Courage Quest

Through Solo Adventure Travel

This is an engaging memoir of one woman’s solo backpacking travels through areas of the world most would not tackle, in her mid-life, she searched fifteen years for courage by confronting fear.

Sally DeMasi stepped from her comfort zone to expand new horizons and face her personal fears.  Leaving a lucrative career behind, turning her back on millions in stock options, she chose a backpack over a rolling suitcase.

Staying in hostels, traveling as locals do by bus, dolmuses, and ferries or on foot, she defiantly overcame - walking the streets of Nairobi, paddling down the angry Amazon River, meeting the empathetic people of Turkey, and, even in her new home state, challenging the major Salmon River rapids in Hell’s Canyon and beyond, with a new love.  She conquered her fears.

DeMasi provides vivid descriptions of people she met on her travels and her dangerous encounters as she peeled away the layers and repetition of an old life to reveal her real and confident self, a new refreshed and distinctive lens of self-discovery.

Now a professional photographer and author, DeMasi’s book is embellished with colorful, insightful photographs thoughtfully framed, capturing her new “adventurous” self.   “Courage Quest” reveals a story of personal growth that is both uplifting and inspiring.

Sally’s story offers encouragement to others, regardless of age or gender, to understand and overcome fear of the unknown; to seek and experience the joy of life’s treasures with a new self-awareness, confidence and the ability to live life fully. The reader may find a path within this memoir to explore how to reinvent theirs.

Reviews:

"Unexpected beauty unfolds in dangerous circumstances in Sally DeMasi's new book "Courage Quest." Through her recollections of solo adventure travel she experiences personal growth with newly found courage extracted from being forced out of her comfort zone. I enjoyed learning of fascinating places and people as though I had been packed in her super light backpack going along for the ride, and
anxiously awaiting the outcome."
Dania Van Schuyler
designer, traveler

“Sally DeMasi distills her extensive experience in global traveling into challenging adventures:

“I did not realize at the time that I was visiting one of the most important sacred sites in the world to heal the body, enlighten the mind, and inspire the heart.”

Ms. DeMasi’s experiences will do the same for you not only through reading the text, but following her ‘footsteps’ and suggestions at the end of the book.”

-Thea Belecz