Patagonian Road: A Year Alone Through Latin America

by Kate McCahill

"This welcome (and timely) call to explore foreign borders, as well as our own comfort zones, is highly recommended." - Library Journal
"I lived and breathed every place this book touched down and when I turned the last page my heart ached." -Robin MacArthur, author, Half Stories
"This book has a lot to offer. Don't miss it." -- Amazon Customer
Four seasons, ten countries, three teaching jobs, and countless buses...join McCahill on a woman's daring solo journey from Guatemala to Argentina.

In her struggles with language, romance, culture, service, and homesickness, she personifies a growing culture of women for whom travel is not a path to love but to meaningful work, rare inspiration, and profound self-discovery.

Following Paul Theroux's route from his 1979 travelogue, McCahill transports the reader from a classroom in a Quito barrio to a dingy room in an El Salvadorian brothel, and from the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires to the heights of the Peruvian Andes.

A testament to courage, solitude, and the rewards of taking risks, Patagonian Road proves that discovery, clarity, and simplicity remain possible in the 21st century, and that travel holds an enduring capacity to transform.

"Kate McCahill is a blues traveler, singing for citizens of the world who have no public voice. She depicts beauty within despair, allowing us to hear a comforting melody in an unsettling breeze and see the gorgeous colors within a bruise. If a feeling of loneliness pervades her essays, so do feelings of wonder and pleasure. It's simply impossible not to share her joyful and frequently bewildering sensations of travel." --Sascha Feinstein, author, Black Pearls
"With her Lonely Planet guide in one hand and Paul Theroux in the other, Kate McCahill backpacks from Guatemala to Buenos Aires losing love and finding a whirlwind assortment of ex-pats, aid workers, travel junkies, and locals. Patagonian Road is a millennial's adventure story, roughing it in the age of Skype and cell phones, through a Latin America still in recovery from decades of revolution, American meddling, and authoritarian misrule." --Douglas Glover, author and editor, Numéro Cinq
If you love travel, self-discovery, Kristin Newman's What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding and Cheryl Strayed's Wild , then do not miss McCahill's memoir.

Genres: Travel, Memoir, Nonfiction, Adventure

364 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2017

About the author

Kate McCahill was born and raised in Lake Placid, New York and is a graduate of Wellesley College (BA) and the Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA). In 2010, she was awarded the Mary Elvira Stevens Traveling Fellowship, which funded one year of teaching and writing through Latin America. McCahill’s essays, stories, and poems have been published in VOX, THE MILLIONS, HIPPOCAMPUS, and elsewhere.

Today, McCahill lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Assistant professor of English at the Santa Fe Community College, McCahill serves as faculty advisor for the Santa Fe Literary Review, SFCC’s nationally and internationally- distributed literary magazine.

Learn more at www.katemccahill.com.

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate McCahill takes a year to explore 10 countries in South America. She was inspired by Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express (which she carried with her) and duplicates his route with modifications, traveling by bus and cab. She does this alone she feels her partner back home drifting away.

The first part of her trip seems to be somehow planned in advance. There are homestays, English lessons and volunteer jobs. It seems that after Nicaragua and a visit from the slipping away lover “E_” she is on her own emotionally as well as in travel.

McCahill’s travelogue is like a movie of her trip. She recounts the transportation, how she finds it, how she waits, its cost and security and efficiency (mostly lack of). She similarly covers food, flora, streetscapes, landforms, markets, accommodations… This movie-view shows most in the people she meets. I can’t remember the names but the woman with the teenage sons and the man running from his wife come to mind. We see them like scenes of a film with no backstory or context. Why are they there? How typical they? Any context regarding the border guards and the park attendant in these “scenes” would similarly be welcome too.

While the prose is good to excellent throughout, I appreciated the later shorter chapters. The ones on the Bolivia mine and the landlord sisters in Argentina stand out. Here, McCahill gets as close as she gets to going deep.

There are generational and gender differences between the trip and the text of McCahill and Theroux. McCahill tells the reader about her life outside the trip. With Theroux, if he mentions it, you don’t really remember where he actually lives or if he has a family. Theroux may visit old friends, writing colleagues etc., but he doesn’t travel with them. McCahill shares not only meals but rooms and road time with other women and flirting young men she meets along the way. Theroux is a master of context. He does not just meet people, he “interviews” them. If McCahill can develop this and refine her more personal approach, she might produce modern travel classics.

This is a good book for armchair travelers with an interest in South America.

[Jenny Belardi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Kate McCahill is a beautiful writer and I'll look forward to seeing what she does next. The descriptions here were great. But, I felt like this book was missing something. It didn't feel like she was interacting with the places other than the last 100 pages and a few spots earlier on. I wanted to know more about her past and her reactions to the place. A lot of it was straight description, and I barely felt she was a character in her own memoir. Maybe this was intentional and I wanted something the book wasn't, but even the subtitle made me think I'd be getting more of the author here.

