Gap Year Girl
A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In the 1960s and ’70s, thousands of baby boomers strapped packs to their backs and flocked to Europe, wandering the continent on missions of self-discovery. Many of these boomers still dream of “going back”—of once again cutting themselves free and revisiting the places they encountered in their youth, recapturing what was, and creating fresh memories along the way. Marianne Bohr and her husband, Joe, did just that.
In Gap Year Girl, Bohr describes what it’s like to kiss your job good-bye, sell your worldly possessions, pack your bags, and take off on a quest for adventure. Page by page, she engagingly recounts the experiences, epiphanies, highs, lows, struggles, surprises, and lessons learned as she and Joe journey as independent travelers on a budget—through medieval villages and bustling European cities, unimaginable culinary pleasures, and the entertaining (and sometimes infuriating) characters encountered along the way. Touching on universal themes of escape, adventure, freedom, discovery, and life reimagined, Gap Year Girl is an exciting account of a couple’s experiences on an unconventional, past the-blush-of-youth journey.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When they were both 55 years old, Bohr and her husband, Joe, decide to quit their jobs, sell their house, and travel to Europe for a "senior year abroad," retracing the trip the author took during her "gap year" of college 33 years earlier, in 1978. Their journey provides glimpses into the social climates of the various countries they visit, along with insight into the author's own experiences past and present of those cultures. Bohr steps outside of her comfort zone and explores the world, though her reflections seem narrow minded at times. During her visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany, she remarks, "I have no appreciation for the language, don't like the food, will never get used to how brusque they are, and just can't forget the history." Bohr offers a comprehensive account of her trip, including tidbits about the historical significance of various sites the couple visits, and she vividly conveys her experiences, such as when she describes the chaotic streets of Morocco and the loneliness of the bucolic French village Saint-Cirq-Lapopie.
