When I joined the local guides program, I wasn’t aware that I’m becoming a part of such a big community, worldwide. I accidentally joined the program back in 2017. A notification popped asking about a place that I visited and to add photos of it. Being unaware of what it was, I simply uploaded that photo and after a few weeks, a notification popped again saying that your photo has been viewed around 1000 times. That instance motivated me & I felt that me adding photos to the map can make a difference by letting people know about the place. And there are people that rely on google maps for the experience & the photos. From that point on I had a passion of clicking photos of places I visit and upload them on Maps. Back then I had a crappy camera, but that didn’t hinder my passion, I would sometimes take my friend’s mobile to click photos.
Local Guide means to me in a lot of different ways. It gives me a passion to click awesome photos, to visit new places, to meet different people and most importantly to help people. I always make sure that the photos which I add to maps are always correctly framed.
It also adds a friendly competition between me and the community. I like to click places & make sure that my photo comes in the top of all the remaining photos.
Local Guides has made me bold, earlier while clicking photos I was very shy, but now whenever I see something which would look great and help others, I simply take my mobile out & click a photo. My friends make fun of me and call me out by “Socks” which I got as a perk, that I never expected. As I told earlier, it’s the passion, that drives me to help others, not all the perks which we get as an appreciation. We the community should encourage other people to contribute to maps to make it a more wonderful place & to help people.