About the Author
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
-Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain significantly influenced my passion for travel. He gladly immersed himself in the culture of every country he visited, trying mysterious food and drink, participating in every activity, and asking challenging questions.
He was a brilliant author, chef, and traveler—always ready with a quick quip—but also struggled with demons. His suicide on June 8, 2018, at the age of 61, caught so many of us by surprise, especially those like me who thought he had everything one could wish for.
This quotation is appropriate for Volume 2 of my series, A Nomadic Soul. These nine countries battled the COVID pandemic, which brought travel to a screeching halt for almost three years and destroyed the livelihoods of people who depended on tourism.
Numbers of travelers hoping to travel the Drake Passage to and from Antarctica plummeted after the rogue wave killed one American woman and severely destroyed a Viking cruise ship on December 1, 2022.
But I never anticipated nor wished for a front-row seat to war on October 7, 2023, at 8:15 AM, when the first sirens went off in Jerusalem and missiles flew above our hotel.
-Barbara Totaro