Susanna's Musings

The other day, I just finished reading Nadine Sykora’s How to Travel ebook. Nadine is a traveler, blogger, and YouTuber. And she has her own site called HeyNadine.com

In her book, she provides her ten-plus years of expertise and experience of traveling the globe. It’s aimed for both experienced and beginner travelers.

These are the parts of the book I liked:

1. The way it’s presented
   1. The graphic designs, photos, and overall content is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate through.  
2. Her content is mostly advice made. 
   1. She focuses more on resources she has used than her personal stories. 
   2. However, she does include a little bit about herself.
3. She has a chapter dedicated to convincing loved ones to allow for travel.
   1.  I know that this will come in handy for me when I want to inform my parents of my next adventure.
4. Some of her other resources include:
   1. Where to Travel First
   2. Group Tours vs Solo Travel
   3. Forms of Public Transportation
   4. Accommodation Options
   5. Information on Flights
   6. Visas
   7. Living Abroad
5. Checklists
   1. I like that she provided printable forms for:
      1. Budgeting
      2. What to bring and wear
      3. Other essentials

However, despite the wealth of information, I felt that she lacked some points:

1. Learning the local lingo:
   1. I know, you don’t have to speak the local languages fluently when traveling abroad, but it would have been nice to have section on the importance of at least knowing the basics of a foreign language when traveling
   2. For example: knowing how to say some of these phrases in the country can go along way and the locals will usually appreciate you making an effort to speak their language 
      1. Hello
      2. How are you?
      3. Thank you
      4. Good-bye
      5. Where’s the bathroom?
      6. How much is this
      7. Knowing the numbers from 1-10
      8. I’m lost
2. The Price
   1. Additionally, I thought spending about $30 on this ebook was too expensive. I think $20 to $25 would have been more reasonably priced. I get that she’s well-known and can set her own prices, but I think you can get the same amount of information for less than the given price or even for free by just web searching.

Therefore, if you’re on a budget and/or don’t know Nadine that well, I would not recommend this book.

However, as a fan of hers and despite those drawbacks, I will certainly resort to her book often. I like that she provided printable important checklists while traveling and plenty of links to travel resources.