The Local Guides program is a wonderful tool to connect with others all over the world. You can share your experiences, tips and tricks with others for them to take into account when making a decision of where to go or perhaps help them find the place they need. As for me, I joined the Local Guides in order to share all the vegan options in a given area. As a gluten-free vegan, you can imagine that it can be quite tricky to find restaurants with decent options. I truly found it helpful to read Google reviews to know where to eat. Sometimes, there are plenty of options, and the reviews help me decide which one I think I would prefer. Other times, there is virtually no options, and searching google reviews for key words and photos posted by other customers sometimes yields in finding me a lunch while traveling around. That is why, I made it my priority to leave reviews and share my photos of where I eat. I write detailed reviews to let others know what options are available. Sometimes, I write reviews to rectify misleading information to avoid others from trouble. For example, a few weeks back, I was traveling from Paris to Brittany and I had to find a town in the middle to stop for lunch. I found a restaurant in a small town for which the photo of the menu indicated a vegan galette. I was delighted of course as galette (savory crepe) are delicious, but when I got there and asked the waitress to make sure it was vegan she said yes, but it does have butter. After multiple explanations, I could see that she did not truly understand what vegan was and that her menu was misleading. I thanked her for her patience with my questions, but when I left, I proceeded to write a review to make sure no other vegans have to go through the same trouble or even worse, not speak French and order the dish thinking it is fine, but when in reality it has dairy. On the other hand, there are places where I had such a great experience, I want to give all the praise in the world to the restaurant so that others get to enjoy the same amazing experience. For example, I recently went to a restaurant in Camden (London, UK) called Purezza, and they had the most amazing vegan pizzas. The best part was that the gluten-free crust was delicious which is quite hard to come across. I proceeded to give the best review and share heaps of photos to reinforce my point. Long-story short reviews are important to me both for positive experiences and not so good ones!
What do you think? Do you find reviews helpful to make your food choices? What information are you looking for in reviews?