My journey as a local guide has been wonderful and full of life in the past 9 months. It surely feels like I have just been born from the womb to start exploring more about the local guide community of committed life changers. I have gone through many wonderful experiences which can take me volumes to expound. But all of my experience has been to bring life to places through the 3 following ways.
1. EDITS.
It’s not uncommon to find places wrongly added, wrong information attached or some form of inaccuracy with the location of a place. I have often found myself like a city hero who comes to the rescue of such situations and corrects them. I have also stumbled upon several small businesses and organizations which have been stuck with incorrect information & they, unfortunately
didn’t know what to do. It’s a great feeling to be a savior in such scenarios.
A few months back, we went out to eat with my family of 3. I found the restaurant I liked with a new name. So fresh was the site that there were some guys still changing the display lights & logo. It was a favorable moment to edit the place and help many others that were to come afterward. Mama Mia Restaurant had changed to the The Little Bee Restaurant on that lucky
I, my wife Allen & our baby Levi pose for a family pic at the “fresh new” Little Bee restaurant in Kampala.
The new business owners changing the name late in the night. This is one of the most live edits I have ever made. It was interesting!
2. ADDING PHOTOS
I have been glad to give places life through photos. Even with my old phone, it was my target to have all the places in my town on Google maps with appropriate pics. This mission I had embarked on later proved to be trying and on a few occasions I was threatened by the business owners & security who didn’t fancy the “pics thing” (it taught me to be friendly & seek permission where necessary!). But this didn’t discourage me from pushing on to get most places on Google maps to have their true images. I believe this gives life to most places since people can always see the place before they visit it. I could never have imagined that I could get Millions of views on my pics in such a small time. This has shown me that small contributions like mine have a great impact on many people out there. Maps are truly placed albums and I will continue seeing that all places come to life through great pics.
A picture of Ivan at the Sisiyi falls Eastern Uganda. This is one of the most amazing places I visited as a local guide.
A pic showing the Sisiyi waterfalls. Quite an epic scene.
3. Local guide Evangelist.
I couldn’t help it telling many of my friends about the local guides program where they could add places, pics, information to google maps and also join a global community of local guides. Most of my friends are busy people & many of them aren’t so much into the traveling “thing” but I have been amazed by the influence I have had on them to start reviewing & adding pics to places they visit This is special to me because I feel they reach further than I could ever reach. They carry on my vision & passion for giving places life.
These 3 points are a bundle of the most interesting thing I have done as a local guide. It is great seeing places come to life through valuable edits, attaining visibility through pics & furthering the impact through silently training other local guides like @user_not_found .