The local guide program is one of the most enternaining way to discover places that I discovered.
I fell in the local guide pool a bit by mistake as I was travelling around the world. I always was the type of person to travel alone; during many of my trips I used to be on my own through the streets of various cities; without always having friends or a local person to guide me through the streets I was in. So as many people I use to turn to various platform for help, but often it wasn’t so helpful to me. Although, many of the places were nice they felt too touristy. So I turned to what I knew best, being… google maps. Through this I discovered the local guides and my way to travel changed. I could now get lost in any streets anywhere in the world, and walk past a nice café, art gallery or restaurant and discover what locals and other people before me thought about the place, get a sense of the atmosphere that goes beyond a simple picture of the food or place. All of a sudden, it allowed to me to get a sense of the atmosphere of many places. I cannot count how many beautiful places I could discover thanks to that. I felt so satisfied by the reviews of other local guides that I then decided to become one myself. Thanks to it, I discovered incredible places right in my neighborhood that I wouldn’t have found before if I didn’t join the local guides. In a way, it gave me a sense of belonging to a community that allows local and tourist to discover the cities we live in from an insider perspective, with tips and reviews you wouldn’t find in a guide book.
To me local guides is being part of a community even when one is away from home.