Most travel memoirs involve one or more of the following elements:

• A tragic event that triggers the travel: a divorce, death of a loved one, diagnosis, job loss, etc.
• Significant focus on romance
• A main location

“Where I’m From,” by Ebony Walden, is special because it’s a travel memoir that doesn’t have any of these elements. Walden goes on a year of globetrotting simply because she wants to, because she can. She doesn’t meet a lover who defines large parts of her journey. Instead of living in a single place, she volunteers and travels in a whopping 14 countries across six continents. The time is spread out pretty evenly between countries, so readers won’t feel like there is a main location.

Despite lacking the tropes that tend to help provide emotional investment in a travel memoir, the narrative is compelling. We think most readers will want to know what happens to Walden in each place, as well as how her adventures trigger flashbacks from her disadvantaged upbringing in the U.S. She is looking for travel companions to write poems with the “Where I’m From” theme, but she doesn’t ask every person she meets. There is anticipation and mystery in wondering whom she will choose, why and what they will write. Because she goes to so many places, there’s a high chance one of them is a place you had been wanting more perspective on. The appendices make the memoir double as a workbook that should be engaging for readers who like that kind of format.

If you think this unique type of travel memoir could be refreshing, buy the book. The writing is solid both structurally and at a line level, so there shouldn’t be any surprise drawbacks for readers who have the right expectations. If you want the typical tropes, stick with those books.

‘Where I’m From’ Summary: One Year of Volunteering/Traveling in 14 Countries Across Six Continents

The book opens with a scene of her travels where she breaks down from stress and exasperation. We then jump to the years leading up to her trip.

During the cusp between the 2000s and 2010s, Walden decides she wants to travel the world volunteering, teaching and touring. Before embarking on her trip, she had been hosting and participating in a poetry series. This experience inspires her to create a poetry format called “Where I’m From.” Participants speak literally about where they are from. They also address a mixture of light and heavy details about who they are.

Through a combination of savings and grassroots funding, she is able to afford a year of travel. Her boss graciously offers to hire her back after the year is over.

Here’s a breakdown of where she goes:

1. North America, her starting point
2. Central/South America: Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru
3. Europe: Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, England
4. Africa: Kenya, South Africa
5. Asia: India, Thailand, China, Japan
6. Australia

Six continents, 14 countries, one year. Count it if you like! I did.

In most of these locations, she stays with a host or host family, volunteers (usually teaching English as a second language) and sightsees. She chooses a favorite person to work on the “Where I’m From” poem. Certain travel events trigger flashbacks of her younger years as a poor Black girl from a fractured family in the U.S.

Audience and Genre: A Black Christian American Woman’s Travel Memoir With Analysis of Global Poverty, Sexism and Racism

Like many books, this one has a sort of hierarchy of genre elements. Despite being unique, it is still a travel memoir above all else. As I wrote earlier, you’ll be able to enjoy this book as a travel memoir if you remember that it doesn’t have that genre’s common tropes: tragedy triggering the travel, lots of romance, etc.

The flashbacks grant insight into what it’s like to experience poverty and neglect as a Black girl in the U.S. Past and present connect as we see global poverty through Walden’s eyes.

Many of the people she encounters are not accustomed to seeing Black folks, especially not an American Black woman with dreadlocks. Their rude — often bigoted — reactions intensify the focus on race. Walden has to deal with sexism as well, including some dangerous incidents.

Family is a consistent theme. Walden dedicates many pages to her mother, who was present but struggled with addiction and money, and her father, who was largely absent and sometimes difficult.

Walden is a practicing Christian. Several of the communities she stays in are religious or at least spiritual. Flashbacks touch on Christianity in her family and church communities in the U.S.

Think about which of these themes you’re most looking for in a travel memoir.

Three Cs: Compelling, Clear, Concise

Editorial Note: We believe these three factors are important for evaluating general writing quality across every aspect of the book. Before you get into further analysis, here’s a quick breakdown to clarify how we’re using these words:

• Compelling: Does the author consistently write in a way that would make most readers emotionally invested in the book’s content?
• Clear: Are most sentences and parts of the book easy enough to read and understand?
• Concise: Are there sections or many sentences that could be cut? Does the book have pacing problems?

