Webcams are a great way to view the world…

without really being there. From the comfort of a chair and a computer or tablet you can view it snowing in Vail, Colorado, see the sun shining in Venice, California, or watch nightfall creep up in New York.

Webcams are more popular than ever…

with many all over the world, in zoos, in national parks, in cities, on beaches, and in many monuments. Pick a place you’d like to visit and they just might have a camera on it.

Here are some steps to help an older family member visit a place via webcam watching:

1. Find out a loved one’s favorite spots. These may be places he’s visited in the past or a place he has never been to, but would like to visit.
2. Find out a loved one’s interests as well such as animals, travel, etc…
3. Make a search for some favorite webcams by typing live webcams into your search engine. Explore the many places you can visit via web cams. You may come across zoos that have cameras on animals and their habitats, national parks where you can view the parks features, or sites like EarthCam® that let you visit many places. This may take a lot of exploring to find some favorite sites. Bookmark some of your loved ones favorite sites.
4. Visit at different times of the day, especially when you visit live animal habitats, watch animal births or birds nesting, want to see the weather happening in real time, or other happenings. One time during a visit to Yellowstone National Park’s Old Faithful, my family found one of their webcams. We called another family member to link up to Old Faithful’s webcam and he saw us waving to him. Amazing!
5. Smaller devices such as tablets or mobile phones may need an app to access webcams.
6. Come back to the webcams again and again to see how things change.