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Level 8

From Beautiful Valley of Kashmir to Explore the world as Local Guide

My hometown is in Kashmir. I moved to Dubai in 2003, this is a fact that your affiliation to your hometown or birthplace always remains with you. Same was with me, I always missed my hometown. But thanks to Google. When Google Earth was launched for the first time back in 2005 just after 2 years when I moved out of my birthplace. I downloaded and explored though the place where I came from didn’t have clear images, but I could still get and Idea of the places.

This was a great invention of Google, I started marking my home, my school and various other places which I knew about my City. At the same time the places known to me in Dubai. Soon the places got updated on Google earth and instead, I mark then my markings were live and other people started contributing.

I got more interest as it became easy to locate the places.

Time passed and I kept contributing by adding markers to google earth wherever the places were missing.

Fast forward, Google Maps, improvements in image resolution and many features made it the best app that I use every day. Be it a traffic update or visiting any place around the world.

I moved to Muscat, Oman in 2011 and It was very important for me to get familiar with new City and thanks to Local Guide Community, because of whom I was able to get the detail of every place, and whether driving or walking google maps remained my tool to keep me productive without getting missing 😉

I got interest in outdoor sports in 2015, I started with hiking and running and google maps always remained my best tool to locate the places I want to visit and to draw the map for my activity route.

While running, hiking, cycling and other outdoor activities I discovered various new places.  My I stared sharing my outdoor sports experience with others they were excited to visit those places too. That is where I became excited to share places and became a Local Guide.

Though my Local Guide Journey is not new but my till 2018 I didn’t know much about the Local Guide program.

But when I got emails from google on 21st December 2017 saying that your Photo is making difference. I uploaded a Photo using google Sphere on 27th August 2014 and in 2017 it had 12,370 views. That is where I became excited the same photo within one year got 30,000 more views and so on. Below is one of my favorite photo that I took in Kashmir.

 Arang Kel, Neelum Valley - Azad KashmirArang Kel, Neelum Valley - Azad Kashmir

 

 

I started adding photos of various places. That I took. Every year I during my holidays I travel different places in the world and started contributing as a Local Guide by updating the places, adding reviews, adding missing places, updating the information of various places and so on.

In 2018 when I visited London, I enjoyed my stay there and captured my memories using smart phone and at the same time shared it with rest of the people about the places. I loved the place and loved the photo too. This particular photo has got 600,000 views with a total views of 1.5 M from all photos.

Most views of photo that I took was at  Hyde Park, My purpose was to swim but the area for swimming was closed. But I didn’t waste time and captured my memories and shared some with others.

Serpentine Lido, Hyde park, London, UKSerpentine Lido, Hyde park, London, UK

 

I took above picture in August 2018 and uploaded to Location on October 2018

The most interesting part that I did as a Local guide is updating the places with correct information. My recent contribution was adding a Free-Swimming area “Kalbu Swim Training Camp” which was missing in Muscat Oman, I am today excited that hundreds of swimmers are able to locate that Place and reach there hassle free.

Today Local Guide program mean a lot to me, because it helps me in various ways and I also get chance to help others.

I will continue contributing as Local Guide and will make sure I learn from Local Guide community.

I will share my experience and will learn from your experience.

 

Muscat, Oman