The Faroe Islands has come up with a new way to let people explore this isolated and starkly beautiful destination that has been gaining popularity as an alternative to Iceland.
Each day, a local straps on a camera and stands in a new spot somewhere in the 18-island chain. Over the course of each one-hour session, viewers at home are given the ability to tell the guide where to go and what to do.
Using a Nintendo-style hand controller design, anyone watching at home can, for a minute at a time, tell the guide to go left, right, or even jump, Mario-style (pictured).
"Where we end up is up to you as long as you keep us out of harm's way," says Guðrið Højgaard, director of Visit Faroe Islands.
It all goes down at www.remote-tourism.com, where a countdown clock ticks off the seconds until the next daily adventure begins.
For now, tours are scheduled once or twice daily through April 25, but given the unexpected popularity of the experiment, that may extend into the future.
(Video soure: The Independent)
Without the current travel ban, a clever initiative like this might have gone unnoticed. But now that the whole world is essentially a captive audience, the timing couldn't be better for the Faroe Islands to introduce themselves to the outside world.
The Faroe Islands, named one of Frommer's Best Places to Go in 2018, normally receive about 130,000 visitors a year. With so many future tourists getting a gander at this astonishing scenery, though, look for that number to shoot a lot higher in the coming years.
Live online walking tours are suddenly booming. To find companies offering them, check out our article on this new phenomenon.
