Celebrating six of our favorite Local Guides memories

January 15th officially marks six years of the Local Guides program. We love that so many of you remembered this and are already celebrating this milestone on your own! To celebrate with all of you further on Connect, we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of our favorite moments over the past six years. Read on to join us in a walk down memory lane.

Launched the Local Guides program

Local Guides have been helping others in their communities and around the world find the places worth going and the things worth doing since 2015.

Hosted the first Local Guides Summit (now known as Connect Live)

In 2016, we launched the Local Guides Summit which has since evolved into Connect Live. While Connect Live 2020 wasn’t able to proceed as scheduled, we are so thankful for the memories of years past like these.

Improved the Map through Map Your World Week and other initiatives

Map your World Week took place in 2017 and many of you joined us on this journey. You also helped us map India’s hospitals and improve accessibility on the Map.

Introduced a revamped Local Guides Connect

Our forum and blog got a new look in 2018. Enhanced with a new design and additional features, we refreshed Connect and have continued to make improvements based on your valuable feedback. (Remember, you can always submit new ideas for Connect on the Idea Exchange!)

Traveled the world with Connect Live (and Santa)

In 2019, we took Connect Live on the road and traveled to different locations around the globe including Tokyo and Hyderabad. We also went on a journey with Santa himself where he stopped at places recommended by Local Guides like you on his famous trip around the world.

Adapted to change and recognized our Guiding Stars who led the way

2020 was a year unlike any other and we are so appreciative of the incredible Local Guides who stepped up to help their communities in 2020. We launched the Guiding Stars program to recognize the efforts of 50 Local Guides who made it their mission to make a difference in 2020. We continue to be inspired by them and all of you in the community who focus on making the world a better place, one review at a time.

And this year, we’re looking forward to evolving the program further and continuing to connect with you.

Whether you’re new to the program or you’ve been here with us since the beginning, we want to hear your favorite memories, too! Share your favorite memories from your experience in the Local Guides program in the comments below.

822 Likes

Hmmm this year is affected with coronavirus so many people cannot travel safely in the world.

We should appreciate those our local guides which are travels and done dar job very well

25 Likes

Thanks @TraciC for sharing these great moments in the Local Guides history.

For me a lot of the best memories have happened this year, thanks to virtual meetups I was able to meet other mexicans,we created TeamTacos and met our amazing LATAM friends.

In 2020 I reached level 10 on my birthday and I was selected as a Guiding Star, it was a good year after all.

I’m really proud to be a local guide and I’m sure we are making a difference creating a map that is useful for everyone. Happy birthday to the Local Guides program and Let’s guide!!!

43 Likes

I have loved being involved in Local Guides @TraciC (I’m pretty sure you already know that lol) and the growth since the beginning has been tremendous. I certainly appreciate being able to attend each of the Connect Live and original Summit events and being featured as on of this year’s Guiding Stars. Like everyone I think I started out in the points game but came to realise its not about me, its about my community, both my local one with its small businesses and globally with all the people I’ve come to know over the years. It is amazing being a Connect Moderator and I look forward to dropping in here to see what people have shared.

Thanks to the entire Local Guides team for everything you all do. I know for absolute certain that you all go above and beyond your Google roles and truly share in our community.

Paul

41 Likes

Happy six Local Guides Connect!! :champagne: @TraciC si bien no estoy en la plataforma desde sus inicios pronto se cumplirán 2 años para mi de ésta experiencia. Lo mejor, y no me cansaré de decirlo, es la posibilidad de interactuar con personas de todo el mundo, conocerlos a través de nuestras reuniones virtuales y hacer de muchos nuestros amigos. Conocí gente de diferentes provincias de mi país Argentina, formamos una comunidad unida y en constante crecimiento, nos divertimos, aprendemos y nos ayudamos unos a otros. También incorporamos a amigos Local Guides hispanohablantes con los cuales hemos forjado una hermosa amistad a lo largo del 2020.

También quiero destacar algo importante para mí que fue el haber conocido al grupo de los Meet-ups de #StateChallenge USA sin los cuales los sábados no serían lo mismo, nos conocimos, aprendimos y pasamos muy buenos momentos en éstas reuniones que van mutando para incorporar a más gente cada vez.

Por muchos años más de Local Guides Connect! :clinking_glasses:

Saludos.

Silvy :argentina:

29 Likes

@TraciC

This month I completed one year on connect.

I am so glad to be a part of this diversed community which is constantly working towards improving the world with their efforts.

Many amazing initiatives have helped to learn and make our contributions helpful :slightly_smiling_face:

33 Likes

Happy birthday Local Guides!! I’m so grateful for this program, it’s so good to everyone involved and even people that don’t know it exists yet!

It’s hard to select my favorite memories here, but first come to mind fun moments at meet-ups, then each moment of realization the program gave me about how much I enjoyed photography, how important accessibility is, as well as the many, many, things I have learned thanks to the program related to all sort of things the world has.

