It may be beautiful in many parts of the country, but Mainers often grimace when we talk about weather late in March and early April. After a season of non-winter-like weather, a couple of late winter/early spring snowstorms is making some of us decidedly grumpy! (Or maybe that is only us!)

Maybe you are in a technology rut, spending your time scrolling through Facebook, wondering why you don’t see anything from your friends anymore. Or you get mesmerized by Facebook reels and spend 30 minutes on a few silly videos that you wonder why you watched. Or what about all the comments on X (formerly Twitter) that look like the ones you read yesterday?

No wonder so many people return to their regular websites and don’t venture further into the internet where there are so many interesting, intriguing and just plain fun sources of information.

Let’s do a reset from the same old stuff and find some stimulating, compelling and truly interesting content on the internet. Here are some sites we think you will like.

Virtual museums

This eclectic combination of virtual museums gives you a terrific look “into the world’s most famous museums.” Brooks Saward founded World of Wanderlust as a place to share inspirations from her travels and to inspire others to see the world. These 10 museums range from The Guggenheim, to the London National Gallery, The Louvre, the Vatican Museums and more.

Each of these virtual museums has unique features that will appeal to a wide audience. For example, The MET’s #MetKids is a digital feature made for, with and by kids. Here you can see behind-the-scenes videos that feature kids just like your kids.

The NASA tour features the many interesting virtual tours of NASA’s Langley Research Center. Take a look at the Advanced Air Mobility Test Range, a space designated for unmanned flight technology tests. Or visit the National Transonic Facility, the world’s largest pressurized cryogenic wind tunnel where super cold nitrogen gas is used at high pressure to duplicate true flight aerodynamics.

And don’t miss The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam to take a virtual tour of Anne Frank’s secret annex and the house where she lived. Here you will learn about her life, her diary, and her legacy.

Travel and unique places

“52 Places to Go” is a yearly special feature of the New York Times’s travel section, a list of cities and countries around the world that are deemed “relevant and vacation worthy.”

Each of the 52 Places to Go yearly features have gorgeous photos (and sometimes videos) of the cities, countries or regions; well-written text about the destination with many links for further reading; and research, maps and supplementary articles.

Simply search for 52 Places to Go (and add a year) and you will find these beautiful resources and learn so much about the world. The voluminous comments are interesting in themselves, so take a look at what people say about the featured cites and countries as well as the interesting project themselves.

Thoughtful content

One of our favorite reads every morning is “Letters from an American.” Written by history professor, Heather Cox Richardson, this daily newsletter about the history behind today’s politics is, as Richardson says, “a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.”

Recent newsletters focused on the Russian disinformation campaign in the U.S. and other western countries, featured Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and career-long work to level the legal playing field between men and women, and a sobering look at Project 2025 and what its policies mean for ordinary Americans.

Letters from an American is smart, thoroughly researched and backed by historical accuracy. This is the kind of long-form writing that is the antithesis of social media snippets that don’t tell us much.

Find her newsletter and its newest iteration, a podcast read by Richardson, under her name or Letters from an American (heathercoxrichardson.substack.com). A bonus, Heather Cox Richardson lives in Maine.

BoomerTECH Adventures (boomertechadventures.com) helps boomers and older adults navigate the digital world with confidence and competence. Active boomers themselves, they use their backgrounds as teachers to support individuals and groups with online courses, articles, videos and presentations to organizations upon request.

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