Hola, Local Guides! ?
My name is María and I’m a Venezuelan living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I discovered the Local Guides Program the first time that I traveled alone and realize that there were a lot of people giving reviews to places that I wanted to visit, but I got involved with it once I moved to Argentina because I was committed to visiting my new city by learning about its history, food, landmarks and not just staying at home missing my family and friends.
Since that, I understood how important it is to contribute and help others even if it’s just with an opinion or picture, but Local Guides is more than that and this is what the program means to me:
Guidance:
In a previous post, I talked about how I’m convinced that Google Maps is “my travel angel”, without all the contributions people make every day on the program most of us will be completely lost (especially me ?). Local Guides means Guidance because you can trust in the reviews to make important decisions about where to go or what to do. I even chose my therapist because of what other Local Guides commented on her business page in Google Maps and I don’t regret my decision at all.
Support:
As an immigrant, there were times when I felt a lack of support since I’m not in my hometown and I was doing a lot of things alone, but those thoughts disappeared when I received emails congratulating me for uploading pictures of that place I visited when I was just having lunch alone or running some errands and changing business hours from places so people won’t lose their time (like I did). In times of sadness, those little victories helped me understand there’s a lot that I can do with contributions and knowing that, helped me a lot.
Community:
Everything about this program is COMMUNITY 
I’m amazed by how united and friendly the Local Guides are. Reading all the beautiful stories, learning about all the positive changes they’re making in their cities and watching their videos and pictures inspired me to be a better person and be part of this. Recently, I joined the beautiful group of Argentina Local Guides and went to a meetup, I got the chance to share a little about my country and learn even more about Argentina by talking to them. Sadly, it is of public knowledge why I haven’t been able to attend more meetings but at least I’ve been distracted by talking to them on our online groups where we share recipes, pictures of our pets, talk about the news and other different ways to entertain ourselves.
They even encouraged me to participate and share my story too, aren’t they just awesome?
Thanks for reading my post ? If you applied too, I hope to see you at Connect Live 2020 and share an amazing experience.
Me pone muy feliz saber que te sentís tan cómoda en la comunidad de Argentina Local Guides. Me imagino que debe ser muy duro estar lejos de tu país, y tener un grupo de pertenencia, puede llegar a ser de mucha ayuda. Espero conocerte pronto (una vez que pase la cuarentena). Te deseo la mejor de las suertes en tu postulación! 
me esperan muchos meetups!
Este es el tipo de energía que necesito en mi vida jajaja. Te mando abrazos virtuales porque los reales están prohibidos por ahora 
Estoy segura que se vendrán muy buenas experiencias. Muchas gracias por leer el post 