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This is a travel guide told with verve, authority, enthusiasm, and a personal touch. A seasoned traveler with an eye for organic moments of human connection, Szachanski left northern France at nine years old and has since traveled and worked throughout the world. Now retired and living in Canada, she shares the “gems” of her travel to encourage others to stimulate their senses and insights into the world. Personal experiences are the cherry on top of detailed descriptions that are well-researched and concise.
When lecturing in Bulilimamangwe, Zimbabwe, the author's payment is in goats, a heart-warming honor in rural Africa. At the Taj Mahal in India, she bonds with the skinny boy who manages the shoes of hundreds of tourists, never handing back the wrong pair. In Athens, she finds a magic moment alone atop the Acropolis (“the summit of the world of Western Civilization”) on a day too hot for tourists. The strong empathetic reaction to locales, customs, and people continues in Tanzania as she locks eyes with an elephant—“a deep penetrating gaze that seemed to look beyond, as if to eternity.”
Equally wonderful are the overviews of each destination, packed with flora, fauna, history, geography, legend, food, and culture. For example, readers learn that Ghana's geology and geography facilitated the horrendous slave trade and that rural Guatemala bursts with color in clothing, food, handicrafts, and birds. Enthusiasm energizes the prose, and positive passion inspires a desire to travel now and travel widely. Originally intended as a travel guide for young people, the book offers a clear, succinct, and thoughtful narrative. Especially moving is the experience that turns the author from a neurotically shy teenager into an enthusiastic, optimistic young woman.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review