Since I started contributing to local guides three years ago, the way I experience places is completely different from what it used to be. To me, Local Guides is a space for opinion, discovery, and sharing experiences.
Every time I visit a restaurant, museum, coffee shop or any place for that matter, I think about the review I am going to leave, the photos I can capture, and the venue’s characteristics. In other words, when now I go to a new place besides discovering it for the first time and absorbing its environment, checking the menu, noticing the customer service, I am also thinking of what I would like to see about this place in maps. That is if, for any reason, I am searching for a place in Maps, a place I have never visited before, what would help me to decide to visit it or not.
My first contribution to Local Guides was to answer questions about the places I had visited, which was what drew me to become an active member of this community. This because I was providing the information I have on other occasions been searching for when looking for a place on Maps. Local Guides then became an outlet where I could, well still can, express my opinion.
One of my favorite things to do is to discover places, which is I think a trait shared by most humans, and in Maps I found a tool to help me achieve so. Humans are creatures of habit and as a consequence, we usually end up going to the same locations. Because of this realization, I made a commitment to visit a new place every month. To track this I used Maps to search and save places I would like to go and also turned to local guides for guidance and advice.
What I like most about the Local Guides program is the opportunity to share experiences with the community. This platform allows you to voice your opinions and in doing so guiding other users so their experiences can be the best. Moreover, incentives like seeing your reviews or photos have a lot of responses or obtaining a batch for your contributions encourage you to continue participating in this communal space that is Maps and Local Guides.