Smiling at the World: A Woman's Passionate Yearlong Quest for Adventure and Love [Paperback]

Joyce Major (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2007

USA Book News has just named "Smiling at the World: A Woman s Passionate Quest for Adventure and Love" the National Award Winner in the travel division! Find out what travelers with a purpose are raving about! Major takes us on a yearlong voluntourism adventure around the world as Major discovers the world as a volunteer immersing herself in the culture while covering a wide variety of projects from lion cubs and elephants, to kangaroos and monkeys, from a restoration project to a sustainability sanctuary, from a newspaper reporter to teaching English and more! Major's passion for helping the planet, her zany sense of humor and gift of storytelling will provide escape and inspiration to readers to live with passion and explore their place on the earth. "Smiling at the World" is a celebration - a story about love in its many forms for wildlife, for the earth, for humanity and how a smile connects them all.

Editorial Reviews

Review

As a conscientious traveler, Joyce Major shares a riveting first hand account of how voluntourism transformed her life and offers insights on how this 'responsible travel' movement can transform yours. --Brian Mullis,Sustainable Travel International

As a conscientious traveler, Joyce Major shares a riveting first hand account of how voluntourism transformed her life and offers insights on how this 'responsible travel' movement can transform yours. --Brian Mullis,Sustainable Travel International

Joyce Major, the quintessential traveler, epitomizes responsible tourism at its very best. In Smiling at the World Major takes us into the hearts and minds of the world in which she has become so fully engaged. --Bob Fisher

Reading "Smiling at the World" is like taking a year-long journey around the globe and making a new best friend in the process. Major unfolds her extraordinary advenures with vivid descriptions of colors and smells. She does a wonderful job of creating a sense of time and place. The reader gets to rejoice with the author over achievements and feel the pangs of loneliness. As the story evolves so does its author and it is nice to her character change. Intentionally or not, Major also makes a good case for volun-tourism. The idea of giving back while traveling seems possible, practical and responsible when described and lived by the author. --Writers Digest

"Smiling at the World" has been named the Best Books Award Winner in travel by the USA Book News. --USA Book News

About the Author

Standing here at 58 years old, if I turn my head and look back, my memories are clear of the straight out of college Joyce teaching a class in mathematics extraordinaire with shoulder length straight hair, matching sweater and skirt, stacked heels and enthusiasm. Next stop motherhood and like so many of my friends I read every book about childbirth and childrearing crowning The Time Out as the queen of my mothering style. After a divorce with the usual fallout and an educational toy business, my career moved to a long successful stop as a real estate agent. And then with both sons graduated from college, my responsibilities seemed to have whittled down to just taking care of myself and the cat. A successful real estate business, an adorable houseboat with kayaking right out my door, friends to play squash with, ski with, rollerblade and laugh with in the beautiful city of Seattle. A great life, right? Yes and no. From the outside Joyce s life looked quite nice but if I lifted my head out of the fog, I saw a woman not fully present, not heart happy, and lacking passion. A question kept gnawing at me- Is this life, the one I am leading right now, the best way for me to live, to use my talents, to help the planet? Unable to either ignore the question or answer yes, I looked around for ways to shake up my life, bring change. The startling idea to travel solo as a volunteer around the world for a full year hit me like lightning one day while I was hiking up Rattlesnake Mountain. Reeling from what must have been either oxygen deprivation or divine inspiration, I knew the trip was the answer. Jumping out of my life, my shoes, my houseboat and my career, I decided to celebrate my life with the gift of freedom for a full year and perhaps, just maybe, do a bit of good along the way. Not wanting to walk around looking at old churches and ruins like a typical tourist, sleeping in plush, culture-avoiding hotels, I put together a chain of volunteer vacations staying a month on each project. I worked with rescued elephants in Thailand, tended lion cubs and worked as a baboon monitor in South Africa, helped with rescued kangaroos and joeys in Australia and rescued primate trade monkeys in England. I learned about wildlife rescue and spent time with passionate people who loved their work. I found my heart. I taught English in China, studied Portuguese in Brazil living with a family in Rio, worked as a newspaper reporter in Ireland, as a restoration worker in Italy, and at a sustainability sanctuary in New Zealand. A year packed full of change and new experiences from feeding baby bottles to lion cubs to interviewing TV stars in Ireland, to bathing elephants in a river to planting trees in New Zealand, living in a bamboo hut, an insect infested house, a monastery, and a tent but always learning about the environment and always giving back. In my year that I had organized myself, I traveled to all but one continent, took the Trans-Siberian Express, lived in different cultures and got exactly what I had bargained for, change! My spirit is refreshed, my creativity has returned and the just getting by layers that were clouding my vision have been blown away from a year spent volunteering around the world. However, returning to Seattle, my former life seemed alien to me, uncomfortable. With no passion for my real estate career, I turned to writing. Focusing all of my energy into writing a book, Smiling at the World, I want to encourage other people to travel and volunteer. I also write freelance articles about the environment and feel a deep responsibility to help protect the earth, her resources and all of her inhabitants. Traveling and seeing the beauty on this planet, I want to be a part of the solutions to protect the earth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Alegro Publishing (November 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979974003
• ISBN-13: 978-0979974007
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,351,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smiling at the World, December 11, 2007

By 

Linda Swanson (seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Smiling at the World: A Woman's Passionate Yearlong Quest for Adventure and Love (Paperback)

Fantastic reading! Well written, thought provoking and inspiring. Who hasn't dreamed about a trip around the world? Here is a women that took a year and actually did it and for less than $27,000!! I'm so inspired as she did this when she was 57 and by herself. There is so much more to this story than just volunteering and traveling. A must read for anyone who has a dream to travel and a desire for adventure but keeps making excuses for why they can't do it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars amatuerish writing, January 24, 2008

By 

eileenwj - See all my reviews

This review is from: Smiling at the World: A Woman's Passionate Yearlong Quest for Adventure and Love (Paperback)

The author was courageous in writing her story and at times did bring a smile but it was also at times agony to read and was unable to finish the book. The deletion of her "romances" particularly would have done much to improve this book. Perhaps a little less honesty and more compassion for one of the struggling nonprofit groups the author had little sympathy for would have done much as well to improve the book. She was a volunteer breezing around the world and I thought it particularly unkind to brutalize a reputation of some of those just trying to do good. Where was the editor? This is my first negative review, sorry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Where was the editor?, October 10, 2011

By 

Petunia (Bellingham, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Smiling at the World: A Woman's Passionate Yearlong Quest for Adventure and Love (Paperback)

Perhaps it's unfair to write a review before finishing a book, but I'm likely to not finish it. It is such a shame that the author's incredible experience is documented with such a poor writing style - so "amateurish", as another reviewer put it. She recycles the same phrases over and over again; she has lengthy quotes of her very sappy conversations with lovers. How can she actually quote them? Did she have a tape recorder running? I don't blame someone who is trying to document and publish such a wonderful experience, but where was the editor? Someone should have been helping her to create something more professional. I think then her audience would be larger. Like I said, it is a shame. She deserves better.