And of course the amazing people I have met thanks to this, I’m particularly grateful for the community this past year and the amount of Local Guides fun we could have virtually.

I can’t wait for more fun moments together, continue learning, and guiding, and to see how the program will continue to develop and become better each time :orange_heart:

37 Likes

@TraciC

Congratulations on 6 th anniversary really it’s great journey for me I started from public toilet mapping and tomorrow is my accessibility meet up. Really feeling very happy to help my community.

Regards Tejal

23 Likes

Hi @TraciC Many thanks for sharing with us all the highlighted moments and History of the last six years.

I would like to congratulate all the local guides on the 6th anniversary of this global forum.

This is really a wonderful Local Guides Forum. From here I can get to know the history, heritage, culture, food, language, clothes and tourist destinations of any part of the world, so I love to be here all the time.

The greatest thing is that I have got some local and foreign friends from here who have been helping me all the time with patience, love and humility.

It has been a great pleasure for me to be able to have little two human welfare meet-ups

[RECAP] River Cleaning Meet-up

[RECAP] Let’s find Accessible places

after being involved in this worldwide Connect Forum.

17 Likes

I want to say Happy anniversary day to all my fellow local guides and I completed 1.5 year on local connect it gives me a lot of good friends and bundle of knowledge and information about the other countries on globe I learnt a lot about the cultural tourism and food information of other countries of the world it’s only because of connect.

Thanks a lot @TraciC @ for sharing this informative and useful information it will be useful for new Google guides like me I always took interest to get to know the history of connect

16 Likes

Happy Birthday Local guide program. It had been an amazing last year despite of the pandemic. These online meetups allowed us to interact with each other throughout the world and learned so much as to how we can improve our communities through this simple program. The traveling was restricted yet we enjoyed our virtual tours to different places. And all the praise goes to the Local Guides who are constantly participating in this program and improving the maps. So once again cheers to all the Local Guides and thumbs up :+1: for the leader @TraciC .

10 Likes

Dear @TraciC , Thanks a lot for sharing. Happy guiding anniversary

:bangladesh: :bangladesh:

5 Likes

@TraciC Thanks for sharing these. It has been quite a journey hasn’t it. And looking back, the Local Guides program really did give an opportunity to many local people including myself to help make the world a better place by helping everyone discover new experiences. Our Local Guides meet up programs also worth a mention that grew from just small gatherings to update Maps to now big gatherings (both virtual and physical) to get to know people and lifelong friends from all over the world.

Special thanks to the Local Guides team who has worked so hard to make all these happen, and special thanks to all the incredible Local Guides that help make our world brighter.

Happy 6th birthday Local Guides program!

19 Likes

Happy Birthday :tada: Local Guides program.

I am very proud to have been involved in the local guide program since its beginning. In these six years of the local guide program, I have so many memories from which to choose my favorite is the hardest thing for me. @TraciC

I remember when I was invited to the first Local Guide event (2016) held in Bangalore and the selection in the “Guiding Stars 2020” has been one of the most memorable moments for me.

14 Likes

Thanks @TraciC ,

Great… thanks for the information.

:pray:

PS

Surely, I shall write my post, shortly.

14 Likes

Happy Birthday :confetti_ball: :tada: local guide program Thanks for sharing this movement. In local guide history

1 year completed to join the local guide

:tada: :confetti_ball: :tada: :confetti_ball: :tada:

9 Likes

Wow, @TraciC happy aniversary i recall @Tejal ben, @TravellerG @NareshDarji @StephenAbraham malasia virtual tour,or series of meet up like inspirational meet up Cl grooming series makes so many friends like @devi @Ewaade_3A @erna @doc_dells oh god i cant write all @FalguniP @AjitThite @Shrut19 manymany more please forgive me as i cant mention all name but believe me i learn a lot from each one of you hope @TravellerG will correct me if i am wrong,

seems like a flash back of a movie nice to be part of movies with some remarkable memories meet up be it yoga or paresh bhai from tejal ben

i recall all of them now ,

regards

18 Likes

@TraciC

Fazer parte deste grupo é muito importante pelas oportunidades do diálogo, orientações e participação direta com vários LocalGuides. Parabéns pelo sucesso desse projeto.

@Fconaza

7 Likes

It gives me immense pleasure to gratitude @TraciC for giving details of the Local Guides 6th Anniversary history and I have tremendous 4 year association with this forum being a humble LG .I have tried my best to contribute this great community with sincerely. I has been proved my second life Thanks to all my fellow guides being associated with this community.

11 Likes

The best memories for me is that I get 4 followers and 1000+ views in one single photo within 3 days and total views 13000 ie i helped about 13000 people because of google map thanks google map for giving us this opportunity

7 Likes