When I split with my wife ten years ago, my antidote for the resulting feeling of loss and the negative emotions that a marriage breakup engenders was to be dramatically life altering. At the age of fifty-five I planned to teach English in Asia and South America. However, the road from plan to realization was littered with mental and physical obstacles, some of which almost proved fatal. Somehow surving these setbacks, I completed my quest by backpacking through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, South America, Central America, and Burma. This is a tale about my physical, emotional, and psychological journey.