How to "Play Tour" directions in Google Earth?

Question

How do a play directions as a tour in Google Earth?

Bonus Chatter

From Google Earth help:

Touring and saving directions

Once you have a route displayed in the 3D viewer, you can use the tour feature to "fly" the route in the 3D viewer, and you can save the directions to your 'My Places' folder for later reference.

Touring the Route

Select the 'Route' item at the end of the directions listing. Click the Play Tour button:

The 3D viewer automatically starts the tour from the departure point, oriented in the correct direction as if you were flying over the route you have marked. The tour follows the route, stops at the end, and zooms out to encompass the entire route in the 3D viewer. See Using Tours for more information.

Important Notes

The important points in the instructions are:

• select the Route item at the end of the directions listing
• click the Play Tour () button

So we have to note the important points in the documentation:

• there is no Route item at the end of the directions listing:

  

• there is no Play Tour () button

  

Given that there's no way to play directions as a tour in Google Earth, how do i play directions as a tour in Google Earth?

Bonus Chatter

There are no updates available at this time:

Bonus Reading

• Google Lat Long Blog: Helicopter view of your driving directions on Google Maps

Answer 1

The answer is on Google Earth Help Forum.

As that article explains, the key is to click the "Copy the current search results to My Places" button:

Once you've done that, you can expand the route under My Places and go to the last entry which will be called "Route". When you click that entry, the Play Tour button () appears and when you click it you will get the 3d animation fly-through of your directions.