The Courage to Go: A Memoir of the Seven Thousand Miles That Healed Me

As the foundations of her identity crumbled, Emily Dobberstein was left questioning everything. Searching to find life again, she set off on a solo road trip with only one direction in mind: West.

This unpredictable, vulnerable, winsome, and inspirational seven-thousand-mile travel memoir is the story of how one woman found the courage to go, to tell the truth, and to make peace with the shadows in her life that she had been trying to ignore. All she could do was hope that upon her return from wherever the open road would take her, she might be a little more healed and a little more whole.

In the midst of thrilling storytelling of adventures while living out of her car, backpacking, and hiking in many national parks in the Western United States, Dobberstein seamlessly integrates her internal dialogue filled with hard questions, spiritual transformation, and divine transcendence. By sharing her musings on wonder, grief, womanhood, healing, and her Christian faith deconstruction, Dobberstein invites us all to reconsider where we come from and challenges us to plunge forward courageously into our own great unknown.