THINGS TO DO
Our luggage may be condemned to storage for the foreseeable future, but thank goodness the 20th century gifted us with virtual escapism! We not only have the likes of Instagram, FaceTime and Zoom to keep our social and professional lives going, but our free time can still be just as rewarding from the comfort of our own homes. Here are our sanity solutions to keep you going.
The Social Distancing Festival (socialdistancingfestival. com) features a calendar of upcoming arts events to stream online from comedies, cabarets, concerts, art exhibitions and more. Theatre fans can also visit broadwayhd.com, a streaming service that brings hit productions from Broadway to the West End straight into your living room. From 2 April onwards, the National Theatre in London (nationaltheatre.org.uk) will also be releasing a new play every Thursday. It’ll be free to watch for one week along with bonus content including cast and creative Q&As and post-stream talks.
From the Louvre (louvre.fr) in Paris to New York’s Guggenheim (guggenheim.org), hundreds of galleries and museums are offering virtual tours from the comfort of your couch. We particularly enjoyed revisiting the diplodocus and other childhood favourites at the Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk).
San Diego Zoo (sandiegozoo.org) and Melbourne Zoo (zoo.org.au) are among many that are bringing the wild and wacky to us. Watch pandas play and lions laze from the 24/7 live feeds in the animal enclosures. If seaside scenes are more your vibe, the Vancouver Aquarium (vanaqua.org) has jellyfish and otter cams ready for the big screen.
From yoga to CrossFit, the online workout options are endless. Here are a few that come tried and tested and with a badge of approval from the EL team!
• UFIT has launched virtual daily classes via Zoom, as well as UFIT Online Coaching, matching you with one of their 60 personal trainers to help you meet your goals.
• Les Mills (lesmills.com) on demand offers fav classes like Body Combat, Sh’Bam and Body Attack for fullbody workouts.
• In light of COVID-19, Chris Hemsworth has granted a six-week free trial to Centr (centr.com), a personalised health and fitness app that gives you access to an extensive range of high-intensity workouts and personalised meal plans.
American boxing studio, Rumble (@doyourumble) is hosting classes on Instagram live (and will be saved for 24 hours). The workouts feature cardio and bodyweight workouts every morning.
• Lululemon is offering yoga, meditation, anywhere workouts, and self-care tips that are free and available on its IGTV and YouTube channel.
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Bored of watching your friends do push-ups in their living room? Follow the likes of Chrissy Teigen, Miley Cyrus, John Krasinski and Ryan Reynolds on Instagram for some comical and uplifting content. Likewise, Hollywood’s keeping the wheels turning with a lineup of virtual shows and star-studded interviews. You can still catch Jimmy Kimmel (abc.com/shows/jimmykimmel-live), Conan (teamcoco.com) and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (nbc.com/the-tonight-show) as they link up with celebrity guests from home.
You’ve been gifted the luxury of time, so forget microwave meals and storebought bread. Why not learn to bake a sourdough loaf or grow your own herb garden? On YouTube, eHowGarden and Rachel Talbott are great starting points with the green thumb basics. If you’re a novice in the kitchen, Tasty (tasty.co) and Yummly (yummly.com) are popular favourites with easy to follow videos; their apps can also be customised to your personal preferences. Jamie Oliver’s Recipes and BigOven are also free apps with endless recipes to try. For those looking to really impress, why not learn from a Michelin-starred chef? Massimo Bottura (@MassimoBottura) is in lockdown at home with his family and has taken this opportunity to transform his home kitchen into a live cooking studio for Kitchen Quarantine, where viewers can join him on Instagram Live as he prepares mouth-watering meals for his family.
You may not pick up a tan, but there’s plenty to keep feeding your wanderlust ways for now. Tick off your bucket list with Google Earth (google.com/earth) or Google Street View (google.com/streetview), a virtual representation of interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. Keen for the outdoors? Explore.org has up to 100 livestream webcams set up in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries around the world that you can view at any given moment – including the spellbinding Northern Lights! Meanwhile, for those who were eagerly awaiting spring break or who miss a good night out, Ushuaïa Ibiza has launched #StayAtHomeSessions on Facebook – a re-stream of some of 2019’s best DJ sets from Ibiza, to bring the party atmosphere into your homes!