There are many great reasons to become a guide for mygola.

Create Your Own Hours
mygola Guides are freelancers, giving them the flexibility to work when they have the time. Most Guides work their magic at night and on the weekends, allowing them to keep their day jobs or other freelance gigs. In fact, with a time commitment of about 10 to 15 hours per week, you can easily have mygola as a secondary job while focusing on your day job or college.

Work From Anywhere
mygola's corporate offices are in Bangalore, but as a Guide you can work from anywhere. Our self-directed training program happens online, so you don't need to travel in order to become a Guide.

Advice and Support From Highly Trained Mentors
During your entire career with us, you'll have mentorship from a member of mygola's internal team of guides. They'll help you review and improve your answers, figure out how to interact with travelers and answer your questions about payments, training etc.

Good Compensation
If your mentor approves your answer, you'll be paid Rs. 100 per question. In addition, any tips that travelers may add are passed on 100% to you. For more information, please read the next section about Guide compensation.

The chance to live your travel dreams
We've planned trips for people going to Turkey, diving off the Caribbean islands or attending a rock concert in Ladakh. Since we love travel (and hope you do too!), it is thrilling to explore these destinations and plan our own in the near future!

Credit: About.com's Guide Program

How are Guides paid?
As soon as we approve your answer to the first "real" question from a traveler, you'll be paid Rs. 1100 (that includes a one-time joining bonus of Rs 1000). Then, as a Guide, you'll be paid Rs. 100 for every question approved by your mentor. In addition, any tips given by the travelers (anywhere between Rs 50 - 500) are passed on 100% to you. To make payments easier, we will send you a cheque every month if you've earned a minimum of Rs. 1000 that month.

How much do Guides typically make?
That depends a lot on how quickly and how well you can answer travel questions. On average, we expect a Guide working 4 hours per weekday to make Rs. 3,000 - 10,000 per month.

The Legalese:
All Guides are independent contractors and shall not be subject to the direction, control, or supervision of mygola regarding time spent or procedures followed in performing services hereunder. However, mygola is the final decision maker in regard to the produced product and reserves the right to request modification and/or modify the product to ensure, among other things, that it complies with quality standards. All Guides are responsible for all tax liabilities emanating from their payments. Guides are not eligible for any benefits from mygola and waive any right to them.

Please note: compensation earned by other Guides is not a guarantee of any kind that any other Guide who meets the minimum expectations will earn that much, or any specific amount. mygola offers this information as a means of sharing with applicants the potential compensation that they may earn. mygola reserves the right to terminate a Guide's engagement and/or change the Guide compensation model at any time for any reason, notwithstanding any information contained in the engagement materials.

Credit: About.com's Guide Program

What are the steps to become a Guide?
Stage 1: You'll need to take a 1 hour online test by clicking the button above.

Stage 2: If you clear Step 1, we'll invite you to a 1-day online training program. You'll learn special skills on using the travel web to research traveler's questions. At the end of it, you'll be asked to answer some sample questions that we'll evaluate. If you clear this stage, you'll earn Rs. 1000 right away (paid after you publish the first answer from a real traveler).

Stage 3: Congratulations, you're a Guide now! You'll now get access to our Guide Site and learn how to use various tools to research and publish your answers. Here, you'll get real questions with real money from actual travelers.

 
How does mygola evaluate potential Guides?
When working with potential Guides, we look for the following:

Search Ability: Someone who understands how to use the web to research information. Google, yes, but also travel message boards, sites like Tripadvisor, New York Times and so on. We'll train you in using some of these, but you should demonstrate the ability to sift through a large volume of information quickly and understand when information on the web is credible.

Writing Ability: A strong writer whose content is not only informative and factual, but synthesizes various opinions crisply. Because we trust our Guides to publish their own content, we'll also be looking for writing that is free of spelling and grammar errors.

Passion for Travel: Someone who loves traveling and is motivated by the idea of researching and writing about destinations they'd love to visit.

How are Guides selected?
Anyone can apply to be a Guide by taking the test on this site. We'll let you know within 7 days if you qualify for the next stage. In that case, you'll enter a self-directed 1-day online training program. In this training program, prospective Guides become familiar with the kind of questions mygola's users ask. You'll be asked to answer a few sample questions. Our internal team would evaluate these sample sites and choose the most qualified applicant. For more information, please read our detailed explanation of the training program.

How much experience do I need to be a Guide?
We're NOT looking for travel agents. We're looking for folks who're tech-savvy, have a thing for travel and a flair for writing.

Will I be just searching Google.com to answer questions?
Google is definitely going to be an important part of your research. However, we've built a lot of custom tools to make your life much easier - tools to create slideshows, maps, find deals, events - and make your answers richer.

How does Guide payment work? How much will I be paid? How frequently?
We pay Guides on a monthly basis. Pay varies from month-to-month, calculated based on the number of questions you answer and any tips you may receive. For more information, please see the detailed explanation of Guide compensation.

How does mygola make money?
We provide 2 questions free to every user every month. However, if they need to ask more questions, we charge them $30 (Rs 1350) per trip for unlimited number of questions. The majority of our users try the service for free. However, we make sure that Guides get paid regardless of whether a user pays us or not.

Is being a Guide a full-time job?
No. The expectation is that you'll spend between 10 - 30 hours every week. Of course, you can do more than that if you wish to.

Do I have someone to guide me?
All Guides have a mentor who evaluates their work on a regular basis. Mentors are also available to help with specific travel questions or teach how to use our internal tools. Think of them as your friends who're interested in making you the world's best online travel guides.

Do I get paid for the work done in the training program?
There is no payment for work done in the training program, but we do pay a hiring bonus of Rs. 1000 to new Guides.

What level of technical experience is necessary? Do I need any equipment?
Our best Guides are those that have considerable experience in using the web on a daily basis. They know how to operate Skype and how to choose the right keywords in Google. You'll need a good, reliable internet connection and comfort communicating online.

How do I check on the status of my application to be a Guide?
We'll get back within 7 days of your taking the test whether you've qualified for our next stage. If you haven't heard from us for more than a week after your test, please email us at help@mygola.com