What Local Guides means to me? I’ve never asked myself why to write comments and to post pictures in Google Maps is so important for me. And now I realized that I really like to help people. Here is my story about of acquaintance with the program Local Guides.
About three years ago my parents decided to ride from Ekibastuz (my home-town in Kazakhstan) to Samara (mom’s home city in Russia) by car. It was first trip like this for them, without any tickets, guides or drivers, that’s why they called me to enjoy the trip. Actually for me it was new experience too, I never was a guide before. Usually I travel with my friends who knows the way or with guides. Everything I knew that Google Maps can work without Online Internet. I marked our stops on the map and it paves our way. So, we started our trip.
There were two important questions along the way – where to eat and where to refuel the car. We were surprise to find that Google Maps can show us where the gas station situated, but more interesting for me was to find reviews about cafes by the road. Just imagine Kazakhstan roads – it’s about hundreds of kilometers along the bare steppe, sometimes you see just couple cars per hours, sometimes less. And there were kind people who were not lazy to leave reviews about small cafes in the distant steppe – unbelievable!
Thanks to these reviews we ate very delicious all road long. And I decided to write comments too, because it’s really help to find good locations and not wasting time and good mood to bad meal for example. Moreover, I have my own business and understand how important to have a good review. So I did about all places we stayed at – cafes, hotels, viewpoints. And then Google send me the letter that I’m now a Local Guide and when I post some information I get points and improve my level. It’s like a game and the same time I can help people to find good places and be sure they’ll have a good service, meal, view or anything else. I felt how useful this service was and decided that I could also be useful for it. I like to help people, and what can be easier than just leave a comment and post some pictures about places you like or maybe not.
