A restaurant in Tokyo, Japan offers a VR (virtual reality) trip to New York, Paris, Rome, or Hawaii enhanced by “in-flight meals” themed around the destination.

With FIRST AIRLINES you can taste the experiences of aviation and world travel while on the ground.

Although sold as “real air experience”, it is indeed a great example of “authentic fakeness”, just while everybody seems to be looking for a much more digestible “fake authenticity”. Perhaps that is why a “virtual airline facility” disguised as a restaurant (…or is it the other way around?) appears almost revolutionary in its flamboyant and extravagant excess. But what about “authentic authenticity”? Well, nobody can make a profit, so there’s no point in talking about it.

Want to travel the world without leaving home? Here’s your chance (kinda). Google has partnered with Discovery VR to launch Discovery TRVLR, a 38-episode immersive series which promises to take you “in every corner of the globe across all seven continents”, starting from Auckland, New Zealand.

How can you go wrong here, at least as a tourist? There’s no doubt you’ll save precious time and money compared to a real life, pre-packaged tour.

Find all episodes of Discovery TRVLR on YouTube or the Discovery VR app. They can be comfortably experienced in VR with the new Google Daydream View headset as well as with Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, and Oculus Rift.