Nanjala Nyabola is Rewriting The Travel Guidebook

This week, Nanjala Nyabola is interviewed for NPR:

Remember Lonely Planet? Rough Guides? The glossy photos? The breezy descriptions of faraway places?

Long before the pandemic lockdown, those classic guidebooks were go-to reading for many people going on a big trip. Nanjala Nyabola is one of them. She's a writer and a consummate traveler from Kenya who collects these guides, but discovered early on that the information that lay between their covers was not written with travelers like her in mind.

Touring Africa through the lens of these guidebooks almost discouraged her from traveling altogether.

Now, 70+ countries later, Nanjala sets down her backpack and speaks with Gregory Warner about her new book, Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move. She breaks down what traveling has taught her about her own identity, and the unexpected joy of discovering new places on your own terms.

Listen to her interview with Gregory Warner, the Host of Rough Translation on NPR.