#MyBarcoSummer

1. Next-level sightseeing

While guided city tours can be fun, if you’re lucky enough to have a guide who’s a modern bard with great storytelling skills, it’s often just an overwhelming wave of information. Data and facts which are quite likely to be removed entirely from your memory even before you’re returning home. This year, you might want to look for new unique ways to discover your holiday location.

Why not check if there’s a light festival nearby? These outdoor events are often free of charge and offer a creative way to get acquainted with the iconic landmarks located in the city. In Sydney, for example, Vivid Sydney yearly treats both tourists and locals with mind-blowing projection mappings on the façade of historic buildings accompanied with live acts and animation.

Such visual spectacles will not only result in the most amazing holiday pictures, they will surely leave a lasting impression. And in the end, that’s what summer holidays are all about, right? Making great memories.

Vivid Sydney - the largest festival of light, music and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere

2. A trip down history lane

Sometimes you travel to places where you just cannot but dive into the rich history of it. The Belgian city Ypres is one example. At In Flanders Field Museum, you are immersed in the trials and impact of the First World War, and learn everything about the hardships that took place during the four years trench war in the Westhoek front region. Recently, the war museum got a new neighbor: Yper museum. Here you can go on a journey through eleven centuries of medieval Ypres. Although both museums delve into rather dramatic periods in history, the particular focus on the human aspect and the interactive narrative approach makes it accessible to all ages.

The most unique visitor experiences are formed when stories from the past meet the innovations of the future. This is also the case for the King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh exhibition which showcases over 150 funerary artifacts (60 of which have never left Egypt before!) and tells the exciting story of King Tut’s life, his mysterious death and the fascinating discovery of his tomb through various multi-media elements. The exhibition will complete a tour of 10 international cities before returning back to Egypt forever in 2024. This summer Tutankhamun’s collection can be found in The Grande Halle in Paris.

So, if you thought museums were just silent white rooms with landscape paintings and pictures of smiling ladies on the walls, think again!

More exceptional museums on your to-do list: The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the award-winning Carrières de Lumières in les Beaux-de-Provence (or Atelier des Lumières in Paris) and the newly renovated Tekfur Sarayi in Istanbul.

The most unique visitor experiences are formed when stories from the past meet the innovations of the future.

3. Science can be fun too!

If history and art aren’t really your thing, then maybe science is?

We highly recommend experimenta, Germany’s largest science center today. The center offers interactive learning opportunities through playful experiments and extraordinary experiences. The center has also recently unveiled its Science Dome for 3D full dome and planetarium shows.

In fact, more and more science centers and planetariums are using virtual reality technology to create fully immersive experiences. Travel into the depths of space with the Space 360 dome based in the Lucerium National Science Museum in Gwangiu, Korea. Once you enter the spherical theater through a transparent bridge that crosses sphere’s interior, you are surrounded with amazing visuals all around, above and below you. All you’ll be able to say is “wow”.

Continue the experimenting in The Science Museum in Tokyo, Science City in Kolkata or the Gates Planetarium in Denver, Colorado. Go ahead, imagine yourself a real MythBuster, and let’s make this the smartest summer ever!

4. Enjoy the ride!

All parents know it. Visiting an amusement park is a must in everyone’s summer, so here are our tips. 

In Walibi (Belgium), there’s a new interactive dark ride taking you through a Bollywood-inspired cinema complex: Popcorn Revenge. Suddenly your journey through the different rooms is disturbed by the popcorns come to life. With the help of the laser guns in the trackless vehicles, you have to shoot away the annoying creatures. Bonus: because you always see only six of the seven rooms in random order, this ride stays exciting and new, even when you join the kids for the umpteenth time.

You can find some of our other favorite family friendly attractions in Legendia (Poland), Phantasialand (Germany) or Fantasy Island (United Kingdom). So why wait? Take the kids out for a magical day, and we can guarantee, your inner child is going to love it too!

5. Around the world in one day

You actually want to go on a world trip, but you’re limited in time and budget? Yes, the struggle is real. Lucky for you, this one offers the solution.

Windows of the World, for example, located outside Shenzhen, China, features more than one hundred extremely detailed miniature replicas of the world’s best-known landmarks such as the Taj Mahal and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In addition, the park also has a series of Flying Theaters with immersive dome projection. It creates the illusion of flying over the different continents, only without the extreme exhaust pollution!

Now, don’t miss your flight, and set off for an adventurous summer.

Barco’s summer-proof portfolio

Just like those ripped beach bodies, our visualization solutions are the result of deliberate preparation and hard work. Thanks to extensive quality testing, we can assure you that all of our products are able to deliver outstanding performances even under the harshest conditions. From scorching summer heat to humid environments, no sweat. We are ready to create the best summer experiences. So have fun, enjoy, and don’t forget to share your pictures with the hashtag #MyBarcoSummer.