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 start to come across reference to Google Earth and the .kmz files it used 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 PC. You can install Google Earth on your PC as follows:

1. Go to http://earth.google.com.
2. Click on the "Get Google Earth Free Version" in the top right of the page to go to the download page.
3. You may want to read all the information on the download page to see if your computer will run Google Earth, however if you have a computer that's only a few years old and you have a high speed internet connection you are probably ok.
4. Click on any of the Download GoogleEarth.exe buttons (they are all the same) and save the GoogleEarthSetup.exe file to some temporary location on your PC (eg Desktop).
5. Run GoogleEarthSetup.exe to install Google Earth. You should be able to accept all the default installation options.
6. Once Google Earth is installed you can delete GoogleEarthSetup.exe if you want.

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

Allan's Google Earth Placemark files:

Placemark File	Referring Page	Notes
snow_pic_location.kmz	Moose Mountain
trip_down_hwy_40.kmz	Highway 40	Once the file is open you can start the virtual tour by selecting Trip down Hwy 40 under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the gray arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10. This tour takes about 5 minutes to run.
coast_to_coast_2005.kmz	Coast to Coast, 2005	Once the file is open you can start the virtual tour by selecting coast_to_coast_2005.kmz under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the gray arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10. This tour is still a work in progress and it currently takes about 30 minutes to run.
flight_path_to_hk.kmz	Hong Kong, Dec 2005 Flight Part 2	This file shows our flight path to Hong Kong. You can play a virtual tour of all the Placemarks in the file by selecting the folder with all the placemarks under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the gray arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10.
Hong_Kong_Trip_Places.kmz	Several sub pages under Hong Kong, Dec 2005	This file is based on one provided by Mike Babin. I added a few extra Placemakrs and overlaid the Dec 1941 Hong Kong Battle Map, the Dec 1941 Mainland Positions map, and the Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail onto the globe. Once the file is open you can adjust the transparency of the maps by selecting the map of interest under Places then adjusting the slider at the bottom left of the window or right click, select Edit..., then adjust the transparency there. You can play a virtual tour of all the Placemarks in the file by selecting HKVCA Hong Kong Trip Places under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the gray arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10.
Bernard_and_Allan.kmz	Hong Kong, Dec 2005 Lei Yue Mun	This file shows a few key locations of the adventure that Bernard and I went on to find the small community across the water from the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence, Lei Yue Mun. You can play a virtual tour of all the Placemarks in the file by selecting Bernard_and_Allan.kmz under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the gray arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10.
flight_path_from_hk.kmz	Hong Kong, Dec 2005 Flight Home	This file shows our flight path home. You can play a virtual tour of all the Placemarks in the file by selecting the folder with all the placemarks under Places and then clicking on the small play button down near the bottom left of the screen (ie the round button with the gray arrow on it), or you can select Play Tour from the View menu, or you can just press F10.

With any of the .kmz files above you can just double click on any of the placemarks I created under Place 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.