Review: Blacktrekking (My Journey Living in Latin America)

Television reporter and family blogger Stephanie Claytor offers her reflective insights, in Blacktrekking: My Journey Living in Latin America  which focuses on her time  living in the Dominican Republic and Colombia. She contrasts her experiences as a study abroad student with those two years later, when she returns to the continent as an educator.

Although the book is confusing initially as she toggles between the two locations, Claytor really finds her rhythm about a third of the way in as she recounts being young and abroad. The unquestionable strength of the book is her ability to provide colorful detail of daily life. For example, she recounts in vivid detail having to navigate power outages while living in various parts of the Dominican Republic. In another chapter, she discusses the perils of trying to manage the dating scene and ensuing drama that follows. 

This book is most likely an ideal read for the eighteen to twenty-five year old who is about to embark on their first adventure to either nation. As the writer was fairly early in her professional career, and was still launching herself, it may not offer as much guidance for an established professional or seasoned traveller. But it does give that newbie college student some considerations. 

The challenge is that this book is the same as many travel memoirs. They are the particular experiences of the writer. The author lived in both countries roughly over a decade ago. In other words, you have to take some of the information with a grain of salt. If you regard this as simply a travel memoir, with some advice sprinkled in, you should be fine. However, if you are looking for extensive recent detail on either country, you are going to have to supplement her advice with both a Google search and the perspective of a recent traveler.