The reason I like so much to be a Local Guide is the possibility to show what people can miss in the blink of an eye. Most of people (including myself not so long ago) have a destination. The mechanic of a pre set destination works this way: you either recieve a recomendation from some friends, family of a very cool place, or the recomendation arrives via publicity (radio, tv, those annoying facebook / instagram popups) and then you go. Those places are very good places with good food, or good beer, whatever, but they arrive to you via marketing campaing. Im not cool with that anymore. Im more intrested in little places, family places, food you can’t believe you’re eating in that place, for example, when I was in Paris with my girlfriend we were hungry and we went looking some place with good cuisine française and form the very people of Paris we learn of a very small place where you an eat sushi. “Sushi in Paris?” we said but we went anyways. And it was the best sushi we’ve ever eat, fresh, well crafted and the waitress was a charm, she even told us to use the bus instead of metro because this way we can take pictures like it was a tour bus.
Those details make the experience superb. Another example? In London we were determined to eat noodles. We’ve arrive to a “noodle bar” (shown to us by google maps) and we eat there. But while we were eating, chatting with the people of the other tables, one of the girls told us “you have to try Tang”. We finish our meal and went to find it and God, find it we did. If you not were paying attention, you missed it, in fact we enter the restaurant next to it, and in there we ate the best ramen of our lives.
And above all, besides the food, landmarks and all that, my main reason to be a guide is the people. Someone told me that (being from Argentina) vacations in London wouldn’t be easy since they hate us and we hate them because of Malvinas / Falklands and made me walk a little afraid but not at all. Anywhere we went the people were super sweet, everybody wants to talk with us asking about our country, about food, we even teach a women how to say correctly “Tierra del Fuego”, so there was nothing to be afraid.
In a nutshell, my motivation is tell to people go to places there are not listed on the map, I love that my work as an informer of new or very well hidden places help people, I love to put the in the map, I love people to use my experience in a market, restaurant, supermarket, coffe shop, bar and enhance my experience with their own. And above all, never forget to blend with the locals, you’ll be surprised of what you can find. I found a lot. Finders keepers, but not to myself, but for you all.