For better or worse, Zoom video calls have taken over our quarantined lives. From work conferences to quarintinis and quizzes with friends, never before have so many prying eyes entered our homes. On the one hand it's great because it helps us stay in touch but on the other hand... did we mention the prying eyes? Fortunately, there are ways to distract your audience and yourself by livening things up with a travel-themed background.
From cityscapes to jungle landscapes and high-end holiday homes, we've picked a bunch of virtual backgrounds to introduce to your next Zoom meeting.
Bali
Those Monday morning Zoom calls will become a lot easier when you dial in from this five-storey bamboo treehouse, courtesy of Airbnb. Sipping coffee while imagining you're sitting at this terrace overlooking the jungle and sacred Ayung River will add just the right amount of escapism to the meeting. "What's that Shelia? I can't hear you over the sound of the macaques."
San Francisco
Provided by San Francisco Travel (who offer a great library of San Francisco-themed Zoom backgrounds), this image of the city's famous Steiner Street and its "Painted Ladies" (that iconic row of Victorian houses) gives us the chance to imagine what life would be like on a street we'll never be able to afford. What a view though. Download here.
The Long Room, Trinity College, Dublin
Impress those friends who position their laptop cameras in front of bookshelves (containing stacks of books with suspiciously crease-free spines) with the iconic 16th-century library in Trinity College, one of Ireland's greatest tourist attractions. Your friend may have a copy of Ulysses on their shelf but you have the Book of Kells. Download here from Unsplash, an open-source collection of images that can be downloaded for free.
Cuzco, Peru
Your home is now a glass pod perched on the side of a Peruvian cliff featuring views of the Sacred Valley of Cuzco. To get to the Skylodge Adventure Suites from Natura Vive in real life, you'd have to hike 400 metres of protected trails using ziplines. Not for the faint-hearted. In the virtual world, however, you just need to download the above image from Airbnb and you're there. Sky's the limit.
Safari
Forget Joe Exotic, you are now the tiger king with this safari-inspired background from Unsplash. Is that 5pm meeting on Friday moving a little too slow? Just keep looking over your shoulder to remind your colleagues who the real boss in the room is and then call it a day. It's quarintini time! Download here.
Note: To add a Virtual Background to Zoom, go to 'Preferences', then 'Virtual Background' and upload your image.
