I love maps since… forever. I remember being a child I was exploring the world map book 
laying on our coffee table. When my family got our first computer 
when I was 8 and I discovered internet I downloaded Google Earth application first. That was a totally mind-blowing experience for 8 years old me. That was a totally new level of maps/cartography for me. I was enjoying spending hours with very low-speed internet in Baku exploring my district and neighborhoods from satellite images. I’d not traveled abroad back then, and my world was my yard, neighborhood and city, basically.
Years passed and I started using maps mainly for representations of continents, countries, cities and districts with academic purposes at school. Then I turned 17 and travelled abroad in 2014 with my mom and brother for the first time and they trusted me the guidance in foreign city due to my cartography skills (lol). That’s when I opened up Google Maps for me. I was enjoying the process of asking “OK Google, show me the way to…” and a city with unfamiliar cities and roads was getting not so unfamiliar anymore. Thus, I started to use Google Maps whenever I am in any foreign city. 
When I moved out from my homeland Azerbaijan to Italy, Rome to study I started using Google Maps literally every day 
. The inclusiveness of public transport, reviews of places I need to visit, busy hours bar-charts, opening and closing hours helped me during my localization period. After a while I started leaving reviews by myself for the other like me who just arrived to Rome and knows nothing about local places. Day by day my contribution was increasing in the app and suddenly I started to catch the excitement from the process. I was hanging out with my friends and visiting shops, restaurants and cafes with them and checking the service, exact location, opening hours etc. just to write my review afterwards. That’s how I discovered The Local Guides program 
I enjoy being a Local Guide and checking the accuracy of information, helping others to discover the places I’ve been to already and discover new ones thanks to the Local Guide community contribution. Moreover those monthly emails with statistics of my contribution push me forward to help more and more people and businesses which meanwhile give me points and games process excitement. (I am still on Level 5 
)
So here I am getting an email invitation to apply for Connect Live 2020, checking the application requirements and discovering a brand new worldwide community of Local Guides on Connect where like-minded folks, family of contributors are working for the better experience of everyone around the globe 
. That’s so sweet and amazing and I am happy to be a part of this community, even though I had no idea of being a part of it until now. Definitely will strive for more 
xo
@_abu
.