We've gone from text-based e-mail and low-res JPEGs to a world of online gaming and streaming video in less than two decades. Will virtual tourism be the next big leap in digital living?

Curiosity contributor Diana Bocco did some research to determine whether the Internet might one day make travel obsolete. Here's what she concluded.

Virtual tourism is certainly an appealing option for people who can't afford to visit a place in person. And some would contend that virtual travel is ideal for destinations that have limited appeal and could easily be explored online.

An example of the new trend in photo-based virtual tourism is the GigaPan Project [source: GigaPan Project]. Sponsored by NASA, National Geographic, Google Earth and other big names, the GigaPan Project offers more than 50,000 gigapixel panoramas, or "gigapans." Visitors to the Web site can zoom in and explore cities, landmarks and famous natural spots around the world. For example, a Grand Canyon gigapan gives you not only close-up views of the ridges and hills, but also a first-person view of rapids, Nankoweap cave dwellings and rock paintings [source: GigaPan Project]. It's as close as you can get to (almost) touching the sandstone without actually traveling there.

A surprising-but-true place for digital tourism is the online virtual world of Second Life. Linden Lab's Second Life is not a game but a community-driven experience. Once you create your avatar and enter the world, or "grid," you are free to explore and interact with other community members. Although Second Life was originally meant to be a fantasy world, a number of real-life places have found their way into the grid. In 2007, the Dresden Museum agreed to let Second Life feature a virtual clone of their Old Masters Picture Gallery [source: Wired]. This is the best showcase of the museum's collection available online and probably the closest you'll get to "the real thing" without visiting Germany.

The Internet is unlikely to replace travel for everybody, though, because we all travel for different reasons. For example, many travelers are looking for an adventure or indulgence. These travelers want to fully experience their new surroundings, not just see them. They want to walk along the Seine. They want to stand inside the Musée de l'Orangerie surrounded by paintings by Monet, Matisse, Sisley and Cézanne. They want to sit at a sidewalk café drinking café au lait and nibbling on a madeleine or palmier. For those travelers, virtual tourism will never be an option. But for others, it might just be the perfect chance to virtually visit the destination of their dreams.