What the Local Guide Program means to me
I applied to the Local Guides program in 2019, when I was moving back to my city, Orlando Florida, after living in the Chicago area for three years. I was back in the city that I’ve lived for fifteen years.
All the time I lived far away, I was missing Orlando dearly, and when my family had the opportunity to move back, I was so excited and happy to be back.
I originally from Colombia, and I moved to the United States when I was seventeen years old in 2001. From 2001 – 2016 I lived in Orlando, started college grounded myself in this city, in 2016 my family moved to Chicago and then moved back to Orlando in 2019.
When I was back in Orlando, I realized I missed the city, the people, the environment, its welcoming vibe to all, the diversity which I was made part of it as an immigrant. I found that in that occasion that you could leave reviews in Google, however it wasn’t until that I found out of the local guide program, and I was very excited because it gave me the opportunity to see, to explore the city with the eyes of a tourist even though I was finally home.
The home where you feel loved, accepted, the home where you know where and how to move around. I wasn’t born in Orlando, but home is not the place where you were born, it’s the place where you feel part of, that’s for me Orlando. That said the Local Guide program means to me that I can explore my city, and tell my friends, in this case the Google community and visitors what makes every place special and sometimes what not. Even though I must confess that I mostly share the awesome of this city, the positive, and the bad sometimes too but not that much. In my submitted video, I showed one of my favorite places, the iconic central park of Orlando, the Lake Eola Park.
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