Since leaving home for Europe alone at age seventeen, Karen Gershowitz has traveled to more than ninety countries.
In pursuit of her passion for travel, she lost and gained friends and lovers and made a radical career change. She learned courage and risk taking and succeeded at things she didn’t think she could do: She climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. She visited remote areas of Indonesia on her own and became a translator, though only fluent in English. She conquered her fear of falling while on an elephant trek in Thailand. And she made friends across the globe, including a Japanese family who taught her to make sushi and a West Berliner who gave her an insider’s look at the city shortly after the wall came down.
An example that will inspire armchair travelers to become explorers and embolden everyone to be more courageous, Travel Mania is a vivid story of how one woman found her strength, power, and passion.
Travel is Karen’s addiction―and she doesn’t want treatment.
About: Karen Gershowitz, author Travel Mania: Stories of Wanderlust, has been traveling since age 17 when she boarded a plane to Europe and stayed there for three years. She has since traveled to more than 90 countries, experiencing countless bold, once-in-a-lifetime adventures: climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, trekking atop an elephant in Thailand, hiking in the blistering heat of the Moroccan desert—and much more. While studying ceramics as an undergraduate at the Kansas City Art Studio, Karen proposed and received a grant to photograph ceramics studios, potters and their work throughout Japan. She later built a career as a marketing strategist and researcher with companies who sent her around the globe to conduct focus groups, interviews and meetings. She lives in New York City, but is a citizen of the world.