Belonging to the World
A Journey from Grief to Connection
About mourning while traveling, the emotive memoir Belonging to the World is sympathetic in covering extreme travel experiences around the globe.
Barry Hoffner’s lively memoir Belonging in the World is about grieving and healing in the midst of extreme travel adventures.
Hoffner had hoped to resume his world travels with his wife, Jackie, once they were empty nesters. However, when Jackie was killed by an elephant in Botswana, he grappled with a new reality. His grief fed into his decision to pursue the travel dreams they once nurtured together. He entered a community of extreme travelers whose lofty goals, including visiting all countries recognized by the United Nations, became his goals as well.
Covering stops in nations including Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Rwanda, the text is vivid and philosophical when it comes to fleshing out its variety of locales. It describes the landscapes with sharp, telling details, as of “trash-strewn yards, abandoned cars, and a landscape ravaged by phosphate mining” and “waves of sand deepen[ing] from amber to rust red [on] the top of this majestic desert.” People are also fleshed out in impactful terms, from a determined woman traveler who uses a wheelchair in the South Pacific to an intrepid fellow traveler, eighty-three-year-old Helga, who climbed over the Berlin Wall in her youth. Hoffner’s acknowledgements of his privilege as a white man with an American passport are also humanizing: If he were a woman traveling in Afghanistan, he would have to wear a burka; he was able to use his connections to get an impossible visa to Syria.
The book’s progression is not strictly linear. After relaying Jackie’s death, it jumps back in time to cover the beginnings of Hoffner’s wanderlust for context. He recalls backpacking on a budget with a friend in Europe; later, he secured postings in international banking in places including Buenos Aires, Paris, and Russia. He reencountered Jackie, whom he’d met at a fraternity party, in Asia. The couple is fleshed out via remembered conversations and experiences that emphasize Jackie’s warmth and generosity. They maintained their travel goals (Hoffner, for example, wanted to visit his mother’s birthplace in Iraq) while raising their two sons.
A bevy of countries are covered in the book’s pages, and not all are treated with equal depth. Further, some places, including Mali, are mentioned more than once (in its case because Hoffner established a nongovernmental organization to build schools there); other destinations are breezed through in a couple of paragraphs. Some harrowing incidents, including a hijacking in Morocco and evading tanks during an Armenian coup, are teased but not shared in full.
A whirlwind memoir about global travels, Belonging to the World is about renewed purpose though beauty, kindness, and adventure while visiting some of the most remote countries on earth.
Reviewed by
Suzanne Kamata
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
