I love travelling. So much that I feel joy even when I see a plane flying in the sky. I was looking, also, for a way to help people. I found this opportunity two years ago when Google Map asked me to become a local guide.
I admire the local guides, they are doing, voluntarily, a great work informing the people about places and about their own amazing experiences. I use to check the reviews every time when I travel to a new place and I realized that the reviews are realistic and relevant.
It’s a way to prove my gratitude to the people of the places. Some of them treat me in an exceptional manner: Ahmad Samir, manager to the Continental Hotel Hurghada use to say “Welcome to your second home”.
The same Olivia, the owner of “Mama Root”, Zanzibar. I spent 3 days to Mama Root, then I decided to go to another hotel, but I went back to her in the same day. She laughed and she said “Welcome home!”
So, writing about the hotels and restaurants is something almost inevitable. I started to be a local guide as a sign of gratitude. Then, I was thinking how can I keep travelling and, at the same time, help people. The first option was to find a voluntary work abroad, to Africa or Asia. Then I realised something else. I am already helping, as a local guide: sharing opinions, experiences, tips, postings photos and videos, adding new places.
I use to travel alone and this can be an amazing experience, as it is for groups, couples or families. Everywhere I go I meet friendly and nice local people, so this is a good opportunity to listen stories about the places. As a local guide I can share those stories and my experience with the people around the world. I strongly believe that with the eyes wide open we can find something beautiful everywhere we go. So, being a local guide allows me to be a person who, maybe, change a point of view about some people and some places of our planet. Recently I recommend to a friend and her son how to spend a holiday in Egypt (one of my favourite countries). They confess that it was the most exciting holiday ever. A moment of joy for me as well. The same thing happens when someone reads the reviews and watches the photos on Google maps. I try to give informations and tips and I believe that is useful for many people, as it was for my friends.
Those are the reasons why I enjoy to be a local guide. It has a big impact on my life, it helps me to be mysel, to share a bit of this self and to have back, as thanks for my activities, the emails from Google Map where they inform me about who many views my reviews and photos have. It is about giving and receiving, about sharing the beauty of the world and have back the beauty of the words. In my opinion between me and Google Maps it is a relation of Love (with capital “L”).
I don’t want to talk about Coronavirus here, because this is not the right place, but I hope everybody stay safe till the situation will allow to travel again.
All the best to Google Maps team, to the local guides and to every single human being on the Earth.
for your kind observations about me and the Pyramids, haha.
