I ran across this little software application today - while not as flexible as something like Google Earth, it is a fun little tool. It has a reasonably detailed map drawn from The Lord of the Rings that you can click on, drag around, and even do text searches to find particular locations. (For many of us, we could probably find all of these locations with our eyes closed, but it is still fun.) It is available in a Windows download (supporting multiple languages) and now has also been ported to Linux. Any user can add more landmarks or languages as the data formats are well documented and extensible.

This might not last forever, given that the estate will probably frown upon it. Maybe they could authorize an official version!

http://www.oli.tudelft.nl/vvier/v4software/