Free to playGoogle Earth VR The Whole Planet in VR
Fly from orbit down to street level and wander real places across the globe at your own relaxed pace.
Is Google Earth VR worth it?
Google Earth VR is worth it if…
- you want to unwind in VR with no score, no timers and nothing to fail at
- you have places you miss and want to stand in them again
- you ever wondered what your hometown looks like from above
- you would travel more if travel took thirty seconds
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The world at every scale
Start in orbit and the Earth hangs below you like a marble. Reach out, pull a city closer, and keep going until you are standing on its streets. Fly over Manhattan, drop into the Grand Canyon, or rise to the top of the highest peaks and look down. There is a scale option that makes everything human-sized, and that is where it gets strange in the best way: suddenly you can fly like a person, not a satellite, gliding low over rooftops you recognize. The sense of size is the whole trick, and it never quite wears off.
Tours, landmarks and your own street
Hand-picked destinations and cinematic tours take you to the Amazon River, the Swiss Alps, the Manhattan skyline and more, which is handy when the whole planet is too much to choose from. Beyond the landmarks, Street View lets you walk actual streets photographed by actual cars, so you can revisit the neighborhood you grew up in or scout a city before a trip. A quiet warning: not everywhere is fully built in 3D, and some regions are flat satellite images rather than modeled cities. The famous places hold up best.
Can you play it sitting down?
Can you play it sitting down?
Yes, and many people do. Turning works by physically rotating or by grabbing and dragging the world, which takes a minute to learn from a chair. If flying gives you vertigo, it helps to think of yourself as standing on a giant model rather than actually airborne. There is also a comfort mode if the movement is too much.
Is there anything to actually do, or is it just looking?
It is just looking, and that is the point. There are no objectives, no score and no way to lose. You explore, you capture views, you follow the curated tours or ignore them completely. It sits closer to meditation than to a game, which is exactly why people put it on to relax.
Do you need to know geography to enjoy it?
Not at all. The hand-picked destinations give you a starting list if you want one, and half the fun is stumbling onto places you have never heard of. Plenty of people spend their hours zooming around their own surroundings instead, discovering which road connects to which. Curiosity is the only prerequisite.
