Never a Stranger: From her past in Croatia and Russia to finding a son in Bhutan to befriending women in Africa one woman's stories of travel connection and self-discovery.

I hang from the final limb of a family tree of generations of unintentional travelers--exiles refugees displaced people. My first journey--involuntary--took place less than a year after my birth. While I dont remember the details its as if Ive often relived that entire experience because my parents and their friends talked about it all their lives. I grew up with stories of exile--stories of adventure. And then I started living my own adventures. In India I learned that to Indians the way I mourned my husband was far less personal than their custom of dropping cremated bodies into a river; in Japan that my ancestors could find me in the oddest of circumstances. In Bhutan I found family and in Namibia I learned to ease my fears of being trapped in my own past. I travel because it touches something deep inside of me. Because it connects me to who I am. To who I was. To the world. And because I cant imagine not traveling.