Compelling: Driven by Curiosity and Education

In all the travel memoirs I had heard of and read until this one, the driving forces are about how the memoirist will cope with a tragedy, what happens in their romantic life and what happens to them in the end. “Where I’m From” is totally different because we begin the book knowing Walden didn’t experience a defining tragedy that incited the travel, didn’t find a great love on the trip and didn’t end up staying in a particular place she visited. We know she comes home and that she’s OK.

So why read the book?

In the beginning, we don’t know what Walden will experience and who will write the “Where I’m From” poems. These mysteries drive each section and chapter. We meet so many people. It’s hard to predict what people will say and who Walden will most connect with.

We also don’t know every detail of her past. It’s interesting to see the memories become increasingly specific.

Clear: Near Flawless Prose

Walden is a skilled writer. In the entire book, I spotted only three sentences that weren’t a smooth read due to clunky or suboptimal prose.

1. Page 51: “It was then that I realized he was more handsome than I realized…”
2. Page 194: Starting a sentence with the vague “This” that refers to an unspecified subject in a previous line. Many writers make this mistake. It’s perhaps a bit of praise to highlight that this mistake happens only once in the whole book.
3. Page 230: “scoffed” instead of “scarfed” when referring to food. You can argue the “scoffed” usage is correct as well, but “scarfed” is better for American readers.

The majority of transitions between present and past are smooth. She did a good job explaining the foreign language keywords.

Concise: Exactly What is Promised, and Easy to Skip Around

At around 300 pages, “Where I’m From” is not a short memoir, but not long either. The section/chapter organization makes the pace feel brisk.

If you aren’t interested in a particular country, you can skip around. You should be able to start in most chapters without getting confused.

Character Development: Room for Walden’s Family and Some Travel Companions

Walden’s limited time in each place means we don’t get super deep character development for the people she meets abroad. Nonetheless, there are many people where we see enough to know them and feel invested. She meets a father figure, a romantic interest, children she has motherly feelings toward, a frenemy and plenty of friends.

The deeply developed characters are herself, her mother and her father. We see them consistently through flashbacks.

Story: A Different Type of Structure

The story structure for “Where I’m From” is different from a typical travel memoir because there isn’t another main character in the travel portions. In the typical type of memoir, the story is structured around a group of several main characters interacting. The structure of events varies, but the characters are relatively stable within their respective sections.

In “Where I’m From,” the characters change constantly while the narrative structure is the same through most chapters. Here’s the common structure I observed:

• Walden arrives at a place and gets to know the hosts and other guests
• She gradually decides who she will ask to participate in the poems series
• She sees sights and ruminates on her life and the world
• We get juicy flashbacks

Simultaneously, there is the overall story arc of the trip. Will money and supplies last? How do the places compare? What are the close calls? We know the trip works out, but not exactly how.

Prose Style: A Mixture of Prose, Poetry, Optional Workbook and Networking Invitation

The vast majority of prose is typical of a travel memoir: informal, clear and direct. Sprinkling in the poems created a more unique experience.

The appendices allow the option of approaching the memoir like a workbook. If this idea is appealing, we recommend you browse the appendices before reading the book normally. You won’t want to miss out on them, and you might not feel like a second read.

If you take the workbook approach, you might feel like one of the people Walden met during her trip. She even invites readers to contact her.

Setting: Just Enough Detail to Feel Immersed

Waldon and her editors did a great job balancing the amount of detail on setting descriptions. Thorough details for all 14 countries would have generated a thousand-page book. Readers get the essential details. The settings feel neither verbose nor lacking.

Rhetoric: Global Poverty, Sexism and the Experience of Being a Black Woman

No matter where Walden traveled, people focused on her identity. Some of the poverty she experienced in the U.S. was pretty close to the conditions she saw in the developing world. Her travels make her uniquely qualified to compare the human condition across race, sex and oceans.

Cultural and Political Significance: Sadly, the World Has Not Progressed Much Since 2010

Walden could have done her trip in 2026, and I wouldn’t have noticed the difference. The world still has these issues of racism, sexism, colorism and poverty. Until we significantly advance as a species, this book will feel timeless.

Authenticity: Extra Effort on Transparency

Walden wrote an author’s note that provides transparency on the limits of her memory and accuracy. This type of note is common yet still appreciated.

