A Google Earth Pro tour lets you create a guided journey through different locations on the globe. Instead of manually moving around the map while explaining each location, you can record your movements and, if needed, add narration. This can be useful for presentations, geographic demonstrations, travel routes, teaching, research, and other mapping projects.
Google's official documentation confirms that Google Earth can record tours on a computer, allowing you to choose locations, control movement and record audio.
What Is a Google Earth Pro Tour?
A tour is a recorded sequence of movements through Google Earth. You can move from one location to another, zoom in or out, change the viewing angle, and pause at selected places.
For example, you could create a tour that starts with an overview of a country, moves to a particular city, zooms into a project site, and then continues to another location. If you add a microphone recording, you can explain what viewers are seeing while the tour plays.
Before recording, it is helpful to create and organise the locations you want to visit in the Places panel.
If your tour follows a recorded route, you may also want to learn how to add a GPS track to Google Earth Pro.
How to Create a Tour in Google Earth Pro
1. Open Google Earth Pro
Start Google Earth Pro on your computer and navigate to the area where you want your tour to begin.
Make sure the places you want to visit are easy to access. You can use existing placemarks or create new ones before starting the recording.
2. Start the Tour Recorder
From the Google Earth Pro toolbar, select the Record a Tour option. Google also documents the alternative route through Add → Tour.
A small media player appears with controls for recording and playback.
Start the recording when you are ready.
3. Move Between Your Locations
While recording, navigate through the map just as you normally would.
You can:
- Zoom in and out.
- Move across the map.
- Change the viewing angle.
- Fly to different locations.
- Select placemarks from the Places panel.
- Follow a route or other geographic feature.
If you already created placemarks, selecting them from the Places panel can make it easier to move through the tour in a planned order.
Tip: Plan your route before pressing Record. Unnecessary zooming, sudden movements, or long periods without movement can make the finished tour harder to follow.
How to Add Narration to a Tour
If you want to explain the locations while the tour is playing, Google Earth Pro provides a microphone option during recording.
Start the tour recording and select the Microphone control to record your narration. You can then speak while moving through the locations.
For example:
"This is the project area. The tour now moves towards the northern section of the study area."
Keep your explanation short and coordinate your speech with the movement of the camera. A clear voice recording and steady navigation will generally make the presentation easier to follow.
Google's documentation specifically includes microphone recording as part of the tour-recording process.
How to Control Tour Speed
The speed of a tour can have a major effect on how easy it is to understand.
Google Earth Pro provides Touring settings that allow you to control aspects such as the time between features, waiting time at features, and speed when creating tours from lines or tracks. You can also choose between a smaller recording file and higher-fidelity recording.
For a presentation, avoid making the tour unnecessarily fast. Give viewers enough time to recognise the location and understand your explanation.
You can access these settings through:
Tools → Options → Touring on Windows.
On Mac, Google documents the corresponding settings under Google Earth → Preferences → Touring.
How to Stop and Save the Tour
When you reach the end of your route, click the Record/Stop button.
Google Earth Pro will then play back the recorded tour. If you are satisfied with the result, use the Save button in the media player.
You can enter a name for the tour and add additional information through the available description and view settings before saving it.
Your saved tour can then be accessed from the Places panel under My Places.
How to Share a Google Earth Pro Tour
Google Earth allows you to save tours and other geographic information to your computer. Google also provides options for saving and sharing place information and tours.
Before sharing a tour, check that all the locations, descriptions and recordings work correctly. If the tour depends on particular files or geographic data, make sure those files are available to the person receiving it.
For professional work, also check whether the geographic information is suitable for the intended purpose. Google Earth should not automatically be treated as a replacement for a professional survey or engineering-grade spatial dataset.
Common Problems When Recording a Tour
The tour moves too quickly:
Adjust the Touring settings and increase the time between important locations or the waiting time at features.
The narration does not match the movement:
Plan your route and practise the sequence before making the final recording.
The tour contains unnecessary movements:
Stop and restart the recording rather than keeping mistakes in the final version.
The saved tour is difficult to find:
Look under Places → My Places after saving it.
Final Tips for a Better Tour
A good Google Earth Pro tour does not need to be complicated. Start with a clear destination, organise your locations, use smooth movements, and avoid unnecessary camera changes.
If narration is important, prepare a short script before recording. For a project presentation, you might structure the tour from general location → study area → important sites → final overview.
For additional information and the latest guidance, see the official Google Earth Help documentation on creating, recording, adjusting and saving tours.
Also remember that Google Earth Pro's tour feature is a desktop feature. Google Earth Help specifically documents tour recording for the computer version, so the instructions should not be assumed to apply identically to the mobile or browser versions.
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