For those of you that haven't heard of it before, Google Earth is a 3D interface to the planet available from the Google Website and it's a must have for anyone interested in travelling.

I use Google Earth to research places I want to visit, to help understand those places I've visited, and to record and share some of my trips. As such, when you progress through my web site you will come across references to Google Earth and the .kmz files it uses to share Placemarks with others.

If you want to view my Google Earth Placemark (.kmz) files you will need to install Google Earth on your computer. To install Google Earth on your computer go to the Google Website and follow the download and installation instruction provided there. Note that you don't need the Google Earth Pro (the one that costs money), the free version will do.

Once Google Earth is installed on your computer you can run it like any other application and start to explore the planet on your own or you can click on any of my .kmz files below to open them in Google Earth.

If you don't want to install Google Earth, you should at least check out Google Maps. It runs right in your web browser and gives you access to the same Satellite Maps used in Google Earth, however navigating the globe is different and you won't be able to use any .kmz files with it.

Once you load any of the .kmz files below into Google Earth, you can just double click on any of the placemarks I created under Places in Google Earth to go there directly. You can also play around with controls below the globe to do your own navigation. And, you can visit your own places of interest using the search tool in the top left of the application. You can play a virtual tour of all the Placemarks in each of my files by selecting the file under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the grey arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10.

One last thing, the information in Google Earth can get quite busy and confusing, as such you may want to reduce the volume of information shown by de-selecting some of the items in the Layers section. You may also want to de-select the Points included in my files. That will make it much easier to see the actual path shown in my files.

Allan's Google Earth Placemark files: