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Google Earth has revealed many of the secrets of our planet to a really wide audience.

Exploring our Earth using satellite imaging of Google Earth and Google Maps, is a truly interesting and rewarding experience. One can travel through the desolate landscapes of deserts, explore coastlines and fiords and climb up the highest mountains from the comfort of ones desk.

This article and photo collection is by no means a full guide or a concise report. It is a starting point for people who never took a trek around the globe using Google Earth. It is a stimulation for you to start your own exploration.

All the photos in this article are copyrighted material of Google Earth. To discover more about the artificial landmarks worth seeing in Google Earth, please click here.

The first two photos are taking us to Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs. I chose to look for some oasis in the middle of the desert, and the result was rewarding to say the least.

Photo 1.  Bahariya Oasis, Egypt

Photo 2. The Siwa Oasis, Egypt. The city of Siwa exists only as long as the oasis does.

The third photo is from Santorini, the famous Greek island that was reshaped by the level 7 VEI volcanic eruption the second millennium BC. The tsunami of the volcano eruption destroyed the Minoan civilization in Crete and affected the mainland Greece and Egypt.

Photo 3. Santorini (Thira), the famous Greek island, owes its ring-shape to the volcano eruption that destroyed the centre of the island and created the tsunami that devastated the Minoan civilization.

Photos 4 and 5 are some of the amazing jewels of satellite photography of the Amazon rainforest region.

Photo 4. Amazing shapes of a river in the Amazon rainforest.

Photo 5. River shapes the Amazon rainforest landscape.

Photos 6 and 7 are two samples from the USA. The Grand Canyon in Colorado and the Death Valley in California.

Photo 6.  Grand Canyon, Colorado, USA

Photo 7. This is not water, but the bright white of the Death Valley Park, California, USA

The Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, the most feared passage in the southern hemisphere, and the connecting point between two oceans.

Photo 8. Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

Further to the west, the Magellan Crossing, the patch of sea between South America (Tierra del Fuego) and Antarctica. Another connecting point, this time between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.

Photo 9. South America and Antarctica meet.

Photos 10 and 11 show two different views of mountains … the first in the Sudan desert and the second at the Himalayas, the Everest peak.

Photo 10. Not Mars … it is Sudan’s desert.

Photo 11.   Mount Everest.

Photo 12. Desert landscape, Saudi Arabia.

Photo 13. Landscape from the Saudi desert.

Photos 12 and 13 look like a Martian landscape. In reality they are part of the Saudi Arabia’s desert landscape.

Photos 14 and 15 take us back to Africa, with the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and the surf coasts of Namimbia.

Photo 14. Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe

Photo 15. Surf coast in Namimbia.

To more exotic destinations now, a coastal detail of Fiji (photo 16) and Tuvalu, a little know place, but famous for its domain name suffix : .TV

Photo 16. South coastline of Fiji.

Photo 17. If you register a .tv domain name, it is in this country of the Pacific Ocean. Tuvalu !

Photo 18. Atolls and islands of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

This is a magnificent view of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. A perfect place for scuba diving and snorkeling. Famous for its wild life and treaterous waters, it was mapped by captain Bligh when he was put on a boat after the mutiny on the HMS Bounty.

Photo 19. The complex of the Bikini Atoll.

Photo 20. The southernmost island in the Bikini Atoll.

The Bikini Atolls are closing this brief tour around the world. The first is a panoramic view of the atoll and the second is a detail of its southernmost island. The name Bikini of the swimming suit derives from this island, which was made famous for its “explosive” usage. Hard to believe when you watch these photos that it was the testing ground of 23 nuclear weapons, including the first H-Bomb.

I hope this small tour was a good inspiration for you to start hip-hoping around the globe and make your own discoveries. Let us not forget that recently an unknown rainforest was discovered this way !