The Mystical Backpacker
How to Discover Your Destiny in the Modern World
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Part memoir, part guidebook, The Mystical Backpacker invites you to explore your inner terrain and learn how to create your own unique version of a modern day vision quest or walk-about.
Tired of living a life based on other’s expectations, Hannah Papp quit her job, bought a EuroRail ticket and a map, notified her landlady, and left town. Embarking on a journey across Europe with no plan and no direction, Hannah stumbled into becoming a modern-day Mystical Backpacker. Along the way her discoveries and the teachers she encountered allowed her to go on a deeper journey into the self and the spirit—revealing the real self she had long been missing.
The Mystical Backpacker shows you how to identify the signs along the road that will lead to teachers and experiences that will reorient your own life map. Ultimately, The Mystical Backpacker offers a solution, a way to break free and find your inner self’s rhythms and needs, fulfilling your true destiny. It’s time you hit the road and become a mystical backpacker.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert will recognize the format of this travel memoir, but Papp's youthful viewpoint stands out in a field more given to midlife reckonings. She reviews her first solo backpacking trip, taken in 2000 after she finished graduate study in Budapest, with an eye toward helping other travelers on their journeys. Papp relates her European adventure through journal entries, poems, and photographs as well as an anecdote-filled narrative, and though one might wish for more vivid accounts of her interactions with others on the trail, her story conveys her open-mindedness about all that she encounters. Papp builds on the "mystical nature" of solo travel with exercises and journal writing prompts in each chapter. While the travel diary benefits from Papp's openness, the "how to" portion of the book does not. Prompts are fairly general ("make a list of your 10 happiest memories in life") and suggestions for mining the mystical tend toward the familiar (look for signs, write affirmations, reflect on your life). The voice of youth is refreshing, but could use refinement.
