Same. I bought a Vive a few weeks ago but it is currently in the mail being returned. The technology as it is today is just not quite there yet, in my opinion. The biggest letdown was the lack of peripheral vision. To see something clearly, I'd have to move my whole head to face it head-on directly. Doing some research, I discovered that is just the way it works right now. It will be interesting to see if the VP has an answer to this problem.

Don't buy a VR headset just to experience Google Earth for twenty minutes. It's a terrible, old as crap VR app, the fidelity of global scenery is terrible and will never be good enough to be any more than a novelty, and it is by far the worst app for motion sickness, which is insane because it's worse than doing loops in flying games!

There is one[0] that works on all PCVR headsets and it's great, but unfortunately it's been abandoned by Google.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/348250/Google_Earth_VR/

Meta is still the best all round value. If you refuse to go with it, then the next best option is the big screen beyond. Total cost would likely run $1500 with controllers, assuming you have a VR capable PC