Virtual reality travel classes teleport seniors to Peru, Rome’s Colosseum and beyond

Anne-Marie Widick reached out with her left arm, then her right, planting a pair of mountain axes a stride ahead as she scaled a frozen peak in Antarctica.

The 68-year-old retiree made the ascent sitting with her legs crossed in a Camarillo classroom. Next to her, a Leisure Village resident rocked gently in a double-decker bus headed for the Eiffel Tower. An 81-year-old retired teacher paddled through Arctic waters as a penguin jumped over her kayak.

The voyages propel a virtual reality travel class launched by the Camarillo Health Care District in October and designed to help participants, mostly seniors, combat isolation. In a four-session series that costs $20, participants strap on helmeted goggles and point lasers at a menu of adventures.

Click on a hot air balloon, and they soar far above the Swiss Alps. Use Google Maps and they can be transported to the city where they were born.

Widick worked for 24 years in the customs department at Harbor Freight Tools in Camarillo and Agoura Hills. She flies to Atlanta every year to visit her sister but rarely travels elsewhere and has never been to Antarctica or the nearly 2,000-year-old Colosseum in Rome or the grassy, zebra-dotted plains of Kenya.

In the course of a 90-minute class, she journeyed to all three places, squeezing in a jaunt to the chandelier-studded Palace of Versailles in France.

“It’s so invigorating,” she said. “It’s the feeling of being there. You’re looking over this precipice, and it looks real.”

The district's virtual reality offerings also include nature treks, ocean scuba diving and tai chi. The classes were born from Beat Saber, the virtual reality game where players slash with sabers at colored obstacles that represent musical beats. District CEO Kara Ralston played it and was won over by the exhilaration she felt.

She used a VR travel program to journey to a canyon’s edge high above the Colorado River. It was so real her fear of heights kicked in.

Virtual reality, Ralston decided, could be used in the district's wellness programs as a way to hurdle barriers that limit travel and increase isolation like immobility, health conditions, finances and the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's very thrilling, and we need thrills in life," she said. “People are isolated and they have varying levels of depression. Life can become a little hopeless.”

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On a recent Tuesday, three seniors sat several feet apart equipped with helmeted goggles and a pair of hand controls. The series of classes began a month ago with an introductory session focused on learning how to use the equipment. On this day, participants could journey wherever they wanted.

"Let me get a mask, and I’ll get you to Iceland,” called out one of three district employees who run the class and help participants with the technology.

Another coach offered a travel tip to a senior visiting Machu Picchu in Peru.

“You’re going to see llamas. Be careful because they’re going to spit,” she said.

With a click of her hand control, Joanne Davidson teleported herself from the Eiffel Tower to New South Wales, Australia, and the sail-shaped shells of the Sydney Opera House. She's 86, a retired educator who was once principal at Hueneme High School.

Davidson is planning a real-life trip to New Zealand but worries her traveling days could be limited. Virtual reality intrigues her in part because her grandson, a high school sophomore, uses the technology to play games.

“He wants to box and do all these things,” she said. “I just want to see things.”

She clicked the hand control again, and in an instant, was swimming with the fish at Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

"I can almost touch the coral," Davidson said.

A new series of virtual reality classes starts in January. For more information, go to the district’s website or call 805- 388-1952, ext. 100.

Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com or 805-437-0255.

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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Virtual reality class teleports seniors to Peru, Rome, beyond