Google Earth
 

I was wondering if anyone else used Google Earth to research their trips and how they liked it.

I haven't used it to research trips, but I have "google earthed" places that I have been before. My favorite to look at is the Palace of Versailles.

I use it to look at the area, to see if a place is wooded or close to the sea or lake. It adds a new dimension to research, have you tried it?

Hi N,
Yes.
Yes.

I'm using it to plan some upcoming trips and to revisit places I've been. The pictures others have posted are great for the most part. Some are out of place and I've seen some that I've put on my list of what to see when I get close by. I've been to Konigsee many times, but never in winter. This picture may change that.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/77204.jpg
Awesome.

I have used mappy and really like it. I don't know how mappy compares to Google Earth. If I have a complete address, I can zero in on the map first and then switch to the aerial view. Without a complete address it's less useful, though still fun. On slow winter days, I sometimes look at places we've stayed or visited.

The aerial views on Mappy are from Google Earth, so there's no difference :)

In my opinion, the most fun you can have with Google Earth is to go to a mountainous location and then change the angle of the view, the 3D effect can be amazing. Try it somewhere like Lauterbrunnen to get some idea of what the view up to the Jungfrau, Eiger and Monch is like...

Alan

I prefer google maps (maps.google.com) over Google Earth for trip planning.

Google earth is a more powerful tool, but google maps are available on any internet computer, even with dialup.

I have created and saved my own map locations, restaurants, hotels, sights, etc online & access them when traveling.

Google Earth is very good for researching house rentals - for confirming the blurb that most agents are full of and then to map directions - does anyone know how up to date the photos are?

I've used it to look at the apartments that I'm considering renting in various countries. Gives me an idea of location in comparison to sites and other areas, as well as what the general area is like.

Ever zero into your own house? I see that mine has my sun umbrellas in the yard. So the pics were a while ago.

Pictures from my neighborhood are ~4yrs ago - late fall 2003.

Google Earth is just simply awesome. For those of you with Garmin GPS and who have ordered the Mapsource DVD's, did you realize that you can take all the places you plotted in Mapsource (and downloaded to your GPS) then copy them into Google Earth? It gave me an excellent idea of just where some of my hotels and recommended restaurants were. A regular map doesn't give you any concept of elevation but with Google Earth I was able to see just how mountainous some of those routes through Southern Bavaria were.

Google Earth also helped me determine where my Priceline hotel in Berlin was located. A regular map didn't indicate just how many buildings were on that same block. With GE I was able to pick out the color and shape of the hotel lodged between all the other Communist-era high rises.

Sometimes the views are very old.

For instance, we have a house in Florida that is three years old.

When we use either Google Earth or Google Maps, all you can see is a large piece of cleared land.

BUT. It shows the apartment building where we are renting in Lisbon.

I've used it to get an idea of how the area looks before I travel there. What I mean is you can change the view to a more flat view, like you were driving down the road. It helps me recognize a turn off or building even if I've not been there. I love the program and I'm glad to hear of the stuff you can use it for that I didn't know.

I think they change the images more often in bigger cities (London, Paris, NY..) or at least that is what it seems to me :)

I use Google Earth to visit my house/village in France when I get homesick for it.

Yes, use it for trip planning also.

I think it's awesome!

Coincidentally, I was just talking to a colleague about this today. I told her that the map of my town is so old, my three year old house just shows up a plot of dirt.

Just to prove this, I loaded up maps.google.com, which I assume uses the same satellite images as Google Earth. And what do you know - my house showed up! So it does look like they are updating things.

I use it quite often to locate city addresses.

I've also used it to help plan sailing routes.

As many Marinas have wifi, you can use it to check the next days sail, entry to ports etc.

And, yes, I use charts too !

Peter

Sometimes I use Viamichelin to plan how best to get from a to b. There have been times when Viamichelin wouldn't - no matter what instructions I gave it - take me the route I wanted to go. On those occasions I google-earthed, and what d'you reckon? The minor road I wanted to go down was clearly blocked by avalanche or flood or whatever. So I think it's a great tool when you need to get down to the finer detail.

If you update Google earth regularly you will see that they do update the pictures fairly frequently, depending on the area you live.

As I am near a royal palace, and until a couple of years ago it was pixillated, Now you can see my house but my son's is pixillated as it is near an airforce base.The base wil be closing in the next year or so so I hope it will be unpixillated then.
By a friends house you can even see their horses in the field!

And there is the famous shot of the nude sunbather in Amsterdam. Poor woman.

I use Google earth for recording my trips and where I took photos(I have a GPS logger for my camera), but I don't post them to the Google community.
I like to see where I am going and then where I have been!

"I have a GPS logger for my camera"

How cool is that? Tell us more about it! Brand/model/cost

I have one from Qstarz, no idea what it cost it was a present.
Sony also do one, and there is a really neat one now called the ATP Photofinder, which will add the GPS data to your EXIF straight onto your memory card without the need of a computer.

Not for research per se, but I did use Google Earth extensively for planning. The idea was to keep track of places of interest including addresses/notes and put these on the map. (I was inspired by a poster on this site whose name escapes me who has done the same for restaurants in Rome.) In Google maps, you can create custom maps, but they are limited to 50 markers at a time and a fixed in the order added. So, if you add some restaurants and then some shops and then another restaurant, the last restaurant is at the end. GE lets you move things around and keep things organized. The problem with GE is that the mapping functionality, i.e., showing a clear image of the streets, is limited. I did a lot of work to convert it to a Google Map using the Mapbuilder.net framework and a number of self-written computer scripts (and a lot of time). (I spend part of my workday writing Python scripts.) To see the final product, check out http://www.sanschagrin.com/Italy2007/RomeMap.html. In the end, we printed the maps (in sections) and carried them with us, which proved immensely useful in the common situation when "where is there to eat around here?" or "where exactly is that shop?".

Paul

Actually, it's amazing what you can see if you look hard enough...

http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html...E4T81+lzQ8gA#t

Give it a minute to load.

Jim

Sorry, hopefully second time lucky;

http://tinyurl.com/2l8cdr

Jim