Almost Anywhere

What do you do when your world ends?
At twenty-eight years old, Krista Schlyer sold almost everything she owned and packed the rest of it in a station wagon bound for the American wild. Her two best friends joined her—one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog—and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in.

The journey began as a desperate escape from urban isolation, heartbreak, and despair, but became an adventure beyond imagining. Chronicling their colorful escapade, Almost Anywhere explores the courage, cowardice, and heroics that live in all of us, as well as the life of nature and the nature of life.

This eloquent and accessible memoir is at once an immersion in the pain of losing someone particularly close and especially young and a healing journey of a broken life given over to the whimsy and humor of living on the road.

Krista Schlyer is a conservation photographer and writer. She is a senior fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers and her work has been published by BBC, The Nature Conservancy, High Country News, The National Geographic Society, and Audubon. Schlyer is the author of two previous books including Continental Divide, winner of the 2013 National Outdoor Book Award. She is also the 2014 recipient of the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography and the 2015 Vision Award from the North American Nature Photographers Association. She resides in the Washington, DC, metro area.

"Outstanding, wry, heart-wrenching and healing. Those words describe Almost Anywhere, which hits the bull’s-eye as a cross between Wild and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. Krista’s unique voice will draw you in and take you on journey to the intersection of unfathomable grief and the healing power of wanderlust." —Michelle Theall, author of Teaching the Cat to Sit

"Brave, beautiful, and utterly captivating, Almost Anywhere breaks your heart and puts it back together again on a long and often arduous road trip across an America, where the uncertain future is always just beyond the horizon and the immutable past rushes at you without remorse. Measuring the sharpness of loss against the hugeness of life, Krista Schlyer has found her way, page by page, to a rare state of grace. An amazing book." —William Souder, On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

"This book is an American map. . . . If you want to feel a journey at skin level all the way to the heart, this is your route." —Craig Childs, award-winning author of House of Rain

"Deep love. Deep loss. In the fog of pain, Krista Schlyer struggles to see her way forward. Seeking solace where trees tower, buffalo roam, and mountains humble, Schyler faces and embraces life, warts and all, with sobs, smiles, and a quirky dog." —Amy Gulick, author of Salmon in the Trees