When I joined the program in November 2018, I didn’t know what exactly it was, as I hadn’t met any Local Guide before. At the beginning, I just uploaded pictures and reviews and answered YES/NO questions, but I didn’t feel anything special about the program or that my contributions were useful. Even though, I kept doing them.
During that time, I was living far from my home and family, so it was a good way to spend my free time: I visited places (mostly to eat), and then I uploaded a picture and a review. When I came back to my country, I kept contributing, but this time from a different place. Sometimes my family got fed up with me taking pics everywhere (well, they still do). Even, usually the pics weren’t that good because I was shy of taking them.
Probably that was my first year as a Local Guide: I understood that it was a big community with people from all around the world, but as I didn’t have any peers, I wasn’t feeling that sense of unity. I had clear that it was a good way to share my “knowledge” with others, others that probably I would never meet face to face. Also, through my contributions, I was giving a little part of me to the world, unconditionally. This way, I started to share my photos, as it is one of my hobbies, but before Local Guides, I just kept them to myself. Even though, I was feeling alone in this journey.
But my life as LG had a 360° twist when I attended CL19. When I first put a foot on the event and saw 200 people from all around the world, I felt truly part of the community for the first time.
I got so inspired by other Local Guides and Googlers about how working hand by hand we can make GMaps more accessible and better for everyone. Here’s an always flowing learning: we, Local Guides learn from other LG; also, LG learn from Googlers and Googlers learn from our feedback. That is one of the best parts of this program and Maps: there’s a full interaction with all the parts involved, and through that you see the improvement of the app and our contributions. At least, that was what happened to me. I started to add more detailed reviews that would help more people. For example, if the washroom was accessible. I even started to upload more pics of the same place, because as people say: an image says more than a thousand words.
One thing I’ve always heard in my country is that the info shown is not very accurate, so I started to add more places and edits, so GMaps would be truly helpful for others.
Something I learned was that more of a community, we are a family. The most experienced Local Guides give advice to the new ones. Local Guides program welcomes each of us with the most genuine and honest sense of unity. We learn from each other, and we support each other.
Right now, I have friends from countries I would have never imagine, such as India.
This has changed my life completely, and this leads to different kind of contributions. When I see my first contributions, I think they are dull, that’s so nice: that I can see how I’ve improved as a LG, and the impact that has had sharing and learning from other LG.
Nowadays, I keep uploading pics, writing reviews, answering questions, editing, adding places, mostly from my hometown. But I already know what my next step as a LG is: encourage more people from Costa Rica to become a LG, teach them that through us our map will improve. On the other hand, I don’t think there has ever happened a meet-up in CR, so that’s also on my short-term bucket list: organize the first Costa Rican meet-up.
Local Guides Program has brought joy, sense of unity, friendship, love, sharing, learning, evolving and so much more to my life. By being a Local Guide, you learn something daily, but the best part is that you don’t keep it to yourself: YOU SHARE IT!
Thanks for being my second family.
With love,
A truly grateful Local Guide,
florocha21