google earth tour tutorial

Tourbuilder Tutorials

Creating a tour and adding locations.

• Create and name your tour by visiting tourbuilder.withgoogle.com .
• Add different locations by searching by city name, street address, or lat/long coordinates.
• The field of view for each location can be tilted.
• You can also go into Street View for different locations, too.

Adding and Deleting Photos

• Once you have a location added to map, add imagery and videos to each location by clicking "Add Photos or Videos".
• They can be uploaded, imported from Youtube, added via Google image search, or inserted from Google Drive.
• Each image can have a title and description to help your students understand its importance.

Viewing Tourbuilder Files on the new Google Earth

• Create a Tour telling a story at tourbuilder.withgoogle.com .
• Make your tour publically viewable, then click the three lines in the top right.
• Click "Open in Earth" to view your tour in the new Google Earth.

Google's Tour Builder Is a Great Way to Make Your Friends Hate You

Now you can create virtual tours of your annoying vacations.

Google technically released the Earth Tour Builder in 2013, but the company has released new tools that basically put it on steroids. Earth Tour Builder lets users drill down to the street view to mark specific spots they've been or want to go. Google Earth previously made guided tours available through its Voyager tab, but these were all professionally made. The big difference here is that anyone can make a project.

Interestingly, the project first began as a way for veterans to record their globetrotting as a result of their service, but has morphed into a storytelling tool that allows users to show their friends and family some of their favorite places and how to replicate the same journey. The improved tool is currently in beta and billed as "a Google Earth experiment" on the build page, but anyone can access it.

We'll walk you through the basics of how to create your first Google Earth Tour, with a focus on the bridges in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Google also has additional instructions here. To check out our final tour creation, click here.

Navigate to Google Earth Tour Builder

To start, visit tourbuilder.withgoogle.com , where you'll see a blue button to "View a Tour" and a red button to "Create a Tour." Click the red button and make sure you're signed into your Google account.

Slap a Title On

Next, come up with a good name for your tour that illustrates exactly what your viewers will be getting. We named ours "City of Bridges" since the tour will cover a few of Pittsburgh's many bridges.

Decide Where You're Heading and Build an Intro

Given the ridiculous amount of data that Google has collected for its Google Earth platform, you can create your tour pretty much anywhere. And it doesn't have to be a glimpse into your latest travels, necessarily—it could be an educational tour that hops around in a way that you simply couldn't on a single trip.

Once you've decided, select an introduction photo, either from your own photo collection (Google will automatically pull up anything you've uploaded to your Google Photos account) or elsewhere on the internet. To ensure you aren't encroaching on any copyright laws, use Flickr Creative Commons photos.

To wrap up your introduction, type up a description of your starting location.

Add Your First Location

Here's where it gets fun: Google Earth Tour Builder not only lets you select locations, but it also allows you to drill down further into the metadata, zooming in on the location through Street View. You can lock the angle you're currently viewing by dragging Pegman (the little yellow guy) and clicking the blue "Lock this view" button that pops up in the top right-hand corner.

Spice It Up with Multimedia

Once you've dropped a pin at the perfect spot, it's time to customize your location. Click the blue plus sign beneath "Enhance the Story" on the left-hand side of the screen near the left rail. There, you can upload your own photos and videos or even search and add videos from YouTube, right in the native web application. Then, draft up a description that will help your friends understand why this spot matters.

Customize Your Pin

This step isn't necessary, but it's a fun touch: You can add one of Google's other custom pins to ditch the old red one or even upload a link to your own icon.

Continue to Add Locations

Just as before, type in a location and drop a pin at the best spot, customizing with pictures, videos, text and links. Add as many as you like to wrap up your tour. Note in this example that if users have uploaded geotagged panorama shots and made them public, you'll see those on the map while dragging around Pegman. After you've added as many stops on your tour as you'd like, click "Done Editing" in the top right-hand corner to publish.

Tip: While dragging Pegman, you can find user-uploaded images by looking for small, gray circles that pop up near the blue Google Street View lines on roads. A small, grayed-out preview window will pop up and you can plop him down on the circle.

Share, Share, Share

When you've finished, click the blue "Share" button at the top right-hand corner of your screen. There, you can access a shareable link to your tour or you can add friends' email addresses to share your project with them, just as you would a Google Doc. You can also change the editing settings to allow others to collaborate on the tour.

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How to Use Google Earth

Last Updated: June 3, 2023

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 13 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 166,067 times. Learn more...

Have you ever wondered how to use the basic Google Earth features? If so, this guide could be a great help to you.

Preparation

Using the Software

• Change this location even more by clicking the button in the center of it. You can change between Land mode and views from above. Sometimes, this can be useful!

• Turn on Weather view from the Layers button in the bottom left corner. Click the drop-down negative sign and next to Weather and click both the "Radar" and "Clouds" options. You'll be able to see rain and snow and clouds and sleet on this map, just like you were looking at a weather radar on a TV screen weather broadcasting channel.
• Turn on other buttons for additional items to view about the location. You can turn on YouTube videos when these videos have been placemarked. Look through that list, and see if you can turn on other very useful features that show the world from the eyes of other viewers.
• Viewers who love Hybrid mode on Google maps or the Hybrid mode on their iPhones or Android devices, may like to turn on the "Roads" aspect which shows you the roadways.
• Utilize subway systems and lines that show where subways lines are by turning on Subway from the Transportation drop down of the "More" drop-down button (click More, then Transportation, then select Subway).
• Get traffic data for specific big metropolitan cities (US and Canada) by turning on the Traffic from the "More" drop-down.
• Give yourself some Wikipedia data. Turn on the Wikipedia option and you'll see data about the towns you're reading up on.
• Look at the locations of epicenters to recorded earthquakes by turning on the Earthquake feature in the Gallery drop-down.
• View pictures of the Ocean floor after turning on some of the Ocean options. There are several pieces marine biologists may enjoy after they zoom into some oceans enough. You might want to turn on both the "Explore the Oceans" and "Shipwrecks" options to see incredible imagery of items below the ocean surface. Also included are "Dead Zone" data where fish tend to die off when they enter these areas.
• Look at other things on the Earth to learn more about what you don't see or know very well. With some of the other contributors including "National Geographic", NASA , and "Discovery Networks" after turning on these features, or even one of the many other features, you're never far away from many ideas to learn more about your world. There are lots of things you can turn on to learn a little more about your world.

• Although it's best if you have some knowledge of Microsoft's Flight Simulator X , it's not mandatory!

Community Q&A

• First-time users might want to turn on the Tour's famous locations to view areas that are famous to see what they can spot. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 3
• Learn about other weird things that have been spotted in Google Earth via YouTube. Use "weird things in Google Earth" as your search term. You should be able to see some really weird stuff going on as the other viewer sees it. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Find out distances between two different cities is just one example of many that only an individual reader can determine if it might be useful for them.

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• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J22uSaZVK2o

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How can we help you?

Browse help topics, need more help, try these next steps:.

Google Earth

Create stories and maps.

With creation tools, you can draw on the map, add your photos and videos, customize your view, and share and collaborate with others.

Create on Earth

Draw on the map.

Add placemarks to highlight key locations in your project, or draw lines and shapes directly on the map.

Add your photos and videos

Feature images and videos on your map to add rich contextual information.

Customize your view

Make use of Google Earth's detailed globe by tilting the map to save a perfect 3D view or diving into Street View for a 360 experience.

Share your story with the world

Collaborate with others like a Google Doc and share your story as a presentation.

Explore Google Earth

Grab the helm and go on an adventure in Google Earth.