The thing that I love sharing the most on Google Maps is my honest reviews. I have a couple of stories about this.
I was making plans to visit New Delhi, India for the first time and was looking for Hotels to book. The reviews posted about hotels in a particular area showed me that the area was not so safe. So I decided to book somewhere else. Later, when I was in Delhi, I decided to checkout the neighborhood that I decided to stay away from and fortunately the area was just like what was described in the review. I was thankful for the honest reviews posted in Google Maps and it inspired me to contribute in a similar manner.
Although I used to be motivated by the views I got in my uploaded pictures in Google Maps, I quickly realized the importance of good reviews after the New Delhi incident. Since then I have been trying to post honest reviews that show people what to expect when they visit the places.
For example, there was a one of kind resort that just opened in the outskirts of Kathmandu which had tree houses for spending the night. It was not yet popular so there wasn’t much review about the place on Maps. So I decided to visit the place with my friends. When I went there I found out that the roads turn completely muddy during rainy season and the commute was difficult. Due to the rain, we had to deal with lots of caterpillars on the area, but fortunately no leeches. I clearly mentioned all of this stuff in my review because it was a kind of thing I would have wanted to know by myself before I visited there.
I also try to mention about my bad experiences. Recently, I was in Stockholm, searching for a Chinese restaurant that served a special dumplings called Xiao-long-Bao. This was very hard to find and we thought we finally found one restaurant which served them. We visited them after confirming their online website menu. Unfortunately, we found out that the restaurant was serving something totally different for that name. I was disappointed and mentioned this in my review.
I know how I have made good decisions based on such honest reviews on Google Maps and I am really grateful for the community here. I aspire to do the same because you know what they say – to know the road ahead, ask those coming back