Finding Katya

How I Quit Everything to Backpack the Former Soviet States

By: Katie R. Aune

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Finding Katya is the inspiring and compelling story of one woman who ditches everything to embark on an unconventional adventure through the former Soviet Union.

On her 35th birthday, Katie Aune was at a crossroads. Still reeling from a difficult breakup and longing to find more meaning in her life, she hopped on a one-way flight to start a year-long journey of discovery. Once a Russian and East European Studies major in college, Aune plotted a course that would take her through all 15 states of the former Soviet Union.

In a book that is part memoir, part travelogue, Aune takes readers along as she discovers places that are far off the typical tourist track, from riding the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia and taking a cargo ferry from Ukraine to Georgia, to volunteering in Tajikistan and camping in the desert of Turkmenistan. Faced with the vulnerability of traveling solo through unfamiliar lands, she shakes off her insecurities, embraces the unknown and realizes that each journey is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t go as planned.

More memoir than travel log

I was so excited to hear the author’s experiences in the countries I visited when I was a young adult in the 90! Instead after 5 chapters of every amazing adventure clouded by bad memories and experiences from the author’s early life had me completely disappointed.

Maybe it was the expectation of actual travel adventure that made it so difficult to get through the therapy sessions of a victim that made me give up at chapter 5?

If you are looking for references to hard childhood experiences like not being part of the cool kids, not having a date on new years, or having a crappie step date mingled with the most amazing places to travel to… this book is for you!!