As for the story, she is vulnerable. We see moments when she is inconsiderate. Generally, however, the transparency only makes her more sympathetic.

Critiquing the Critics: Cautioning Against Inaccurate Comparisons, Predicting Criticisms

At this time, the book is not out yet, so I don’t have much data for critiquing other people’s reviews. A member of Walden’s team sent me an advance reader copy.

I do, however, want to critique a bit of how the publisher/PR team is presenting the book. All of the promo materials I’ve seen so far mention “Eat, Pray, Love” as the first comp title. This comparison could establish the wrong expectation for readers, leading to an increase in negative reviews.

I understand the value of a comparison to something everyone has heard of. Nonetheless, I don’t think “Eat, Pray, Love” should be the first comp title mentioned. Maybe it shouldn’t be mentioned at all.

The only similarities between the two books is the travel memoir genre and gender of the authors. Elizabeth Gilbert was a white woman going through a divorce, doing the trip with the backing of a publisher and the promise of delivering a memoir, and staying in three places. Ebony Walden was a Black Christian woman who had a government job, single and never married, doing a trip for fun and poetry, with financial backing from her family, and staying in more than a dozen places.

Maybe I’m being too hard on this point. On the other hand, I’m harping on the point because I want people to understand ahead of time that “Where I’m From” is unique.

I’m not as familiar with the other comp titles mentioned, but I have the same critique for some of them. “Wild,” for instance, is also about a white woman traveling in the wake of tragedy.

Perhaps we are witnessing a paradox where a memoir’s uniqueness boosts its quality while making it more difficult to market via comparisons.

Book Aesthetic: The Silhouette Problem

Inside and out, the book looks great! Only one problem: The cover features a silhouette of a Black woman’s side profile. This book cover woman has very short hair, only a bit more than a buzzcut, just enough to see the kind of texture that indicates her race. When Walden did her year-long travel, she had dreadlocks.

I’m obviously not an expert on Black hair, but I’m pretty sure dreadlocks have to be long enough to have, well, locs. I imagine Walden’s team is aware of this fact, so I wonder why they went with a silhouette of a woman with much shorter hair.

Reviewer’s Personal Opinion: My Life is the Opposite of Ebony’s, and I’m Jealous of the Support She Received

Based on what I know about her from the book, my life is the polar opposite. My economic background is upper middle class. Both my parents were present. They had a good marriage. They still do.

I didn’t want to travel and live abroad during my childhood, but my parents dragged me. Some of this travel was traumatic, a trigger for a dormant illness. For a long time I was resistant to travel.

I’ve had so many horrible health issues. My body could not handle a trip around the world.

Almost all of my bosses have been abusive. None of them would have let me take off for a year just to travel for fun.

When I desperately needed support for a project (The Rauch Review, which you’re reading right now), the vast majority of people in my life abandoned me. They couldn’t be bothered to contribute as little as $1 a month. I was asking for money because I had lost my job, my entire career and all my freelance work. I was too sick to do shift work. I didn’t have a car for doing Uber and such.

The people in my life knew these facts. Many of them were indebted to me. They would ask me what they could do to help, I would tell them, and they would do nothing. They had stable jobs and good health, but $1 a month was too much.

I appreciate that Walden understands how lucky she was to receive support for her project. Not everyone is blessed with that kind of support system. Of course, not everyone is blessed with the present parents and economic comfort I had growing up.

Conclusion: The Truest Travel Memoir

“Travel memoir.” I’ve written that term so many times throughout this review, so I began mentally dissecting it a bit more. A travel memoir involves travel, but is it always primarily about the travel? Sometimes the travel is more of a coincidental setting to explore what the book is primarily about: relationships, grief and so on.

“Where I’m From,” more than any other book I’ve heard of in this genre, really is about the travel. It is, of course, about other topics, and it does a good job with these as well. But it’s the truest, purest travel memoir I’ve encountered.

I’ve awarded the book five out of five stars because it doesn’t have any significant problems. The confusing book cover is a significant issue, but I don’t want to deduct points there because the cover doesn’t relate to Walden’s writing.

This review is the first I’ve written for The Rauch Review where I’ve given five stars! It feels good.