A Website That Lets You Enjoy Rooms With a View
Our summer quarantine days have far too often been spent gazing at web browser windows—far and away from vacation views, sadly. For the moment, we’re finding solace in Window Swap, a mash-up of the virtual and physical. Designed as a “quarantine project” by creatives Sonali Ranjit and Vaishnav Balasubramaniam, a husband-and-wife duo based in Singapore, the website invites “all travel-hungry fools” to submit videos of the views from their windows “to help each other feel a little bit better until we can responsibly explore our beautiful planet again.” A recent visit to the site yielded scenes and sounds of tropical leaves swaying in the breeze in Chiang Mai, Thailand; clusters of dense high-rises in an overcast skyline view of Hong Kong; and a serene clip of a dog slumbering in the sunlight, as cyclists pass by an apartment in Copenhagen. The globetrotting assortment is an ever-evolving balm for our escapist impulses. Transporting and mesmerizing in all of their mundaneness, these views vicariously offer a surreal and welcome peek into the homes of others.