The amazing things about Google Earth
As he’s done for a few years in a row (2013, 2012, 2011), Dennis at CyclingTheAlps.com has built some great tools to help track the Tour de France in Google Earth.
Each course features a map overview, elevation profile, and a 3D tour. Check it all out for yourself at http://www.cyclingthealps.com/#tour-de-france-2014-stages. The race starts on July 5, be sure to keep an eye on Cycling the Alps to see what the riders are up against at each stage.
Private Expeditions is a company founded by Paul and Jane Deakin, that takes people to some of the largest mountains around the world, such as Kilimanjaro, Everest and Machu Picchu, for private expeditions. They’ve recently added narrated videos that heavily feature Google Earth imagery to help show details of each of their routes. A great example is this route map of Mera Peak in Nepal:
From their press release:
The popular company recently launched 3D videos of all its trekking routes. These high-quality videos use Google Earth technology to show potential hikers the exact trails they will take when traveling with Private Expeditions. With a concise narration, graphic trail designation, and added photos of climbing conditions, the 3D videos give viewers a sense of where they are headed when choosing a particular route.
It’s a great use of Google Earth and an excellent way to help show this kind of information. I would hope that they’d release this data in a format that you can explore on your own, such as a KML, but for now it’s simply embedded in their videos.
Learn more and see the videos for yourself at PrivateExpeditions.com.
The 2014 World Cup is well underway, being played in 12 beautiful stadiums across Brazil. All 12 stadiums have awesome 3D models in Google Earth, so we thought we’d show them off to you. Here is an example of a model in Google Earth; this is Arena de São Paulo, located in São Paulo, Brazil.
The other stadiums look equally amazing, many of which seemed to have been auto-generated using Google’s 3D Imagery technique. We’ve put together a Google Earth KML file for you to download, that will fly you directly to each of the 12 stadiums so you can view them for yourself. Grab the file here
and have fun exploring!
GEB reader “fjk” recently biked through Romania and Georgia and did an excellent job of showcasing his trip in Google Earth.
fjk and his friend visited Kutaisi, borjomi, Vardzia and various other cities. They recorded the trip via a Garmin 62s GPS unit, and then loaded all of the images into a single Google Earth file. It’s fairly large, at around 29MB, but it’s a fun file to explore in Google Earth. You can download that KMZ file here.
If you’re planning a trip to Romania and you’re a first time visitor looking for travel tips and what to visit, then here’s a list of the most important things we locals think tourists should know about visiting Romania. There are many interesting things to do in our country and we’re going to tell you everything!
On Romanian Friend you can book authentic and interesting tours and day trips all over the country with the best, handpicked guides, find lots of useful info to plan your trip and get help with planning your itinerary or creating a custom tour. We’re locals passionate about our country who want to help travelers discover the beauty of Romania while supporting responsible, local and eco-friendly tourism.
Travelling to Romania – our tip: the simplest, most convenient and reasonably cheap way of getting to Romania is a low cost flight: 6 low cost airlines fly on 7 airports in major Romanian cities from more than 70 locations in Europe. Tickets range from 40-100€ depending on how much planning ahead you do and flight time is usually between 1,5 – 3 hours. You can also travel to Romania by train from Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia or Thessaloniki or even from further away with changes. If you’re looking for an adventure, consider an Eastern European road trip or maybe something more relaxing like a boat cruise on the Danube River. Read more about travelling to Romania.
Getting around Romania might be a bit more challenging, but not necessarily difficult. We don’t have a lot of highways and travelling by car between major cities usually takes long hours due to high traffic on mostly one-lane roads (speed limit of 90-100 km/h). Almost all Romanian cities and even small villages have train stations but railway infrastructure is not the best and trains are sometimes unreliable, although they will get you to your destination reasonably cheap. For shorter distances (up to 200 km) consider a car or train, train or coach for medium (200-400 km) and internal flights for longer routes (Bucharest – Cluj or Timisoara). Visitors to Romania are well advised to have travel insurance before getting here. Have a look at our guide on getting around Romania.
Our favourite time of the year to enjoy Romania is autumn: a superb array of gold, brown and red will cover the woodlands, hills and mountains in the countryside – it is a wonderful, peaceful and picturesque sight to see that you will definitely enjoy!
You can also view the embedded version on his website. It’s a great way to capture, re-live and share a trip like that.
Great work, fjk!
The 2014 World Cup is a week away, and Google has just released Street View imagery for all 12 stadiums. As you’d expect, the imagery is very sharp and looks great!
In addition, Google has released imagery for the “painted streets” in Brazil:
To go along with the new imagery in Brazil, they’ve also added fresh Street View imagery in Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
You can read more about these updates on the Google Lat Long Blog, or go explore the stadiums and painted streets for yourself.