Adventures in Opting Out: A Field Guide to Leading an Intentional Life finds the Canadian author Cait Flanders leaving her comfortable perch in Squamish, British Columbia, to "slowly travel full-time" for a year. She books a one-way ticket to London, arriving late March 2019 with loosely laid-out plans and a desire to make temporary homes in places that suit her fancy, living the ultimate untethered existence.
An avid hiker and engaging storyteller, Flanders burst onto the self-help memoir scene with The Year of Less, documenting the year she instituted a shopping ban. With several opt-out adventures under her belt, including her decision to give up alcohol, she sees a fascinating parallel between taking a different path in life and the psychological work required to climb a mountain. She describes the ups and downs of her year abroad, and shares with humor and sincerity the unadulterated truth of what it really takes to "do the opposite of what everyone around [you] is doing." The reward, she reveals, is in the trying, and if all goes well, the satisfying ascent to a new way of living, one in which you are more yourself than before.
Adventures in Opting Out is a deeply honest emotional guide, advising readers to tune into the instincts that indicate it's time to consider a new path, whether that's giving up on goals that others expect us to follow, or rejecting the subconscious restrictions we place on ourselves. --Shahina Piyarali, writer and reviewer