As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved—to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician—had gone extinct. In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris nonetheless set off by bicycle down the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend, Mel. Pedaling through some of the remotest places on earth, she realized that an explorer, in any day and age, is a person who refuses to live between the lines. In this winner of the 2018 Banff Adventure Travel Award and a 2018 Nautilus Award, Harris chronicles her unforgettable odyssey and looks for the source of our essential longing to discover what in the world we are doing here.

"[This book] is illuminating, heart-warming, and hopeful in its suggestion that we will explore not to conquer but to connect."—Booklist (starred review)