The Local Guides program means Helpfulness, Integrity, Exploration, Learning new things and Saving peoples time.
Shaping up the explorer in me.
Since childhood I love to explore new places may that be in my neighborhood or at my native place. I just used to take my bike and get of to places within my neighborhood, sometimes I used to even get lost but somehow always figured out the way back home. The same qualities persisted as I grew up just now the picture is very big, now I can travel as long as there is money in my wallet. Google maps has played a vital role helping me exploring new places, places which are not even inhabited and still without the fear of being lost. I have been always sharing my travel experiences with friends, colleagues and relatives so that they plan their travels based on my journey.This thing always fascinates me when people call me up and ask for suggestions, and that exactly is what I started doing after getting into the local guide program. Sharing my experiences and helping out people to plan their visits. I definitely feel that is the best possible use of my unplanned yet exciting explorations.
How I saved peoples’ time and money being a google local guide?
In this world where time is money, being a local guide enables me to edit the information about street closures may it be due to any reason. I was traveling to a beach on the west coast of India and the maps lead me to a road which was blocked by the locals due to some issues. So we had to travel back all the way round and take another route which took almost an hour additional to reach the same place. So I went ahead and updated the road closure on that location so that other people do not waste their time following the same route. This was only possible as I was a local guide and keen to update the map. This has occurred on multiple occasions even in metro cities and updating sudden road closures always helps other people to save their time and efforts.
Platform to showcase my basic photos.
I am a photographer based in Mumbai, being a photographer I am always under pressure to deliver professional looking photographs. But here on google maps where I simply pull out my phone and snap a picture without thinking much and still it helps out and attracts a lot of people. Some basic photos due to their practical usage have reached and helped many people.
This one from a restaurant in Solapur city, Sudha Idli Gruh reached more than 2000 views and the one from restaurant in thane city, Chaubara 601 reached more than 5000 views. This proved that even basic pictures captured from a cell phone camera are useful to a lot of people.
Integrity of reviews
Here as a local guide I am free to share unbiased reviews, without any pressure of favoring someone in exchange for some benefit. Local guides also share their negative experiences at places, which is really helpful. For example if some place is unsafe to visit in the dark, the reviews warn you not to do so, reading which people stay safe.
Helpful Community
Guide is a person who shows the way to others and Google local guides are nothing different. Local Guides all over the world is one of the most helpful communities as a whole I have ever seen online. They add up valuable updates to google maps without expecting anything in return out of it. I am new to the local guides connect thing so I posted a couple of questions about something on the guides connect feed and there were a lot of fellow guides to reply to it before even the moderator or googler replied. I felt good to be a part of this community and it shows the helpful nature of the community.
Exploring new places.
Being a photographer and a wanderlust the local guide program has always pushed me to visit new places. Places even where people speak a different language and which are difficult to navigate through without speaking the language. The rating system and the number of people the photo or review has reached always provokes me to do more and adding more and more places to my wish list.
