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Round Ireland with a Duck: via bikes, buses, trains, and WWOOFing in search of roots . . . and wings
Paperback
Series: Round America and Ireland with a Duck
Biographies GeneralTravel GeneralTravel Writing
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 1 2025
Pages: 270
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.61 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
A solo budget travel memoir of Ireland-by a 60-year-old woman backpacking, cycling, and WWOOFing across the country on just $20 a day.
If you've ever dreamed of solo travel in Ireland, exploring your roots, or taking a meaningful journey on a budget, Round Ireland with a Duck offers an unforgettable, deeply human adventure that proves it's never too late to begin again.
Feral in the 1960s and '70s, Pattie Baker refused to be tamed-pedaling through her youth and later backpacking across Europe on just $20 a day. Decades later, as a newly minted empty nester, she reclaimed that same fearless spirit, traveling across the United States by bike, buses, trains, and WWOOFing. She turned 60 along the way, her rubber duck Disco strapped to her handlebars, documenting the journey in Round America with a Duck.
Now, in this gutsy and soulful sequel, she brings that wild spirit-and her trusty duck-to Ireland. Traveling exactly 100 years after her grandparents emigrated, she sets out on a solo journey across Ireland, using borrowed bikes, public transportation, and WWOOFing placements on organic farms-all while sticking (more or less) to her original $20-a-day budget.
This is not a traditional Ireland travel guide-but readers interested in budget travel in Ireland, solo female travel, cycling across Ireland, WWOOFing experiences, and Irish heritage journeys will find both inspiration and practical insight woven into every mile.
Along the way, she digs into soil and story-working farms, meeting unforgettable strangers, and exploring the emotional terrain of ancestry, aging, and identity. With humor, grit, and openness, she confronts old sorrows and embraces joy as an act of resistance in a troubled world. In one powerful moment, she even attempts to lift an ancient family curse-offering healing not just for herself, but for generations to come.
This is a story of movement-across land, across time, and into the self.
Perfect for readers who love:
- Solo travel in Ireland and transformational journeys
- Budget travel and backpacking adventures
- Cycling travel and slow travel experiences
- WWOOFing, sustainable living, and farm life
- Irish heritage, diaspora stories, and ancestry travel
- Women's midlife and later-life adventure memoirs
Meet unforgettable people. Rediscover your wild. And maybe-just maybe-change your life.
Warning: May inspire radical self-trust, spontaneous travel plans, and singing to cows in the rain. Trust the journey.
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Baker, Pattie
Round America with a Duck: via bike, buses, trains and working on organic farms
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