I have always taken pride in being open-minded, curious, inclusive, diverse, and welcoming of new friendships from outside the familiar mold. My experiences in traveling and living abroad across several countries and continents have enabled me to fulfil that wonder to a good measure.
With that in mind, here are two interactive maps created with Google Maps and Earth, showing locations of my friends and family members who reside permanently or are from that location. Apologies in advance if I have missed any major location or anyone (I did my best to remember going back decades). Nevertheless, not all regions are marked due to avoid cluttering and also being over-specific. For example, only 1 marker is used for a each country, instead of marking all cities…only exceptions are for very large countries such as USA, and Russia where I marked a few states or regions to give an idea of the range…I’m sure I missed a few).
Google Map – 2D map page (public):
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1lMxzJqpEh4qq9pP-8PZeFj46g_GhtgHr&usp=sharing
Google Earth 3D map (semi-public):
https://earth.google.com/web/@40.34689755,31.17596925,-264.92433016a,13504056.95960283d,30y,0h,0t,0r
However, the 3D map will NOT show the specific place-markers to anyone else like guests or visitors I share it with (it’s a lack of feature in Google Earth), unless I send the guests/visitors a KML file and they will have to import it into their Google Earth instance. Which may not be feasible for some non-tech folks, so I won’t share the KML here (unless someone requests it, in which case I can email them directly).
Instructions:
1. Click on the links above or copy and open each site in your browser (larger the screen, the better; although it’ll work on mobile devices, mouse is best used for navigation).
2. Left mouse to drag the map (2D map) or rotate Earth (3D map) in view. Mouse wheel to zoom in/out.