How to explore the world from home during lockdown

From vintage posters to Roman ruins and even grand palazzos, Neil Simpson reveals how you can still explore the world from your own home during the lockdown.

This could be the year we fall back in love with classic British holiday resorts, from Clacton to Whitley Bay – and with the colourful images that celebrate them.

The golden age of travel is revived through a series of vintage posters at kingandmcgaw.com, promoting everywhere from Skegness to St Moritz. And these classic designs can even be printed to order for you.

Another poster dating to 1939 promotes rail trips to Whitley Bay

Travel posters old and new are also on offer during lockdown from the London Transport Museum at ltmuseumshop.co.uk.

If you’re dreaming of further afield, try travelposter.co for posters designed by British artist Henry Rivers. They include the Washington Monument and the capital’s pink cherry blossom, with the collection revealing Rivers’ modern, minimalist take on dozens of world cities.

Art of every variety was the great passion of flamboyant American heiress Peggy Guggenheim, who settled in a grand palazzo in Venice after the Second World War.

Her former home, now a museum, has gone online amid the coronavirus closure. In Peggy Guggenheim Comes To You, at guggenheim-venice.it, you can click on short videos of past and (hopefully) future exhibitions. The videos feel like private guided tours, with none of the city’s former crowds obscuring the art.

Children rarely rush to traditional galleries when we travel, but a dash of Australian inventiveness could get them through the virtual doors of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Head to mca.com.au for the curator’s ‘Making ’zines in quarantine’ video. It shows how to make mini-magazines full of news for grandparents or others.

Still dreaming of a family holiday in the future? Get ideas from family-run tour firm stubbornmuletravel.com. Its Around The World In Six School Holidays suggests the best destinations by season, from Morocco in February half-term to Christmas in Costa Rica. Toddlers and teenagers can all be catered for with tailor-made trip ideas that focus on individual interests, from Roman ruins and wild animals to zip-line rides and volcano hikes.

A country cottage in the heart of a Californian vineyard is one of the stars of the show on Stay Here, a travel special on Netflix. The series shows design experts helping to turn unlikely buildings, such as a houseboat in Seattle and an old fire station in Washington DC, into picture-perfect holiday rentals.

Take a virtual tour of Peggy Guggenheim’s former home, now a museum, in Venice

If eating out is one of your great joys of travel, you can relive the experience and find inspiration for new adventures with one of Lonely Planet’s lavishly illustrated specialist guides.

In Food Trails: 52 Perfect Weekends In The World’s Tastiest Destinations, there are stunning photos of patisseries in Paris, tiny tapas bars in Spain, waterside diners serving clam chowder in Maine and more. Each chapter has the inside track on local food trends and suggests stylish places to stay.

Inspired by that idea but thirsty instead? Lonely Planet’s companion book, Wine Trails, is another coffee-table favourite.