Do you dream of visiting the Louvre, but just can't swing the overseas trip?
Now you can take a virtual visit-- the biggest new thing at museums all over the world.
We're a nation that's gone wild for everything digital --from online banking and poker games to virtual relationships.
Now there's a way to prove you're really high-tech and cultured at the same time.
Ben Cormier, a computer-savvy 11-year-old, is a big fan of museums.
"I think they're every informative and I think they're interesting," he told us.
His family visits one every month, and he regularly takes museum courses, but he's never gotten to visit any overseas.
Then one day, his mom Kathy discovered "Virtual museums."
"I think the idea of the virtual museum is really great because I think a lot of families don't have access to any museums," she told us.
According to museum designer Nina Simon, a growing number of museums have gone high tech-- from the Smithsonian in Washington to the Tech Museum of Innovation in California.
They don't just offer virtual tours. You can do everything from taking an art class, to 'curating' your own online collection, to exploring the human body.
"There are exhibits to see and interact with, there are artifacts," Simon said.
The Web may never replace the joy of seeing and touching history for yourself, but even the museum-loving Cormiers are willing to be convinced.
"The more interactive that an online site or experience can be, the better, because it brings you there, and that's what a museum is about," Kathy Cormier explained.
In fact, Simon says museums are very aware that they've got to offer something different online as a hook.
"Often the online, the virtual museum, it's not identical. It's something new. It's something you can't do in the real museum," Simon told us.
"The Internet opens up to new worlds, and anything you can do via that to bring you places that you couldn't otherwise go is a great thing," Cormier agreed.
Simon says the Web is also great at getting the word out about smaller museums through social networking sites such as Facebook.
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