every coun­try on earth. The author makes real per­son­al con­nec­tions with guides, locals, fel­low trav­el­ers, and strangers — some who become friends — as he makes his way across the globe.

Dur­ing a long-dis­tance flight, Hoffn­er recounts the blessed life he has shared with his wife Jack­ie and their two sons. They all trav­el togeth­er until tragedy strikes, affect­ing the fam­i­ly dynam­ics and chang­ing Hoffner’s life mis­sion. In an effort to deal with his immense loss and grief, Hoffn­er choos­es to con­tin­ue trav­el­ing more mean­ing­ful­ly. He quick­ly becomes part of a world­wide group of extreme trav­el­ers, join­ing up with dif­fer­ent spe­cial­ized tours and some­times con­nect­ing with these fel­low seek­ers coincidentally. 

Abstain­ing from con­sid­er­ing him­self as just anoth­er ​“coun­try counter” rush­ing to vis­it all 194 (at the time of this memoir’s pub­li­ca­tion), Hoffn­er pri­or­i­tizes hav­ing inten­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions with the peo­ple he meets and memo­ri­al­iz­ing his wife through his work, specif­i­cal­ly through Bourse Jack­ie schol­ar­ships. Hoffn­er also recounts how he cre­at­ed the Car­a­vans to Class Foun­da­tion, which pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties for young West African women to gain flu­en­cy in Eng­lish and make a dif­fer­ence in their communities.

Hoffn­er is open­ly cir­cum­spect about the rea­sons he is drawn to trav­el and whether it is help­ful in deal­ing with grief, or is rather a post­pone­ment of his feel­ings. The read­er is privy to his insights on both per­son­al and glob­al issues, includ­ing inequal­i­ty, food short­ages, cli­mate con­cerns, pol­i­tics, and more. Hoffn­er search­es for unique traits in the peo­ple, cul­tures, and places he encoun­ters, while also find­ing the com­mon spark of human­i­ty that con­nects us all.

He describes his phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al jour­ney with vibrant lan­guage, accom­pa­nied by black and white pho­tos of his trav­els, with­out omit­ting the hard­ships. Hoffn­er empha­sizes the impor­tance of search­ing for mean­ing and being open to the present moment with a sense of humor.