As the year slowly winds to an end, it’s time to take a hard and long look at our travel plans. Festive seasons require a certain kind of logistic to enable you and your family make your way successfully to your hometown from wherever you work. It is a good time to visit your relations back home whom you have not seen for over a year or more but caution is always the watchword if you wish to travel from where you are currently domiciled. especially during holiday seasons. Let us take a look at land travel. If you are not already home earlier than the 22nd of December, then you are inviting trouble. The roads are jam-packed with everyone trying to go home and the roads are jam-packed with impatient and irritable Nigerians. The traffic situation is often unmanageable and we could all get stuck in one place for four hours as it happened to me on the Abuja – Lokoja road many years ago on the 23rdof December of a certain year. Air travel? Okay, I advise that you book two weeks in advance and you know what it is like, nothing is ever sure. So here are five books to help you cut through the travel clutter for this Christmas season. Enjoy!
1. Travel Security Handbook by Sven Leidel. This is a very good guide book for securing yourself when you travel. Never underestimate a trip even if the roads are those you are familiar with. People have been known to disappear within minutes of their home. Although this book has a European perspective, it still gives universal guidelines about how to get from point A to B with a secure plan that protects your family and friends. What are the risks? What should you be aware of? What investigations have you done about the nature of the road or incidences on that road and what time is best to travel on the road? Stay secure this season. Bad people are on the road at the same time with you for a different purpose and scammers are out there waiting for vulnerable people who are not secure both at airports and public spaces. Be aware. Stay safe.
2. How to be a family – The year I dragged my kids around the world to find a new way to be together by Dan Kois. I am a bit of a travel adventurer and this book spoke to me in more ways than one. So, I recommend it highly because we may all live in the same house but sometimes you and your family are hardly together. The author, a journalist and his lawyer wife suspended their day time jobs in Washington DC to spend four months each in New Zealand, Netherlands, Costa Rica and a small city in Kansas. This is practically a whole year of just travelling. This requires planning and saving. You can do two weeks not necessarily a whole year. Travel is Education and they returned from this trip better bonded than ever before as a family. His children were pre-teens and we all know how they can be. He got them to get to know neighbours and even help the community. He got them to understand terrains and transport by bicycle and while in Costa Rica, they learnt that there are mosquitoes and poor people. This you can even do in Nigeria or even in your village or a different village. The lessons, adventure and joy are the same.
3. How to plan a trip, the ultimate practical travel planning guide by Lia and Jeremy. This is an online resource that reads like a breeze in 25 minutes. Everyone should read this before they travel and get some good tips about how to manage all sorts of things associated with holiday travel.
4. When travelling, it’s always good to carry an interesting fiction book or non-fiction book that would keep you engaged through the journey and in those lazy times which everyone needs when you are just lazing under a tree. For me this holiday, it is ‘Love with a chance of drowning by Torre de Rocher.’ Here Torre’s love interest, a handsome Argentinian guy takes her across the pacific in spite of her fear of water. An incredibly beautiful book for travellers this season.
5. For those who make budget plans for travelling outside the country, it is critical to pick up one or two travel guide books that have been around for a long time. But even if one travels within the country these guide books will sustain you through the travel including tips that can assist you, save you funds and keep you abreast of current trends. Some of my recommendations will be the ‘This is…’ series which describes some cities of the world and guides you through them, any travel guide book by National geographic which are always excellent, and Blue Guide books.
BONUS BOOKS: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, an award-winning book about a young shepherd in Santiago who journeys through life in search of his destiny.
Mudlark: In search of London’s past along the River Thames. Wonderfully written. Full of Adventure. Any Books by Abubakar Gimba. Full of mirth, wisdom and craft. Cooking Class-Global Feast. 44 recipes that celebrate the world’s cultures by Deanna Cook. This is the ultimate holiday book. A cookery book is always a bonus. This is when I experiment with food while relaxing. Cooking is always cathartic.
You must set forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka. A book for all seasons, an autobiographical book by the Nobel laureate with language so elevating. Grab a copy.
Happy Holidays to all our wonderful readers and thank you for keeping us company this yuletide season.
