I love Google Earth
 

It's been raining here a lot recently and I'm doing some computer work in the basement, so I've been spending some time on Google Earth and enjoying it! I've looked up all the places I've lived as a civilian and while in the military and I'm especially impressed that I found my barracks in Okinawa, Mt Fuji, Japan as well as Ras Al Mishab, Saudi Arabia. The last time I tried to see these locations they were blocked on Google Earth, but now everything seems to be there. I found the place I lived in Government Camp, Oregon (on Mt Hood) and I was a bit saddened to see that where I went to boot camp in the Navy (NTC, San Diego) was bulldozed and developed into several neighborhoods with a very few of the cool old buildings salvaged.

I found the airport in Italy and Belgium (Ostend) that we stopped at on our flight to/from Saudi Arabia and cool places that we've visited in the past (St George, Utah, Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc...).

It's a great way to spend some time and reminisce...

I think I toured (all of) England on Google Earth.

It's a cheap way to travel!!

Have you discovered that you can also go back in time on google earth? There is a slider where you can go back as far as they have images. The base in Japan that I lived on as a kid and the surrounding town has changed a ton, but I was able to go back to 2003 and find one of the houses that we lived in that would now be in the middle of a road.

In Google Maps (Earth too, I think) if you have a login (any google login including gmail will work) you can put push pins with text and save that info. I've gone through the various places I lived and visited in Japan and Spain and around the US marking locations of jobs, friend's houses, places I worked etc... Some of the stuff required me to rack my brain to remember. Now, I can go back and tour places potentially years from now. I believe there's also some way that you can scan and upload pictures into google maps or earth, but I never really pursued that.

Yes, I've used the "wayback machine" feature to see what's happened over time. We have an island here (BobLo Island) in the Detroit River, that used to be an amusement park and it was converted into a private island with huge homes, golf course, marina, etc... and it's cool to be able to see it over the past 10 years or so... I haven't uploaded any pics yest but i have placed some pins in to ID places that I've lived...

I have found it an invaluable tool for vacation planning in other countries. Pictures that people post (often in the wrong place) can give you a sense of the lay of the land & you can search sites, restaurants, hotels etc & pushpin them all for future reference. I love Google Earth.

Ian

for some reason I can no longer access the pushpin (mark a location) feature??

(yes, I'm signed in)

We love Google Earth at work. For FREE it is just amazing.

We make the same type of aerial maps that Google Earth has. We charge a lot more than free. :)

The free stuff is like a drug pusher giving out samples. We sell the good stuff, and the OLD stuff. I have an aerial of my neighborhood back when it was just a wheat field in 1951, 1961, 1971 and up to the day it was a neighborhood in the early 90s.

In Google Maps? I just got into one of my maps. The Add a Pushpin feature is now in a right click menu. I don't remember it being there before. Google seems to have been making lots of changes and additions to their maps these days.

It's a shame what they did to the NTC in San Diego. Watched them do the whole thing.

I'm house hunting. I have been looking at zillow.com and if it makes it past the sniff test on Zillow next is to google eart to check out the rest of the area around. How close is the house to a freeway? Is the neighbor to the east a horder? where are the problem neighbors? Yes, I LOVE google earth.

Great house hunting tool! I am sad to see NTC gone, but it could be worse, they could have left the abandoned boarded-up bulidings rot just like Detroit has done with Fort Wayne.

My base on Mt Fuji, Japan was bulldozed at some point as was where I went to boot camp (NTC San Diego) and my old house in Ft Myers, FL, but most of the other significant places from my life are still standing...