“In the morning with the rain and mist on the mountain it all looked just like a painting. Again, beautiful Gardens all over and many Birds singing. But then the tranquility was over, when a Chinese man came by and did his spitting, disgusting.”
– an excerpt from the book
ARPress is honored to publish Around the World in Eighty Years by Sabine Joyce. This book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the ARPress website.
Life doesn’t always unfold the way we plan it. Sometimes it drags us through storms, drops us in unfamiliar places, and dares us to start again with nothing but hope and a half-packed bag. Around the World in Eighty Years is a story born from that kind of living, one shaped not by luxury or luck, but by resilience, curiosity, and a stubborn belief that the world is worth exploring, no matter how rough the road is.
For Sabine Joyce, travel wasn’t about escape. It was about connection; to people, to history, to herself. Across decades and continents, through war and reinvention, she kept moving forward, collecting stories instead of possessions, courage instead of comfort. Her book isn’t just a travel memoir; it’s a quiet celebration of endurance and wonder. It’s proof that even a life marked by uncertainty can be breathtakingly full if we keep saying yes to what’s out there.
Some people collect souvenirs. Sabine Joyce collected stories; hundreds of them, scattered across continents, tucked into journals, and finally gathered into this remarkable book.
It’s not the kind of travel tale written from polished resorts or luxury cabins. Sabine’s journeys were built on dusty roads, slow trains, and low-cost hostels where the walls were thin, but the memories were rich. She didn’t just visit places; she lived inside them, eating local food, learning customs, and getting lost more than a few times along the way.
Born in Silesia after the Second World War, her earliest memories were not of comfort but of movement: refugee trains, border crossings, and the sound of soldiers urging her family forward. Maybe that’s what sparked the wanderlust that never left her. When she immigrated to the United States in 1960, she didn’t see a finish line; she saw the starting point for a lifetime of exploration.
Her stories read like postcards from the past: East Africa in the 1970s, where she fell asleep to the sound of lions roaring in the distance; a dhow voyage up the Kenyan coast that took ten days instead of three, complete with sharks circling below and laughter echoing above; a perilous bike ride to Machu Picchu before “adventure travel” was even a thing.
From encounters with Maasai warriors and market sellers to strangers who became friends, each page feels like another stamp in her passport, another heartbeat in her life on the move.
The book is so captivating not because of just where she went, but how she saw the world. Her writing is warm and a little mischievous, filled with humor and honesty. She never hides her fear or discomfort; she laughs at it, turns it into something human and relatable. Her world isn’t filtered or polished; it’s real, messy, and deeply alive.
Reading Sabine’s reflections feels a bit like sitting across from her at a kitchen table, coffee in hand, listening as she recalls moments that changed her; the smell of charcoal in Nairobi, the taste of coconut in Fiji, the quiet ache of returning to her homeland in Poland decades after the war. Every story carries the same heartbeat: gratitude. Gratitude for life, for motion, for the chance to see what’s around the next corner.
And maybe that’s what makes her book linger long after the last page. It reminds us that adventure doesn’t have to fade with age, that curiosity can carry us further than fear ever could. Sabine Joyce didn’t just travel the world; she lived it, loved it, and left behind a trail of stories for anyone brave enough to follow.
Around the World in Eighty Years isn’t really about travel. It’s about living wide open, saying yes to life, even when it’s unpredictable, even when it’s hard.
Because that’s what Sabine did, again and again: she kept moving forward, one country, one chapter, one brave heartbeat at a time.
Around the World in Eighty Years by Sabine Joyce is now available for purchase via the ARPress Bookstore.