The Yellow Envelope: It is more than travel

In the last decade, there is an increasing number of young people that decided to leave their average stable lives and embark on life-changing experience, with one backpack, a camera and eventually a blog to share their discoveries on the road. I am a limited version of this trend myself, using all my free time and freelancing resources for - as for now - short-term travel, that I carefully document on my travel blog.

I am very happy to travel and grateful for the opportunities to see so many remote places and meet incredible people. I will never give up travel, and I hope to have the chance to see all the countries in the world at least once - an obsession of the travel bloggers community I am openly sharing - but the issue is that sometimes, I realize that a sightseeing marathon, although enriching culturally is not enough, as I rarely have the chance to really spend time with the humans and have insights about real life. It is a disadvantage I am aware of but not always sure what to do with it.

Kim Dinan took the challenge of leaving her cubicle life in Portland and together with her husband, Brian, started a challenging travel adventure in countries like Ecuador, Nepal or India. The brilliant part of travel when you expect more than checking your bucket-list - nothing wrong with it, anyway - is that you start a journey which might change your life, your inner life especially, for ever and good. And as usual in the case of changes, you don't know exactly what to expect. It is hard, it is painful, it is risky, because on the road one may loose himself or the other precious half, because this is how life happens. 

But besides the task of facing the unknown, Kim and Brian were lucky enough for being offered by a friend a yellow envelope with money to give to people or causes that might make a difference. The decision is hard, especially when taking into consideration if offering the money is a culturally accepted gesture. The act of giving, the generous opening of the envelope plays an important part of the transformation process Kim and her husband are going through during their journey. Their trip is an experience of knowing each other, looking for their uniqueness and accepting togetherness. 'We'd made so many mistakes and embarassed ourselves, but we'd also stretched our boundaries, individually and together, and learned to trust the world and the people in it, including ourselves and each other'.
It is a very beautiful book, written with heart and with many pages dedicated to introspection and self-search. Not the usual travel stories, but a memoir about finding meaning and trying to make the world a better place, one yellow envelope at a time.
You can read more stories by Kim Dinan on her blog.

Rating: 4 stars


 
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchane for an honest review
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