Book tips from travel bloggers
October 21, 2016
Name: Lola Akinmade Åkerström
Age: 38
Occupation: Travel writer and photographer
Blogging since: 2006
Most recent trip: Inverness, Scotland
Next trip: Billund, Denmark
Blog: Geotraveler's Niche
DW: Which book helped you plan and prepare your journey?
Lola Akinmade Åkerström: Depending on the place I'm going, I love looking into peculiar novels about the culture and traditions. Oftentimes from the past - so I can see for myself how it has changed today. Currently, I'm planning a trip to Greenland and in preparation, I am also going to re-read "An African in Greenland" by Tété-Michel Kpomassie about the first African who ever traveled to the country in the 1960s. He finds a children’s book about Greenland at a local Jesuit library in Togo during his teenage years. He vows he will see this Greenland, so drastically different from his own land. For the next 12 years, he would journey through West Africa and continental Europe, making his way north, finally catching a boat to Greenland.
Which book did you take along on your last journey?
I'm currently reading "Mother Tongue by my friend Christine Gilbert about her globetrotting quest with her young family to learn Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish. It's a book that personally resonates because I am also growing a multilingual family which makes travel an active part of our lifestyles.
Which book has saved the day for you at some point?
Language phrasebooks when I'm off the Internet grid with no access to quick translation tools. Berlitz makes a series of pocket-size language dictionaries that have been very helpful. I usually carry a pocket-sized bible with me because of a particular quote, Philippians 4:6 which says "Be anxious for nothing" because there's nothing that gives me comfort when traveling through unfamiliar territory or facing unexpected circumstance than that verse.