Singaporeans feeling trapped at home can turn to virtual tours of the city-state and around the world, courtesy of two YouTube channels posting POV walks through various places including local libraries.
Unlike homebodies, some Singaporeans may be itching to go out and visit places they frequented prior to the strict COVID-19 measures put in place earlier this month. Well, with the virtual walking tours of Discover Walking Tours TV and Ambient Walking, they can feel less isolated and keep cabin fever at bay.
Side note to ASMR fans, the videos do not feature music, dialogue or heavy breathing, just crisp 4K video and binaural audio of the surroundings. (Who knows, maybe you can even spot yourself in the video!)
Discovery Walking Tours TV, created by avid traveler Alan Chua, features videos of first-person perspectives walking around Changi Airport and even Taiwan’s Shilin Night Market.
“Changi Airport Singapore Walking Tour is a video recording of my walk with no talking. Recorded during the period of Covid-19 on 3rd April 2020 (Friday) at around 820pm,” the video caption read.
Apart from walking, he also captures POVs of himself cycling around the city, capturing more of Singapore’s cityscapes.
“I exercised alone by cycling from Little India Singapore to Orchard Road. This is a video recording of my cycle with no talking on the 6th day (12th Apr 2020) of Singapore’s Circuit Breaker,” the video caption read. Chua has uploaded over 200 videos to his page, which has been subscribed by at least 6,000 viewers.
The videos are meant to be immersive and allow viewers to visit places without actually having to be there, Chua wrote on his page.
“The walking tours are all filmed by me, with the aim of creating videos that are eye-opening, authentic, and giving you the feeling of being part of the city, without having to actually travel here,” he said.
Ambient Walking by Singaporean artist Heman Chong also posts POV videos of himself walking in Singapore as well as other countries such as Japan, Mongolia, and Germany.
The ongoing project started at the end of 2018 and also involves him documenting his walks, ranging from 10 minutes to an hour and a half, and uploading them to his YouTube channel weekly.
He also does ASMR videos of rain where he, you guessed it, walks in the rain.
Chong said on his channel that the walking tour videos could be a source of distraction and a benefit to mindfulness for some. Chong uses the small stealthy camera DJI Osmo Pocket to capture his tours in places like public housing estates and malls.
“All of my walks are distinctly personal in nature; they are places which means a lot to me. I’m doing this because I’ve always found refuge in watching first-person perspective videos of walks. It’s very calming and therapeutic to let it run in the background while I work,” he wrote on his page that has over 2,500 subscribers and more than 300 videos posted.
Tired of virtually exploring Singapore already? You can check out other walking tour YouTube channels like Living Walks, City Walks, and World Nature Video.
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