Beginning in April, Yeonsu-gu (a part of Incheon) will hold a series of live overseas tours called the “Online World Tour.” The tour will have a total of 6 different sessions. These sessions will be held on the second Thursday of each month from April to May and from September to November.

This online tour was first held in the fall of last year, and due to its success, Yeonsu-gu has decided to extend the course to the first half of the year 2021. This decision has increased people’s interest and expectations for the new up-coming sessions.

 Traveling abroad with all the current restrictions in place is now something that people have to dream of, rather than actually traveling.  Online trips have become a trend among many travelers.

Although online travel is different from real on-site tours in terms of the sense of reality, the reason why the trend has attracted a lot of people’s attention is that these tours have allowed tourists to experience other cultures wherever they are, and whenever they want. Therefore, tours in other cultures have become accessible even to people who couldn’t afford the cost of traveling abroad previously.

The World Online Tour is hosted by professional guides from the organization Guide Live. During these tours, the tour operator and the participants will be able to view different cultures and architecture styles from all around the world, mainly in Europe.

They will also be able to learn background information of regional cultures and arts from that specific region. Regardless of where they are, the participants can conveniently join these online sessions after work or class, among others. 

All the tours will be held in real-time at 8 pm (KST), and the participants of each session will get the opportunity to travel around Firenze, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, and Istanbul. The courses will be provided by Yeonsu-gu Lifelong Learning Center, a youtube channel, and will be formatted to show through a private live streaming session.  

The first session on April 8, 2021 will be held around the Duomo, Galleria degli Uffizi, and Ponte Vecchio in Firenze. For the second session on May 13, the participants will be able to feel the scent of romance in Vienna, Austria, the city of music.

Then the third session on June 10, will be the tour of Venice, the city on the sea. Participants can experience the lives of the Venetians with the locals guide leading the experience.

Despite many good reviews and comments for these online traveling tours, some participants have expressed their concerns and inconveniences regarding the selected travel destinations.

Among these concerns was a comment saying, “It would have been wonderful if we could have opportunities to travel around places other than Europe.” While there are some comments like this, the overall success of the tours has still been very good. 

For each session, 100 attendees will be recruited on a first-come-first-served basis 20 days before the first session starts. Yeonsu-gu will begin recruiting starting on March 19th  where registration can be done on the website https://www.yeonsu.go.kr/lll/ or the number 032-749-7277~8 is also available for more information.