[Dave McCahill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Kate's book while meandering through Europe this spring. Patagonian Road came with me to the rugged coast of the Baltic Sea, to little mountain huts in the French Alps, through the busy streets of Berlin and to the snowcapped peaks on the border of Italy and Austria. Every night I turned a page and stepped out into the bustling markets of Beunos Aires, thick jungle in Ecuador, endless stretches of salt in Bolivia. Patagonian Road takes the reader along on a journey of self-discovery, while gently reminding them of the importance of home, family, the open road, and the profound pleasure to be found in simply getting lost. Blessed with a true gift for sharing the vivid smells, sights and sounds to be encountered in any foreign place, Kate reminded me that travel isn't about acquiring photos or visiting the right places, it's about fully embracing the journey and the lessons it can share.

Beautifully written, Kate.

Your brother Dave

[Zeenat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Its a poorly written chronological book of someone's travel through Latin America. Disclosure - I couldn't get pass the first 50 pages. The writing style provided imagery of the places, with no real true insights and use of language that was interesting. It felt like a high school book report of a student's travel who is struggling to find her identity and see the world in a new way. It lacked in Bill Bryson's wittiness but also a unique way of viewing the world and the experiences to capture the reader. Overall, I am surprised by other people's positive review of the book.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate McCahill is an extraordinary writer. And Patagonian Road is a book I just didn't want to end.

Kate's writing is observant, perceptive, thoughtful, empathetic. She's able to put things down on the page that most people don't even begin to know how to articulate.

If you love words and really good writing, if you love brilliant, strong, brave, adventurous women, if you love travel, and having your experiences and your perceptions challenged and stretched, if you're soul searching, trying to figure out what you want to do in life, and what matters to you, read this book.

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I am in love with how this woman sees places and people. The prose is BEAUTIFUL and her observations are, too. I wish she wrote about her much-feared return to the States, but this is a gorgeous book and perfect reading while travelling Central America. I might even - god forbid - lug this one around in my pack for rereading in a few months! Now THAT'S a sign of a good book.

[Izzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this book for its ability to show the reader cities of the world that they may have never seen, I couldn't get over the fact that the book was mainly focused on the author instead of the places. There were MANY chapters where I learned nothing, except that she was getting over her ex-girlfriend by fooling around with strangers. And honestly, I don't give a rats buttocks about her relationship. I much preferred the sections that provided history and information on the locations she was experiencing.

A shame, because the writing itself isn't half bad.

[Jenny Tainsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! With her incredible words, the author took me along on her year of traveling alone in South and Central America. She described with her 5 senses in such a way that I felt I was there, I was transported. I am sad it's over, but now I'm on a mission to read many more travel memoirs.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patagonian Road: A Year Alone Through Latin America by Kate McCahill (Santa Fe Writer's Project 2017) (918.04). Kate McCahill spent a year after college accumulating graduate school credit while wandering on scholarship and stipend through Central and South America. This is a travelogue / travel journal of her meanderings. The observations she deemed worthy of inclusion in these writings, while well on-point, are obviously and unmistakeably the thoughts and emotions of a very young person who has not yet encountered much of the wide world.

Her trip was loosely based on the writings of Paul Theroux during his South American sojourn in the late twentieth century. Author McCahill travelled from Central America to Argentina with Buenos Aires being her southernmost stop.

During the first half of the book, the author spends many pages and describes a great deal of mental anguish over a dying lesbian relationship with a friend back home. I mention this because I can't recall another mainstream travel journal written from an LGBT perspective. However, the last quarter of the journal as well as the author's bio inside the back cover hint that the author may have changed teams prior to the publication of this volume.

This is a fine first book. My rating: 7/10, finished 7/7/19.

[Bill Taggart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, makes you want to follow in her footsteps.

I really liked this book. I only wish there was a little more detail of some of the locations. A few spots only received a few pages. Definitely makes you want to travel.

[Judith Prest]

I haven't read a "travel" book for a long time. This popped up in Kindle and so I got it and read it. I loved Kate McCahill's story of her journey through South America. I admire her courage for setting out on her own, her willingness to let each day unfold as it will, and her reflections on how her connections to home and relationships shifted as she moved deeper into her travels.

[Cathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One woman’s journey alone throughout much of Spanish-speaking Central and South America.

[Elyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating memoir about a woman traveling solo through Latin America. Her writing is highly descriptive, so I often felt like I was with her. I also appreciate that she was humble, grateful, open-minded, and eager to learn.

[Peggy Gastner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely prose. The author really paints a picture of the places she goes and the people she meets.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing more fulfilling than letting your imagination transport you to another world, or in the case of Patagonian Road - another continent. As a stay-at-home mom, my walls can feel like they are closing in on me, and that is why it is important to find books that let me feel like I'm flying. I felt like I was flying alongside Kate McCahill as I read her book. The smells of the food, the subtle way she described people's personalities with just one adjective, and the simplicity of her descriptions of the sights and sounds really transported me. Patagonian Road feels raw but refined, and it makes me want to know the author and spend a month traveling with her. I appreciate that she spent the time putting her thoughts on paper so I could share her journey with her. I hope she writes another book soon, so I can join her on another adventure and transport myself once again -- even with a crying baby in the background.

