8 great ways to have fun on-line
As much as it’s great to fill your days with purpose and energising activity, we all need, and benefit hugely from, downtime. That can be time spent resting - this blog explains why that’s so important and what the top 5 most restful activities are to do - or switching off and having a bit of fun.
Of course fun comes in all sorts of guises (some more acceptably public than others!) but for the purposes of this blog, I’m concentrating on some of the ways you can entertain yourself on line (none of those smutty comments at the back please).
My thanks to the brilliant website restless for these suggestions, although not so much for the hours I’ve spent thoroughly hooked on all of them. Be warned, you might find the same happens to you.
1. Track sharks, dolphins and turtles
The OSEARCH tracker can either be downloaded as an app or accessed online. It lets you keep track of tagged ocean animals around the world by showing you where they currently are and where they’ve recently been. You can find out each animal’s name, as well as their weight and length. If you log in regularly, you can search for your favourite animal by name and see where he or she has ended up.
2. Paint with flames
Are your creative skills on fire? With this they will be. Flame Painter is a tool that will allow you to create wild designs using what they call ‘particle brushes’ (no, me neither). It can be as precise or as random as you like - you’re in charge of selecting everything from the colours to the shapes - and it’s a great opportunity to express yourself, or just work out some creative energy. Oh and it’s a lot of fun!
3. Explore the stars
100,000 Stars is mesmerising. It allows you to explore the universe and learn about the stars. You get to navigate your own way around the galaxy and zoom in on stars of interest (including the sun) when you want to find out more. If you don’t fancy finding your own way around or don’t know where to start, you can also choose to take an existing tour.
4. Check out live cams around the world
Sometimes it can be nice to have a change of scenery to break up our day-to-day routines. But when you don’t have the time to refresh your surroundings in real life, YouTube and Explore have plenty of live webcams from around the world that you can have a thoroughly engaging nosy at.
These are a few favourites:
The Live Puppy Playroom and The Kitten Rescue Sanctuary – see what puppies and kittens in America are getting up to when they think no one is watching.
A stunning, real-time view of the Canal of Cannaregio and Guglie Bridge in Venice – see above. It’s SO colourful!
Gorilla Forest Corridor – check in with gorillas in the eastern Congo.
5. Do some doodling
Quick Draw is a game that should definitely come with a ‘Caution, approach with care’ sign - because this doodling challenge game is absurdly addictive. So don’t say you weren’t warned!
6. Create your own background noise
A Soft Murmur has a range of relaxing sounds from rain, waves and birds chirping, to wind and coffee shop chatter that you can listen to when you’re trying to detract from distractions. Or just to have as a background sound to whatever you’re doing. You can blend sounds together until you find the perfect mix.
7. Go on a random adventure
When you arrive on the MapCrunch website, all you have to do is hit ‘Go’ and you will be transported to a random Google street view of a location anywhere in the world. It’s strangely exciting to see where you end up.
8. Listen to Boom Radio
This entertaining list wouldn’t be complete without pointing you in the direction of the fab, new-ish (it launched in February) radio station aimed at Baby Boomers. You can read all about it in this blog, and if you happen to listen on a Tuesday morning at 1130, you might just hear someone familiar!
These are a selection from a longer list on the restless website. I hope you find them as enjoyable as I have to do. Click here to see the rest of their suggestions.
What’s your favourite fun on-line activity?
