I know that Google Maps is an excellent business assistant, but for me it is “eyes and legs” at places which I visit for the first time or plan to visit. I travel a lot around Europe and Ukraine, where I am from and usually I prepare very carefully to every trip. Before real trip I travel virtually – check the routes, search for interesting places, read references and reviews, look for photos. When I’ve already chosen a hotel to stay, I have to walk around the neighborhood using Google Maps to visit cafes and restaurants, to look through menu content and prices, to enter local market or supermarkets, to discover the nearest public transport station and find city bus schedule. If for some reason I can’t find needed info, I will put it in Google Maps myself.
For example, I traveled to Munich through Memmingen’s airport two years ago. Memmingen is small and nice German city. I had several free hours to walk. But I needed to know the city bus schedule to be in time in the airport. It was hard to find a schedule at 7 AM. I got it from bookstore worker. The bookstore was located in the same building as bus station. It was the only place that was open so early. Eventually I didn’t use this schedule, because I met another tourist in the city and we decided to walk to airport. But I shared a photo of this schedule in Google Maps to help other people. It was a pleasure to receive a message from Google app that my photo was liked a lot and was useful to several people.
I prepare for every given trip very well, that is why I feel much more confident and comfortable abroad even in unknown places. Sometimes it is funny to watch how I’m walking down the streets in some European city and notice how changes comparing to last photos from Google Maps. Reviews and ratings of the Local Guides help me to choose the best place to work with laptop or drink delicious mulled wine. People even can’t guess how much they help me to travel, to make my routes easier and affect on my perception of the country and city. I know how valuable and useful everyone’s contribution to Google Maps can be. That’s why I write reviews and share photos with other people with great pleasure and hope that they will have a benefit from them or simply smile. I’m happy be Local Guide and to know that I can help people. It is a pleasure to receive an email from Google to know how many people watched my photos and liked my comments.
My friends say that I make awesome photos. I think that it’s cool when photo is not only to show the location, but also to make people happy and stay at their memory. That’s why quality is much more important for me than quantity. I have a serious approach to every given review and photo. First of all, I look through existing photos. If they double or repeat my picture, I will not share mine. If I write a review, it should be useful and photo should be unique. It’s funny, but I don’t have Instagram. So Google Maps is my Instagram. My photos there have more than 62 000 views for today.
