Hello I’m Husham Zakaria, a level 6 local guide from Khartoum - Sudan, and I’d like to explain what does the Local Guides program mean to me?
Technically being a local guide sparked the penchant to help others in the boundaries of my expertise and to guide others with adequate pre knowledge to places they’ve never been before.
Thus, this program means a lot to me since I also get help from other local guides and in return paying back this favor, that’s why I started to share, add, and review places. Also not to forget to mention the feedback you get or the number of views on your contributions giving you this awesome feeling that you’ve done something different to the people around you or you helped some how.
I remember back in 2013 when I was supposed to meet my wife in Alnaw hospital (in Khartoum - Sudan), and the conventional way to go to a certain place that time was by either asking a nearby friend or nearby passers-by and I did ask but it wasn’t enough for me, so I tried Google maps and the place was there saving a lot of effort and asking. Since that moment I wondered how to add places and lead people to places I already know but they don’t. So, it was 2016 when I became part of the local guides community when a friend taught me how to contribute and ever since I have been contributing.
Finally, being a local guide puts an extra burden on you and a lot of responsibility to be truthfull and transparent about places you’ve really visited, and this requires to write a review in a professional way without any bias.