On the eve of the Christmas holiday season the book “203 challenges for travelers” by Maria Angelova had its premiere in Sofia. The new book is a sequel of previous ones published in 2015 and 2016 - “50 places to visit in Bulgaria” (the two editions have been combined in an English language version entitled “50 secret places to discover in Bulgaria”). This time the creative team behind the book led by Maria has decided to diversify and upgrade the idea of traveling by creating a guide aimed to challenge travelers and to offer ideas of how traveling can become more exciting. The guide's message is that any traveler is able to achieve the unimaginable. Maria Angelova comes up with a few tips to young travelers:

„The challenges in the book have been divided into two parts. The ones for advanced travelers are quite extreme and downright crazy to the point of being on the verge of normalcy. If you are a beginner where traveling is concerned you should first learn how to immerse in the atmosphere of the place.When visiting new places and seeing new things, there are some useful steps to make. This is meeting with locals and trying food and drinks characteristic of the region. We have offered a few tips of how to make friends, and some of them have been inspired by true stories. Well, the best about this book is that we have written it based on a lot of personal experience.”

Before reading the book, there is a test to make that determines what kind of a traveler the reader actually is. The test has been developed especially for the book by psychologist Ilina Nacheva. Answering ten questions readers can find out what their strengths are. This way they can put them to good use to tackle the challenges of traveling. We all know that a man is a man when he is on the road. Will the book assist a reader's self-discovery?

„It is not accidental that we have added the following sentence to the book's title: 'Travel the world and explore your own self'. We believe that when one is faced with challenges and tries to outdo oneself this changes him or her. Every trip can change us, provided we want to change. How? One of the challenges is to take a journey back to your roots: to look for the beginnings of your family, visit the places where your ancestors lived and draw your family tree.”

What is the most interesting and most beautiful place that you have visited? Everyone has their favorite place. Answering this question though requires lots of efforts from someone like Maria, because her travels are countless.

„I can hardly name a place, but I can give an example of my latest journey to Brazil. There I visited Iguazu Falls and felt smaller than an ant in front of the huge water masses descending from the river. And as to Bulgaria, I would choose the vicinity of Madzharovo and the River Arda with vulturesflying above the water. This is a place that always charges me with fresh energy.”

​Finally, Maria challenges us to try and do something we have never done before, as we prepare for a new trip.

English Daniela Konstantinova