My Journey with Google Maps started back in 2013 as a user and become local guide in 2016. The most I like to share are my reviews about places. I share my reviews not only for places but also for local businesses as well. Why I started sharing my reviews, because once, the reviews of other local guides had helped me a lot when I first time visited United States in 2016 and had no basic information of places in the city but I explored the Entire state of California like native, just by the assistance of “Google Maps” and reviews of other local guides on those restaurant, places and local businesses.
During my this trip to US mainly I used to search the attractions and recreational places and just scan some of the reviews and move on, but when it comes to food, being a Muslim, I was always looking for to find “Halal” food and here the reviews of Local Guides help me a lot to find the good, cheap and halal food restaurants in LA and San Francisco.
My trip went very well and I come back to my city Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) after enjoying 2 amazing weeks of journey. Later on my cellphone began notifying me to review the places, where Google has located my presence. Initially, I started dropping star rating and only 1-2 word like “Great”, “Awesome”, “Fabulous” etc. After a while, when people started liking my reviews, I realized that actually I am not only writing reviews but helping the community and this satisfaction of doing something that is meaningful to me and helpful to many convinced me to write my reviews in detail, and then I started writing detailed reviews of places and local attractions.
Another reason “WHY” I started reviewing places is to help the community for those who have language barrier. I am living in a country, where Arabic is an official language and it’s hard to find detailed reviews and information in English (even on Google Maps) because locals mostly share reviews in Arabic. A higher percentage of non-Arab expat population in Saudi Arabia is not familiar with the Arabic script and cannot understand what’s written. From here I stared to write my reviews in English and the idea ticked in my mind to help the non-Arab community here to get details in English. and then this journey goes on and on and now I have achieved the badge of Master Reviewer with more than 350+ reviews of places,
Being a Local Guide I am also helping the community by adding places which are unknown or ignorant but are significant to that area, also I am editing the names of places in English as well where most of the small places names are in Arabic only.