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The Allure of Elsewhere
May 2025 | Milkweed Editions

One woman’s cross-country journey to explore the hold family history has on our lives, and the power of new stories to shape what lies ahead.

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“A truly fascinating and heartwarming travelogue that beautifully points us in bold directions, reminding us that sometimes in order to feel connected—it can also be brilliant and delightful to travel alone.”

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil,
author of World of Wonders

“The Allure of Elsewhere is a beautiful unraveling of family history through self-exploration. Just as a winding road reveals its secrets one at a time, Karen Babine takes us through the twists and turns of a complex genealogy and her own place within it. She weaves the story of her chosen solo lifestyle with generations prior who lived the opposite while examining how their history lives not just in our memories, but in our bones.”

—Heather Anderson,
author of Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home

What a pleasure to travel with Karen Babine, along highways and logging roads, from campsite to campsite, through time and deep into history. The Allure of Elsewhere showcases a love of geography and genealogy, close family and distant ancestors, fierce independence, solitude, storytelling, and the crafting of a life. Under Babine’s deft attention, places come alive, the dead reanimate, time folds in on itself until centuries feel tangible. “It’s all connected,” she writes, “even if we cannot recognize the ways in a particular moment.” The Allure of Elsewhere shows us how. 

—Michele Morano, author of
Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain

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