Spanning fifteen years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves's insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she criss-crosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance. In the jungles of Papua New Guinea, she loses herself-literally-to an Australian tour guide; in Cairo, she reconnects with her high school sweetheart, only to discover the beginning of a pattern that will characterize her life over the long-term: while long-distance relationships work well for her, traditional relationships do not.
Wanderlust, however, is more than a chronological conquest of men and countries: at its core, it's a journey of self-discovery. In the course of her travels, Eaves finds herself and the sense of home she's been lacking since childhood-and she sheds light on a growing culture of young women who have the freedom and inclination to define their own, increasingly global, lifestyles, unfettered by traditional roles and conventions of past generations of women.
***
On an early December morning in 2005, as the Christmas lights faded and festive dark turned to gray daylight, I loaded four suitcases into a taxi on Avenue Montaigne. PROLOGUE
***
(@SealPress, 24 May 2011, ebook, 304 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs, # popsugarreadingchallenge, a book set in multiple countries)
***
***
I've always been fascinated by people who spend a lot of time travelling and seem unable to settle in one place. When I was young, I often imagined living a kind of nomad existence, travelling the word with a back-pack. Things change and that dream never came into being. I was able to live my teenage fantasies through this book. I got lost in this book, in the places and cultures and experiences. I really enjoyed this book as well but found it had sad overtones as the author seems unable to 'settle down' or root themselves in one place and seems a little lost at times.
