It is amazing to me that the travel industry has not embraced using Google Earth to a larger extent. So far, for GE we have seen one big global hotel listing (Earthbooker), one air fare locator, and a bed and breakfast guide. If you are going to Norway, there is an excellent resource called Reiselivsbasen with links to more than 4000 lodgings in Norway. Unfortunately, Norway has limited high resolution satellite photos, but even so it is still beautiful to look at in GE. This travel tool not only supports Google Earth, but also allows you to get location information and download it for use in your GPS so you’ll be ready when you arrive. Reiselivsbasen is definitely worth reviewing if your planning a trip to Norway, or if you are looking for ways to use Google Earth and GPS for your travel site.
Here’s a sample of hotel listings 
with pictures in the placemarks. Each hotel listing can have photos, acommodation information, directions, mapped location, a Google Earth link, contact information, payment options, and more. You can also create your own map of places for use with a GPS (go here for instructions), it supports export to TomTom, GPX, and KMZ. Also provided is a Google Earth network link called GE LiveLookup which lets you look at places in Norway and it will automatically find the 30 nearest accomodations (including camping, hotels, bed and breakfastes, etc.). Thanks to the author Arnulf for contacting me. Great work!
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
We are planning a vacation to Norway at the end of June. We were not planning to make any hotel reservations and when renting a car in Bergen and driving north, we would get a hotel last minute. Any suggestions recommendations or ideas?
At the end of June it’s still high season, I would recommend to make
hotel reservation’s in advance, or bring a tent as “backup”.
Print out lists from Reiselivsbasen, and call hotel a few hours before
arriving, for last minute reservation: http://rlb.no/hotel/fylke/14
or choose from backup solution: http://rlb.no/camping/fylke/14
Bring a GPS with you, download overnattingGPS.zip POI’s from here:
http://rlb.no/OpenStreetMap.org/ and install those in the GPS.
Have a nice holiday in Norway !
arnulf
We are planning aholiday in 2008, there will be 12 adults and 2 children 9 & 12. we would like to rent a large house for a week. where would we start looking for such accomadation. We would need to be near transport for siteseeing ect.