation in the North Atlantic, halfway between Iceland and Norway – from the comfort of their own homes.
The new Remote Tourism site will allow virtual visitors to explore the Faroes’ rugged mountains, to see close-up its cascading waterfalls and to spot the traditional grass-roofed houses of this Nordic nation by interacting – live – with a local Faroese, who will act as their eyes, ears and body on a virtual exploratory tour of the destination.
How does it work?
Faroese locals will be equipped with a live video camera, allowing virtual visitors not only to see the views from an on-the-spot perspective but also to control where and how they explore, by using a joypad to turn, walk, run and even jump.
Faroese islanders can explore locations on foot, on horseback or by boat, but will also take to the skies by helicopter, giving virtual visitors a bird’s eye perspective on the unspoilt, wild and natural countryside.
During the virtual tours – which will run once or twice daily until the end of April – the Visit Faroe Islands tourist board team will be online in real-time on Instagram and Facebook Live to answer any questions that participants may have, providing both inspiration and expert knowledge about places to visit and things to see once the islands have reopened to visitors.
Guðrið Højgaard, Director of Visit Faroe Islands, says that the nation is proud to welcome virtual tourists to its remote North Atlantic location. “When the travel bans began to escalate, we wondered how we could recreate a Faroe Islands’ experience for those who had to cancel or postpone their trip to the Faroe Islands, and for everyone else stuck at home. The result is this new platform to enable those in isolation to take a walk across our wild landscapes, to regain a sense of freedom and to explore beyond their own four walls.
“We believe that our remote islands are the perfect place to inspire people in lockdown – and, naturally, we hope to welcome them in person once everyone is free to travel again.”
The launch of the remote tourism idea is the latest in a series of innovative initiatives by the Faroe Islands’ tourist board to share their remote homeland with the world, following the success of Google Sheep View (which saw sheep mapping the islands for Google Street View) and Faroe Islands Translate (which had local people translating phrases requested from around the world into Faroese).
To experience the Faroe Islands as a virtual tourist through a local’s eyes, go to http://www.remote-tourism.com/, now live, with tours running twice daily, at 14:00 and 17:00,
For more information on how the Remote Tourism initiative works, see the film here..
