The journey - Catharine H Smither

The Journey is a story of two halves; it is part travel guide to one of the most popular and exciting destinations in the world - New Zealand - and partly a spiritual journey of discovery. It follows Catharine's own journey on the other side of the world - alone for the first time, in a campervan - and how she made this the most important and memorable trip of her life. The Journey is a unique blend of fiction and non-fiction. The fiction parts are humorous inventions of all the towns she stayed in and the people she talked to, whilst the non-fiction parts detail the scenery and beautiful landscapes that this country is famous for. Every evening on her travels, she would reflect and record her experiences, bringing out the questions and struggles in her head and dealing with them one by one.

"It is not only a journey across the magical land of my dreams, it is all my fantasies come true, all my soul laid bare and my heart given the chance to write the truth in the hope that it will help other readers discover their own meaning to life as I did."

The?Journey is a travel guide, not just to New Zealand, but to discovering who you really are. It provides answers to all those nagging questions in your head with humour and compassion, and is also an informative book about solo adventuring. It is comparable to Bill Bryson's writing, and has been inspired by Wendy Alec's?Chronicles of?Brothers, a book Catharine read during her time in New Zealand.

"I was at a point in my life where I constantly thought, 'there must be more to life than this'. The sort of advice I needed had not been written. Going to New Zealand helped me; I had talks with myself and finally came to know myself," says Catharine, who hopes that her book will help people deal with the same issues that she herself once faced.