Landmarks in everyday life : SOLILANG GUIDEBOOKS

Alternative travel guides explaining everyday life to travellers.

Destination-Plus guides are different : they won't tip you on good hotels, or point you toward stouristy sites. Neither are they travel books or photo albums.

Destination-Plus guides aim to unveil clues for deciphering life in a country, laying aside elusive hints or restaurant locations.

Landmarks in Everyday Life are 256 page long books filled with explanations for every oddity that catches the curious traveller’s eye, such as clothing, popular newspapers, television programs, license plates, animal species, drink brands, political posters, religious life or human rights…

Decoding guides : when detail is everything

Our guides are insights for understanding everyday life in the countries your readers travel to : which cultural differences in language or behaviour may seem strange to visitors, what are the political customs, the relations between men and women, the religious habits or breeds of household pets. Every one of these seemingly trivial aspects is present in the most insignificant object, be it a credit card slip, a cigarette’s packaging or road signs. The buildings that go unnoticed, the local mosque or church, the graveyard tombs or the public notices on walls become opportunities for discovery.

Intercultural guides : beyond travelling

Because of their anthropologic nature, these guides aren’t only for travellers, but also for pupils preparing presentations, for curious souls who haven’t planned to travel, for students studying abroad or even for social workers eager to understand the migratory population they are dealing with.

More surprisingly still, these books are also purchased by holiday makers when they reach home, to answer the questions they were confronted with abroad.

Unobtainable information guides

The Landmarks in Everyday Life books offer information unobtainable elsewhere, unaccounted for in other guides, and work towards promoting exchange through :

- spoken words, genuine cultural mediators,

- ways of life : games in bars, common superstitions, public transport,

- spirituality : visiting graveyards, participating in religious services,

- everyday news : deciphering political posters or bills, understanding police uniforms…

Committed guides : attuned to the country’s social realities

Breaking away from former guides’ (feigned) neutral posture, Solilang books are handcrafted by their authors. Their accessible format makes these objects user-friendly guides that cover each and every aspect of everyday life in a given country. Thumb-index thematic sections (such as food, drink, gathering information, lounging around, religions…) deal with all the facets of everyday realities minus the folklore : getting a driver’s license, different kinds of fast-foods, or television programs.

The guides favour the hosts’ language, keen to help decipher posters or signs, get around by asking for directions rather than using a map, or discover the joys of haggling.

The books also contain keys relating to economic circumstances, to financial life and to human rights, to help the traveller face multiple realities.

Guides of a third generation

Solilang was convinced that the time had come for a new generation of guides to take over from :

The elitist cultural guides of the early 20^th century, designed for a wealthy clientele solely interested in monuments and not in the country itself,

The 70s mass tourism, consumerist guides filled with cheap getaway tips,

A new type of intercultural guides, revolving around exchange, had to be created to take over from these older generations of books (cultural reports and places-to-go).

Solilang offers to teach you how to play chkouba, a popular Tunisian card game, how to read tea-leaves in Turkish coffee, and how to decipher Polish license plates…