“It has been skyrocketing,” said Cezara Windrem, creator of the Alcove VR platform at AARP Innovation Labs. “We’re getting more adoption every month.”

Alcove enables users to visit exotic locales such as Australia’s coral reef or the island of Malta, while adding a “shared” experience which enables people to interact and even “lead” a family member without the technical skills to navigate in a VR headset.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people who discovered Alcove and decided buy a headset for their elderly family members,” Windrem said.

This allows for shared travel even during a lockdown and other kinds of experiences such as “playing chess with someone on the other side of the planet.”