What started out as a realization has become a new book for Carol Patterson, President of Kalahari Management, a Calgary-based ecotourism consulting company.

“It was on the long flight home from Africa that I suddenly realized that I was not the same person I had been when I left Canada,” Carol said. “I had changed. The country, the adventures, the people I met, the places I stayed all changed me; all for the better.”

This idea of being changed by travel stuck with her and last year she decided to develop the idea. She began writing and collecting travel stories for what became Reinventure: How Travel Adventure Can Change Your Life, published this month by Trafford Publishing of Victoria, B.C.

“Reinventure is not your average book of travel stories,” Carol said. “You won’t find lists of sights to see or restaurants to visit. It’s a collection of stories on how travel has transformed people and the communities they live in. Some are earth-shattering epiphanies while others are just small adjustments; but the common factor is that if you travel with an open mind and an open heart, change is inevitable.”

Reinventure: How Travel Adventure Can Change Your Life contains 41 stories recounting Carol’s adventures and the adventures of others with stories varying from a ghostly visitor to an ancient hotel to Carol finding herself in Africa between a charging elephant and the crocodile-laden Zambezi River. The stories vary from poignant to hilarious; but, in introducing each one, Carol often returns to the book’s theme of positive change through travel adventures.

“That change is not limited to people,” Carol said. “It can apply to places as well. Becoming a travel destination can have a profound effect on an area; a change that can be positive or negative depending on how it is handled.”

Carol has taken the concept of Reinventure explored in the book and developed it into a website – www.loseyourluggagefindyourself.com.

On the website, visitors can learn more about the concept, find ways to create your own Reinventure, take a quiz on whether or not you’re ready for a Reinventure, and contribute your own Reinventure stories.

Contact: Carol Patterson (carol@kalahari-online.com)

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