[Megan Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

One star off for everything E- in the beginning (especially just calling her E- and not giving her a fake name). My enjoyment of this went up drastically in the second half once E- wasn’t involved anymore. I was just totally pulled out of the story anytime we got one of the flashbacks of her.

And one star off for the sheer amount of the use of some iteration of the phrase “ people that were Disappeared.” Which I’ve never heard in my life but read THREE times on one page! Plus like, five more times earlier in the book. I was also pulled out of the story every time I read this phrase.

Overall I liked it but these two things just really got me.

[JH · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very well written, but kind of dry. I just didn’t enjoy the reading experience. It was not fun escapism, but rather a detailed account of how the author spend a year in South America. Probably a better choice for someone other than me.

[Suzanne Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

McCahill does an excellent job making the fears, loneliness, joy, and short-term friendships of travel palpable. Her sense of place is often perfect as she describes details rather than attempting to capture the whole of any location. I have been to many of the places she describes, and she was able to take me back to each of them with her well selected observations. I also enjoyed her insights about our privilege as tourists and our need for simplicity. I wanted to get on the road right away, so this may not be a good book to read during Covid. I would, however, not want to spend as much time as she did on busses.

[Christina F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing was good and I liked how she ended it. However there was something that made it drag on. "Wild" was much better. I did not feel connected to the author and was looking for more about her actual experiences and less about her personal life prior to her year abroad. I have never been nor will I (probably) never travel to Central and South America. I was hoping for a book that would allow me to experience her trip vicariously through her words. Instead I felt abandoned.
I gave it 3 stars because her use of language was beautiful.

[Rick B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeously written and evocative book that will make you feel that you are in amidst the very places Ms. McCahill visits. A true gem of a travelogue. Easily one of my favorite travel books.

Spoiler Alert - while I adore this book, the title is a bit misleading as she never truly reaches or explores Patagonia. Despite that flaw, the author's writing is so beautiful, and the story is so compelling and enriching, I am willing to overlook that issue. A lesser quality book would have ended on a sour note and I would have penalized it in my rating due to this flaw.

[Silvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled onto this book as I was wandering around my local library. Decided to grab it since I’m hoping to finally set foot in South America this year. Turned out to be a great read!! I did feel like there were some parts towards the end, before reaching Argentina, that felt... rushed? or travel burnout seeping through? Not as good as the first half of the book or the end, but I truly enjoyed Kate’s writing, which is why I’m giving it 5 stars. And I’ve just come out with my South American wanderlust at an all time high, so the book did it’s job. Would definitely recommend!

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are obvious editing errors in this book. If, like me, this turns you off of books - please continue with this one. The author plays with language the way only a mutilingual first time author can. It is beautiful in short spurts throughout. Two of the many passages that made me fold a corner: "...and everywhere the streetlamps will reflect the puddles of rain on the pavement." & "The clouds filter through the plazas and settle on the cobblestone streets." I could keep reading this book for a long time.

[Elyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay

While it was interesting to read a book from the perspective of a young woman traveling by herself, I found the book to be missing something. She spent a lot of time describing the surroundings, how the environment felt but I was missing the conversations and human interaction she must’ve had. I would’ve loved to hear more about the culture of the city she was in and hear more about the people she met.

[Lori Bindner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic journey

Going on this journey with Kate McCahill was exhilarating, fascinating and I learned so much. A year of one's life can hold so many memories and experiences, it was grand to share these with her. I learned .much, loved most and was really thrilled through each page to be taken by her hand and led through her imagination as she travelled.
Thank you, Katy.

[Majo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si han viajado alguna vez como mochileros se identificarán muchísimo con la autora, mas allá de las descripciones de los lugares y de la gente, hace un análisis súper bonito de los sentimientos que van aflorando mientras viajas. Definitivamente uno de los mejores libros de viaje que he leído. =D

[Stephen Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

I, being a wanderer most of my life, empathized with “Patagonian Road”’s main character’s sense of adventure . . . her curiosity of seeing new things, new places, and different cultures. Mx. McCahill’s descriptive powers are Herculean. I hope to read soon her next book.

[Sandra K. Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book!

I loved this book. Kate is a great writer, the book is easy to read, and I will read more by this author. She made me feel that I was right beside her in her travels. She is a pretty young gal who is very brave to travel alone to foreign countries.

[Librarian Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book because it transported me back to South America. I was in the Peace Corps and lived in Ecuador for two years and have spent a lot time in other parts of Latin America and Kate's words took me back to the place, sounds and smells with a raw honesty.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads. Really enjoyed. Very inspirational and well written. A great journey for the reader as well as the author.

[Olga Vannucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

She takes all of us
Along on the bus
On this extraordinary
Itinerary.