A few months before out trip to Turkey, I visited my local bookstore and a book called “At Home in the World” caught my eye. I had never read anything by this author earlier and was skeptical whether to read it or not. A quick glance revealed it would about travel and family, the key tags of my life so I picked it up and boy am I so glad that I did that.
At Home in the World is Tsh Oxenreider‘s account of travel around the world. The voyage spanned for almost ten months which she did with her husband and three kids under the age of 10.
Each chapter is devoted to the place of the visit. The itinerary starts from from Asia all the way to Australia and New Zealand then to Africa and Middle East and lastly to Europe before heading home to the US.
I loved the book because it not only highlighted what to see, what to eat, and do in that region but also talked about the problems they faced, the happiness they found, the soul searching they did, and how by just getting lost they found hidden gems not mentioned on the maps.
The made it happen by selling their home in Oregon, putting their belongings in storage and each family member got one backpack worth of belonging to go with them. The kids were “world-schooled” while Tsh and her husband worked remotely
This is one book you will want to tear through as well as read slowly to savor all the details.
One of my favorite quotes from the book was:
“I want to get lost in myself, I want to stop thinking so much of myself, and I want to see in the flesh how many people there are in the world and how many don’t know me or, really, care about me. I want to remember my smallness. I want to be a prophet in the wilderness, shouting from jungles and deserts and foreign cities that we are all small, and to remember what a tiny place we each take up in the world. Small might be insignificant, but it does not mean unimportant.”
-Tsh Oxenreider
I enjoyed my trip to Turkey much more after reading the author’s account of her time there as detailed in this and her other book.
At Home in the World will inspire you to travel and convince you that you don’t needs tons of money or resources to do so. If you have young children, it will give you the need push that you can do it.
But most importantly, it will put into perspective how we need the ordinary silence of routine and home to enjoy the thrill of travel.
