As Carlito Brigante nearly said, some time before his untimely death at the hands of Benny Blanco from the Bronx, "When you a-see how good these Webmaster tools are, you gonna change yo Religion!"
Hoo ha! Enjoy.
If you want an interactive map with your own labels, highlighted routes and so forth, you could go messing around with Google Earth or a client application and rattle one off. Which is fine. Or you could just build one online with Quikmaps, which is also great, exceptionally easy and super-fast. Another time-saver: you don't have to sign up to get your map. Go to Quikmaps and get building straight away.
The three step process involves picking where you want to build your map, entering markers, waypoints, text labels etc., and finally previewing and copying the generated code.
An additional bonus -- you can have the map delivered as a widget direct to Netvibes, PageFlakes, iGoogle, Blogger, Typepad, and others via Widgetbox.