2022
- Name: Mark
- Location: Hoorn, The Netherlands
- What do I love about being a Local Guide: Helping others to make the best of their trip. I like to read reviews of others and try to return the favor.
- I love to share: Mostly, I share short reviews and I just begun starting to share pictures of places I've been to.
- How did I hear about Local Guides: Actually, I wouldn't know anymore. It's certainly not longer than half a year ago.
- Fun Fact About Me: Actually, I'm a bit shy. Over the last couple of years I've been opening up to other people and I'm starting to learn they can be quite nice as well.
Hi! My name's AMMAR IS'HAG, I'm a Local Guide from Sudan, but now I live and work in Saudi Arabia, my passion for Google Maps start three years ago when I was in Sudan, searching for a place, but unfortunately I have no results, because the place were not defined. So, since that time I decided to contribute on Google Maps, by adding missing places, answering questions, uploading photos and checking facts, until I reach level 7.
I hope to contribute more on Google Maps and I want to know more techniques about Google Maps.
Hey there!!
- Name: Ana Maria
- Location: Florianópolis - Brazil, I was actually born in Cascavel - Brazil and have lived in other 3 cities in the country and also Orlando, FL; Savannah, GA and New York.
- What I love about being a Local Guide: I'm a person who loves to go around and meet new people, learn about new places and cultures. So being a local guide is a way of sharing my experiences, the places I've been to, where I like to go, and also, share my photos! And the best part is to know that this will help other people who are looking for this kind of information. Also, as being part of the LGBT community, I want to be able to help people to go around safe. Everytime I go to a place I search for info on the internet in order to see if it's an LGBT friendly place, cause unfortunately I'm afraid sometimes when I'm going out. So, that's a goal I have as a local guide, finding a way to put this information out there. I'm pretty sure that talking to other people we can find the best way to do so.
- My favorite cuisine to explore: Well, if you ask my friends they will probably tell you I'm really picky when it comes to food. I can't deny that. But you know, I just love to go to coffee shops and have some bites, enjoy some time with friends in a cozy place.
- Fun Fact about me: I've been in love with photography since high school, but ended up studying Design in college. Life is so great that I got a scholarship and had the chance to study one year abroad in a great art college (SCAD - Savannah, GA), and guess what?! I studied photography for a year, and it was the best year of my life. I've met so many great people, I've heard their stories, we shared moments that I'll keep forever in my heart. This experience made me realize how big this world is and how much there is out there to explore and learn and share!
Tybee Island - Savannah
I'm really looking forward to meet you all in SF this October and hear you stories, share life, get some inspiration and make some great memories!
I'll leave you with a portrait of me that shows how excited I am about this opportunity!
- Name: Alfonso de la Guarda
- Location: Lima, Perú
- What I love about being a Local Guide: Is fun, you can create an idea of place with the information shared for anyone
- My favorite cuisine to explore: Ceviche, Cabrito and italian cousine
- Fun Fact about me: I am a nerd, a tech hacker that loves the technology and sharestime with the family (i have 4 sons) because since the beginning my position is for remote working this allows me don't lose the performance or moments of my children!!!
- Name: Marco
- Location: Cesana Brianza, Lecco, Italy
- What I love about being a Local Guide: the GPS is one of the biggest invention of our century! With applications like Google Maps we can reach every point of the globe... just tell to it your destination and the travel begin!
Be a Local Guide for me means "help to fill the Map": add new places, update the older one and give my personal opinions about them is like to be the right person to ask directions! - My favorite cuisine to explore: I'm italian and one of my favourite food is pizza of course 😛 and I like fast food too (burger joint, NY was my favourite!)
- Fun Fact about me: I love to help people be in Google Maps: recently I added a pizza maker near my home and when I went to his pizzeria he ask me what kind of pizza I wanted to order... and I answered... "Google" 🙂
Little bit about me,
- Name: Lahiru Bandara.
- Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka. My hometown is the sacred city of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
- What I love about being a Local Guide: It was one of my childhood dreams to do something to protect and share my country's cultural and historical inheritance with the whole world. So, with Google Maps and being a local guide, I see a wonderful opportunity for me to fulfill my dream. Photographing and gathering information of such places has become a hobby of mine. So, I realized that once I became a Google local guide, I got an amazing platform to practice my ambition. In this way, also I get to be of help to the community.
- What I do in spare time: I love to photograph and document places with high historical and cultural value. So, often I go on visiting such places all over my country, which are not even properly being documented yet. I also do biking in my spare time.
- Fun Fact about me: Most of the time when I go somewhere with my friends or family, I usually ask them to wait for me until I finish covering the whole place with photographs and sketching down every little detail. So, after that when I publish those information somewhere people can use, I take great pleasure out of that, seeing my work actually contributed someone in someway.
me at a trip to the sacred city of Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka
Hello, Local Guides team,
Here is some information about me!
I am Az from Bangalore, India. Bangalore is where I work and Chennai, India is my home. My full name is Azhagarasu A and I go by "Az". Both the cites are just separated by 350 Kilometers but culturally they are far apart. I enjoy the duality of because I can experience frequently the diversity found in Bangalore and the rich traditional culture found in Chennai since I travel to Chennai (Home) every weekend after work.
Why I am a Local Guide?
Back in 2004, When I was at school, one of my favorite past time is to explore places in Google Earth at that time, Google Earth was very helpful to get a glimpse of what is is around the world. Street view to me was mind blowing technology and in places where street view is not available I looked at user uploaded photo of places. When I bought my first camera, I shot images of various spots around the town I loved and uploaded them to panaromio for fellow users like me to see. I did this because I enjoyed so much to look at panoromio images submitted by other users and felt like I should contribute too. So I am a Local Guide ever since I started using Panaromio 🙂
My participation in Panaromio is my first exposure to a global community made of people just like me. I could feel what is possible by a community. I then started contributing to Google Maps via Map Maker and felt I actually have a responsibility because I as a user now have the responsibility to make the information found in the platform accurate. Being able to edit places seen in Google Maps is a great power in user's hand. This responsibility of making the information accurate drives me to be a Local Guide and keep contributing.
Fun Fact about me: Kedarnath, which was the fourth leg of my travel in Uttarkhand, India last year is located at a distance of 16 kilometers from the base. I trekked up hill and returned to base on the same day by foot. Total trekking time was about 12 hours.