Hi, my name is Haruna Hassan. A level 6 Local Guide from Nigeria.
I would love to share my experience and explain what local guide means to me.
Sight seeing at the river bank. After working hours hanging out with a friend and colleague.
-River Ngadda, Lagos Street, Maiduguri, Nigeria
Becoming a local guide is one of the most rewarding and exhilarating ways to see the world, learn about places and people’s culture and history while sharing your love and experience with people just like you.
It feels like working remotely for Google, becoming a virtual assistant or even travel guide – becoming one option that will enrich people’s travel experience.
It all started for me as fun and as a leisurely pastime. Though I’ve always had this habit of helping out people and guiding people. But on the other hand I have never known a job to be more rewarding, exhilarating and allowing for so much personal growth and self discovery. Simply put it was the best thing that I have ever done.
I got to realize that my contributions are making significant impacts and adding values just last year November 2019 when I got a local guide’s perk from Google (Even though I used to receive monthly email updates from Google Local Guide, which I keep ignoring until after when I got the Local Guide’s Perk). It was at that moment I started becoming serious about the program. I’m a passionate guide and at the same time love having or making new friends whom I’ve never seen or met before from different parts of the globe.
You can’t always know everything but as a guide you need to make an effort for people to find out anything they may want to know. This not only ensures that you are providing the best service that you possibly can but it also means that you are constantly learning and challenging yourself.
Early on in my guiding years I discovered that being able to facilitate unforgettable experiences for others was one of the best parts of the job. To know that I was a small part of someone else’s journey in finding their destination, a location, and or make them aware and more conversant with places without even stepping their foot and broadening their horizons or being able to muster the courage to do something that they never thought they could, was not only humbling but also immensely satisfying.
Here at the local guide’s connect I am finally surrounded by people who understand and encourage my need to see the world and experience new cultures. It is quite a relief and inspiration all at once.
I shall continue to offer more to the local guide’s community from my own end here. And together with the great, awesome and wonderful and beautiful people in this community a dream about the world becoming one little global village will be achieved.
