The most interesting thing I did as a local guide: lay out the streets, add places and fix the little omissions made by my fellow local guides.
At the beginning it was a game like the others that I used to play. Until the day that I realized that my distraction, would help millions of people around the world and across generations in the future. Besides distracting and helping me to know other horizons, even before I set foot there, and making me discover communities from all over the world, the most wonderful thing I have accomplished as local guide is to add places, lay roads and correct deficiencies in Google Maps in my country. Being a native of an underdeveloped country where access to the internet is an obstacle course, I don’t hesitate every time I’m entitled to Wi-Fi or additional mobile data to add new places. Thus, I help my fellow citizens and tourists who flock to our country to find their bearings and the business owners and their potential customers. Here are examples of some places I added and their impact on the city:
DIFOP: on January 25, 2019 I was invited for training in an amphitheater within the university campus (which I remind you spans tens of miles). To my dismay there is no one who knows the DIFOP center or the roads leading to it. I’d to manage on the day to be able to get to the center at the cost of being late. The first reflex I’d, it was to save this place and the roads that lead to it on Maps in order to help future applicants not to worry too much like me. And it paid off in the first few weeks, this place recorded 1,000 views for the photos I uploaded. Besides, this is where my vocation to be a local guide came from, and today I am delighted to be part of this great community.
Château Vial: I often hear about an unusual place; very rare pictures of this place circulate on local channels. So, I checked Google Maps for details; but alas there is insufficient information. I started collecting lots of information about it; which allowed me to add the opening hours. In fact, it is a public establishment which opens from 6 am to 5 pm, which was not my joy to be able to also indicate the web site of the ministry for tourism which takes care of this historic and emblematic place which is the Vial Castle. With this simple addition of the site, visitors will now be able to access a whole range of potential sites to visit. Now there is no longer any question of traveling hundreds of miles from the capital Lomé to find out the opening hours of this place. According to the manager, a hundred new visitors flock every day thanks to Google Maps. On this we continue to innovate by adding, correcting and perfecting the world map.
Updating and adding new places to Google Maps is a fun way to keep informed, allow others to move around in unfamiliar places, have a wide range of places to visit and have a positive impact thanks to their contributions. From this small action, I am able to help a client in need to find what he is looking for; help an economic entity to develop. I am a strong supporter of a card that serves people around the world while being maintained with real data constantly updated by these visitors and owners. Adding routes, missing addresses and the error correction and search facility they offer is the most interesting thing I like to do as a local guide!