GAP YEAR GIRL
A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries
Baby Boomers married for more than 30 years dare more than the ordinary by walking away from their comfortable life to take a mid-life gap year abroad. Marianne and Joe Bohr jump off the proverbial cliff to follow a travel dream: they unload their house, sell the cars, quit their jobs and say goodbye to the US in search of adventure. They start and end their journey in France and travel through an additional 20 countries in-between.
Gap Year Girl recounts details of their longing to get the trip underway during the year prior to departure and the experiences,
Baby Boomers married for more than 30 years dare more than the ordinary by walking away from their comfortable life to take a mid-life gap year abroad. Marianne and Joe Bohr jump off the proverbial cliff to follow a travel dream: they unload their house, sell the cars, quit their jobs and say goodbye to the US in search of adventure. They start and end their journey in France and travel through an additional 20 countries in-between.
Gap Year Girl recounts details of their longing to get the trip underway during the year prior to departure and the experiences, epiphanies, highs, lows, struggles, surprises and lessons learned on their journey as independent travelers in an endearing, entertaining way. The memoir transcends the experience it recounts to tie into the universal human themes of escape, adventure, freedom, discovery and life reimagined.
Millions harbor the fantasy but few follow it: kiss your jobs goodbye, pack your bags and take off on a quest for adventure. Gap Year Girl encourages those who have long yearned to follow their bliss for a year to do just that. Readers quickly find themselves immersed in a reality tale of leaving it all behind for medieval villages, the lights of European cities, unimaginable culinary pleasures, hikes in the Alps and along Mediterranean coasts and the wildly entertaining (and sometimes infuriating) characters they meet along the way as pleasures unfold on a peripatetic, past the-blush-of-youth journey.
- She Writes Press
- Paperback
- September 2015
- 372 Pages
- 9781631528200
Buy the Book
$16.95
About Marianne C. Bohr
Marianne C. Bohr, freelance writer and travel blogger for the Huffington Post, married her high school sweetheart and travel partner. With their two grown children, she follows her own advice and travels at every opportunity. Three of her travel essays received 2015 Solas Awards by travel publisher, Travelers’ Tales, honoring excellence in travel writing. Her first book, Gap Year Girl: A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries, was published by She Writes Press in 2015. Marianne is currently working on her second book, The Twenty, about hiking across Corsica with her husband to celebrate their 60th birthdays. Marianne lives in Park City, UT, where after decades in publishing, and then many years teaching middle school French, she skis, hikes, and writes.
Praise
“Bohr shines…provid[ing] glimpses of herself as a whole person, not simply a traveler. Gap Year Girl is an excellent choice…a travelogue filled with historic places, but its personal stories provide its highlights.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[In Gap Year Girl,] Bohr steps outside of her comfort zone and explores the world…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.”—Publishers Weekly
“Marianne Bohr has that rare knack of bringing the kaleidoscope of experience alive with a few well-crafted words; she seduces her reader away from black and white text into a reality where all the senses are teased.”—Kev Reynolds, Bestselling author of The Tour of Mont Blanc, Cicerone Guides
Discussion Questions
1. If you were able to take a Gap Year, what would you do? Where would you go? With whom would you go or would you go alone?
2. What barriers – financial, emotional, logistical, and other – would you have to overcome in order to take a year off?
3. Discuss what specific steps you could take to minimize homesickness while away.
4. Which of the destinations the author visited intrigued you most and why? Which least interested you and why?
5. Have you ever visited any of the places in the book and if so, were your experiences similar or different from those of the author?
6. Discuss the pros and cons of taking an adult Gap Year/Senior Year Abroad. Are you considering taking a Gap Year in the future?
7. Did you like the author and her husband? Why or why not? Do they seem like people you’d like to spend time with?
8. If you spent a year away, how would you record your experiences? Journals, podcasts, blogs, online picture albums? How often do you think you would communicate with loved ones at home?
9. While thinking back about the author’s year away, is there anything you would do differently if you were in her shoes?
10. Discuss the role adventure plays in your life. Do you actively search out adventure or try to avoid it? Would you like to have less/more adventure in your life?
11. What is most important to you when you travel? Meeting people? Learning about the culture? Visiting museums? Exploring the countryside? Eating the local food? Relaxing?
12. Are there differences between travel and vacation? If so, what are they?