I came a cross a really cool mashup of Google maps and a Wiki called WikiMapia (actually it’s mostly gmaps with some extensions). It allows people to “tag” locations and add descriptions and comment to the location tags which are then available to everyone. It also has a few extra tools not available in gmaps. The main extra features besides the tags are measuring a route by clicking on points along the route, calculating the area of a section of the map.
According to its WikiPedia entry, WikiMapia has over 6 million places marked by over 153,000 registered users. It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of “describing the whole planet Earth”.
Hint: click Geotools on the menu that drops down from the red WikiMapia link at the top left corner of the map.
There is another site that allows you to calculate walking distance as well: Gmaps Pedometer.
I was all over this when I first discovered it. I took the liberty of adding Third.
Sweet. It’s people like you who will make their dream come true.