These are the ones we reach for when somebody puts a headset on for the first time, and they are not always the ones we expected. Some of the shots we worked hardest on sit quietly in the middle of the library. Some of the ones we nearly cut are the ones we keep going back to.
So this is a picks list, and we would rather describe how we made it before the list than defend it afterwards, because "editors' picks" can mean anything from a considered shortlist to whatever was on somebody's mind that morning.
Three tests, applied by us rather than by a chart. Does it land on somebody who has never worn a headset. Does it still hold up on the third viewing. And does the sound carry the place without help. Then two rules of our own: no country twice, so you get twelve places instead of a list that is half New Zealand, and no trailers or teasers, since those are the short samplers rather than the work itself. We have not put view counts on this page and we are not going to. They move week to week, and a count is a worse reason to watch something than a description of what it is.
The twelve
Aboard the vessel Flightless with Maria and Seán as they work to protect the ecosystems they move through. At nine minutes it is the longest thing in the library, and the one we are least worried about somebody stopping early: there are real people in it doing real work, which holds attention in a way scenery on its own does not.
A gondola through the back canals, close walls on both sides. The best demonstration of stereo depth in the library, because narrow water gives your eyes something at arm's length to measure everything else against.
Kiyomizu-dera above a sea of red maple, with the light going. Two minutes, one position, no need to look anywhere else. It is the single most reliable thing we own for making somebody go quiet.
Paddling into El Nido's Big Lagoon through shallow, absurdly clear water with limestone rising on either side. Movement at exactly the pace a body moves, which is why it sits comfortably with almost everyone we have shown it to.
Thirty seconds, standing in front of a lot of falling water. The shortest thing here, and the one that changed our minds about length: half a minute of somewhere real is a complete visit, not a trailer for one.
Inside a desert slot canyon where the stone twists and the sky narrows to a strip above you. Near depth on every side, which makes it one of the most physically convincing minutes we have filmed.
Drifting through reeds and lily pads on flat water. Nothing happens and that is the point. It is on this list for a reason no logline can carry, which is that a film in which nothing happens turns out to be the one you put on again.
Lofoten's most photographed village seen from above, fjord below, mountains behind. A picture everybody has seen flat, which is exactly why it is worth seeing with depth in it.
Standing among elephants as they bathe and feed and move around you. Scale is the entire experience here, and scale is the thing a flat screen can never give you.
Padar Island, jagged ridges framing three bays. A view that looks invented until you are standing on the ridge with it wrapped around you.
Stone villages, narrow lanes and hedgerows. The gentlest thing on the list and a useful reminder that not everybody wants a mountain. A lot of people just want a lane in soft light.
Empty sand, open Pacific, nobody else. The one we send people to when they say they want to be somewhere with no one in it, and the one we go back to ourselves in the evening.
Two we set outside the twelve
Neither of these is ruled out by anything above. We set them aside because the twelve are places and these two are not, and both are worth saying out loud rather than quietly dropping.
Behind The Shot - Mount Teurafaatiu in French Polynesia is the outlier, and it is not really a travel film. It is seven minutes of how a shot gets made, on a mountain in Moorea. It is the only piece of its kind we have made so far, and the response to it is why we would like to make more.
Monkey Business in Bali is the other one. Curious monkeys, very close to the lens, babies clinging on. It is not scenic and it is not calm, and we would still put it in front of a first-timer, because something alive at arm's length does something to presence that no landscape can.
What the twelve have in common
Three things, none of which we expected when we started.
The shortest pieces travel furthest. A 30 second waterfall and a one minute canyon do as much work as anything on this list. A short piece is something you put on in a gap rather than something you set aside an evening for, and that turns out to be how a headset actually gets used at home.
The calm and the dramatic are closer than we assumed. We expected the summits and the drops to carry the library. Almost half of what we film is calm by design, and it is the half that keeps earning its place on lists like this one while asking far less of you. We had been quietly filing the calm material as the supporting act, and we were wrong.
Near depth beats big views. Almost everything here has something within a couple of metres of the camera: a canal wall, a canyon side, reeds, an elephant. That is not a coincidence. It is the mechanism, and it is explained properly in what makes VR travel feel real.
Where to go next
If you want more of a particular flavour, the collections are the fastest route: relaxing, still and calm, mountains, beaches, scenic journeys, or the full set at collections. By place, Japan picks up where Sunset Over Kyoto Temple leaves off, or start at the destinations index and spin the map. New material appears at recently added.
And if none of it is playing yet, watching VR in a browser covers every headset, with step-by-step guides for Meta Quest, PICO and your computer.