You Can Now Take A Virtual Reality Tour Of The White House

If you've always wanted to tour the White House but never managed to make it out to Washington DC, then we've got some good news for you. Assuming you've got an Oculus Rift or Gear VR headset, you can now take a tour of the White House with none other than President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as your guides.

The tour is launching today on Oculus Video, but if you don't have a VR headset, you can still check out the tour in a 360-degree video over on the The White House's official Facebook page. Obviously, viewing the video with a VR headset would make the experience much more immersive, but it's nice to know you can still check it out without needing to own one of those devices.

During the tour, Barack and Michelle Obama explain what it was like coming to live in a place with as much history as The White House. After all, not only is it a home for the sitting president and his family, but it's also something of a museum, showcasing busts and paintings of presidents past. They take us through what they felt the first time they entered the White House, and explain some of the important events that happened in these locations during the Obama presidency.

The tour takes us through multiple sections of the White House, including the Red Room on the State Floor, the Situation Room, and even the Oval Office. It's there that viewers will find themselves seated across from President Obama, who has this to say:

Michelle and I always joke, we're just renters here... the owners are the American people and all those invested in creating this amazing place with so much history. What we want to do is make sure that everybody felt they had access to it... that as many people as possible could come in and appreciate the place where Lincoln or FDR or Reagan had made decisions that helped to shape America.

What we're seeing today isn't the end of the White House VR content Oculus has helped prepare. The company says that a longer tour – the current video weighs in at around eight minutes – will be available for Oculus Rift and Gear VR soon, so maybe we'll get to see even more of the White House shortly. For now, you can check out out the tour through Oculus Video or watch the 360 video on Facebook.

SOURCE: Oculus