Adrift Across Europe

A Coming-of-Age Travel Memoir About Two Best Friends Backpacking Europe in the Heart of the 1970s.

Coming in late 2024…

  • Marianne and her best friend Mona stuffed everything they needed into their external framed backpacks for their six month journey on the rails and roads of Europe. Their goal was to survive on five dollars a day. They set out to search for themselves, following the ideals of a fictional character, Larry Darrell, in The Razor’s Edge, a novel they read in high school. This coming-of-age memoir opens their hearts to new cultures, places, and people that would impact their lives forever.

  • Before the invention of iPhones, traditional communication proved difficult. When they reached Ireland, birthplace of Marianne's father, they learned about the Dublin car bombings three weeks earlier, in May, 1974. The bombings and a city bus strike found them hitching rides from cheery locals to visit family in Dublin, then south to Cork, west to Kerry, north to Galway, and back to Dublin. Meeting family for the first time in Dublin and Cork caused a slight stir as no one knew when the travelers would arrive and how long they would stay until they rang the doorbell.

  • Marianne and Mona traveled via train with Eurail passes that allowed unlimited travel for specified periods of time. Above, the two wait for the steepest standard gauge railway line in the world to pick them up from the main Oslo-Bergen train line for the journey down to Flåm, a pristine Norwegian village at the base of the Sognefjord. Like every stop they made, moments of reflection and growth embellished their stay, making indelible marks on their hearts and souls.