Hi, my name is Melissa and I discovered that my passion is travelling.
I am one lucky girl because since a very young age my family brought me along to travel the world. I always feel more me every time I travel, maybe because no one knows me in this new place so I can be whoever I wanted to be. I tried out new fashion styles, used high socks that I will never use back home, and sang out loud on the streets. My friends and family always relied on me whenever we travel because I always seems to know where to go, what train to take, which alley to choose even if I have never visited the place before.
But really, what I had is only Google maps and some common sense to piece all the information together.
Once, I had a chance to travel to Los Angeles with my friend, only the two of us and we have never visited the States before. Worse, we had no internet and relied on public wifis. I managed to get us around safely by using google maps. The GPS still works even if I don’t have internet. It’s really handy and it saved me when I’m abroad, far away from home.
This got my interest and I started playing around with the app and discovered that there are a lot of things you could do with the app besides finding your way around. You could share your location with friends, label places that you visit on a regular basis, and even measure distance in the maps (handy for an architecture student like me)!
I love reviewing places I’ve been because I hoped I could help somebody out like all those reviews and photos helped me around when I’m way out from my home. I love posting pictures to help people have a better look at the place. My friends already know when I snapped pictures every time we are going out together, “ah, she’s taking pictures for google maps”, because it’s a regular thing for me. Basically, I loved being a local guide because local guides helped people, and I already felt that before. That’s why I want to keep doing this Local Guide thing. Helping people out in my own subtle way.
My next goal in life is to travel to even the most remote places on earth. In my country, the idea of travel is mostly to go to tourist-y places like Paris, Tokyo, or New York City. But I’m always that weird girl who wanted to travel to Egypt and Bolivia. I love being outside the box and I love to come back home, bringing stories from a place no one in my community had ever been to.
So that is the story of how I met Google Maps and fell in love. Now I’m a proud Local Guide, trying to continue to help people out, simply by reviewing, snapping places, and answering a simple yes-no questions. What’s your story?