Having been a courier and married to a dispatcher it is safe to say that my husband and I enjoy driving and when seeing new places we like to drive to get there.  One of the largest causes of accidents we have seen is people not knowing where they are going.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have seen someone cut across 4 lanes of traffic because they didn't know where they were going.  Google Earth helps to alleviate that in a way nothing else can.  It's 3d capabilities allow you to drive the route you plan on going before you ever leave the house.  Often showing cars that you will pass parked along the way.  No more cutting across because you didn't know what was comming!

Now Google Earth Maps allow us to have an idea of where we are going before we ever leave the house!  When I say that I am not exaggerating.  Even with the free Google Earth download you can zoom in on a specific address and view the area around it before you ever leave your house, but I prefer to use the Google Earth online version myself.  One of the guys I work with even has Google Earth Pro downloaded on his cell phone.  With the new capabilities of the cell phones he can see the area before he heads out to drop off a package.

This program is so cool it is beyond belief in my opinion.  The Google Earth download literally allows you to have an accurate visual idea of what you are going to see when you arrive at your destination.  Allowing for 360 degree views of the address point you put in.  It is invaluable as a dispatcher to be able to pull up a location on the map and tell your driver what they should see around them.  Some people are road driven like my husband while others like myself like to know if I am looking for a yellow house on the left or a pond on the right.

Google Earth map satellite imagery can be compared to something that my parents used to watch in a sci-fi movie.  It literally gets at ground level and allows you to look at the house across the street or the other businesses at an intersection clear enough to read the signs on the buildings.  Sometimes I like to pull up locations we have lived in the past, Cali for example.  It allows you to literally take a virtual walk down memory lane.  Or there are places that we could never go to that I like to plug in, like Area 51 Google Earth and see what comes up. 

Google Earth Australia was such a blessing for us on our last vacation!  We were able to pull up the addresses of different hotels and see the area around them to help us determine where we wanted to stay.  Some hotels that looked very nice online when we pulled up and "strolled" the neighborhood were NOT where we wanted to be!  Others that didn't have as great of promotion seemed to have put their money into their location rather than the website.

There are actually multiple versions of Google Earth.  Personally we use the Google Earth Pro otherwise known as Google Earth Plus, but I will get to that in another hub.  The pro or plus option is one that you may want if you are an avid map fan, otherwise free Google Earth should be sufficient for your needs.  And it even offers updates so you can stay on top of the changes that occur.

It never ceases to amaze me how much is done now that we never thought would happen in our lifetime.  We can now fly across the ocean, drive to the local store, keep our food cold year round in refrigerators, we have electric lights.  Overall, our lives are becoming more "futuristic" every day.  I never dreamed that I would be able to pull up and address on a thing called the computer and physically see the address I was thinking of.

I remember learning the dewy decimal system in the library and thought it was so cool when they came up with a machine that would allow you to type on a screen before you printed!  Boy we were hot stuff when we didn't have to buy white out anymore!  Now using a Google Earth live you know exactly what is going on anytime anywhere.  And to think at one time my biggest use of a computer was to play "Number Munchers."