Hello Local Guides,
How am I able to find anyone that is a Local Guide, may use Local Guides Connect, and if there are Meet-ups anywhere near my location?
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Hello @_iwrotethesky
Welcome to Local Guides Connect.
That’s really a great idea to Connect with Local Guides.
For the first step, You may search the community for mentions of the Local Guides Community in your Country.
And secondly, as you mentioned, to connect with local guides, You can check this Meet-up site for searching meet-ups in your city.
As most of us focusing on Virtual meet-ups, you can see many Meet-ups in which you can participate virtually or online.
And if you want to host a Virtual meet-up, this article Tips for hosting virtual meet-ups Will be great for planning a virtual meetup.
And for Photo Walk or outdoor meet-ups, you can get some great tips by this feature How to organize a successful meet-up.
One more thing I have to share with you, that For choosing topics for useful activities on Connect forum, this article Your Guide to Connect will be surely helpful for your future posts on Connect.
Wishing you all the best for your Meet-up.
Thank you 
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Thank you kindly @KashifMisidia !
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You welcome @_iwrotethesky
If you want, you can join us in #statechallenge meet-ups.
On August 01, 2020 @ 20:00 (CDT) we have Meet-Up about Missouri ,
And on August 07, 2020 @ 17:00 (PDT) we are going to meet in
And on September 17, 2020 @ 22:00 (EDT) you can join us in
The purpose of these all meet-ups to share information to educate everyone on how every state has something to offer for visitors and to have fun, initiative by @Denise_Barlock and @Kwiksatik .
Hope to see you this week.
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Thanks for the mention @KashifMisidia ! Welcome @_iwrotethesky !
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I will try to give you a few tips on how to find local guides in your hood.
On Google Maps you can look at places that are not typical tourist sites. Look up who uploaded the first few photos. Sooner or later you will find that some names keeps popping up. Those are some of the most active local guides in your area. You can check their contributions if they have an open profile. Google does not let us communicate with other local guides on Maps due to privacy concerns. But some might use their real names or the same username on other platforms like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Then you can politely contact them on one of the other platforms.
Also some might use the same username here on Connect. In that case you can contact them using the private message system here on Connect.
On Connect you can also search for your city name or some of the city names close to you. And you can follow posts marked with a city name. All this will improve your chances to identify and interact with your local peers.
It is not very easy because it is very relevant to also protect our privacy.
Finally, you can make it easy for others to find you by hinting how you can be reached in your public profile texts on Maps and here on Connect. But be careful. And you can use your signature to for ide links that will help others find you.
Hope this is helpful for you.
Cheers
Morten
Though the purpose of Connect is to let know Local Guides to each other, the site has to strike a balance between privacy & ability to identify. Thus, you will not get the information sought by you, upfront.
However, there are some means to accomplish that.
First, search your city’s name in the text box at the top & search for posts related to that.
I could locate 16 posts related to Saratoga. However, that includes results from the other states also.
Similarly, you can search at the following link
https://maps.google.com/localguides/meetup?city=ChIJOdRbx0443okRqKKUG2pFHWQ
Secondly, set your city’s name as one of the favorite locations. That way, when someone arranges a meetup in future, you will come to know quickly.
However, the most straightforward way would be to arrange a meetup as an organizer. The interested LGs will accept the RSVP & then you will come to know their identity.
Hi @_iwrotethesky welcome to Connect. In addition to all the other things people have added here, recently Connect got a new feature allowing you to follow up to three locations you find interesting. You can find out more information in this article https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/Announcements/You-can-now-follow-posts-about-your-favorite-locations-on/ba-p/2412927
Paul
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Excellent, thank you for the advice! @MortenCopenhagen
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Thank you for the tip @PaulPavlinovich !
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