Uncharted

Praise

Silver Nautilus Book Award Winner

“Refreshingly relatable…Uncharted [is a] firm reminder that despite the independent allure of solo travel, sometimes we can’t change on our own.”
—Outside

“Exquisitely written.”
—Forbes

“Ms. Seely captures the action and nature encountered on the couple’s journey in lyrical prose and descriptions. As they navigate their way through fiords and rough waters and feel the sting of cold air, they also find a new way to envision their future together.”
—Wall Street Journal, “The Best Books About Retirement and Aging of 2019”

“Like Cheryl Strayed and M. Wylie Blanchett, Kim Brown Seely reminds us that the best travel narratives are about emotional explorations even more than physical ones. Uncharted has all the adventure you might expect when an inexperienced couple takes a too large sailboat too far north, on a quest to escape an empty nest and find a white Spirit bear. But what makes this book exceptional is the way its journey slows you down and expands your soul.”
—Erica Bauermeister, bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients

“Seely’s travel writing is luminous, her prose mystical and revelatory…[her] nautical journey makes for an intimate, satisfying narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Just because I’ll never follow in Seely’s footsteps doesn’t mean that reading the account of her journey wasn’t wonderfully exciting from the safety of my sofa.”
—Margot Kahn, Bust 

“There are close calls, lost anchors and lost tempers, yet what Seely finds along the way makes Uncharted one of the most compelling books of nature writing that I’ve read in a while (and this after a steady recent diet of Richard Powers, Robert Macfarlane and Barry Lopez).”
—Post and Courier

“Uncharted is a marvelous journey of beauty and wonder, love and loss, loons and eagles, hemlocks and giant kelp, sea wolves, humpback whales, and bears. Kim Brown Seely celebrates it all: gale warnings, napkin-drawn maps, the luxury of slowness, the exuberance of disco dancing at the dish sink, and the hard-won grace of letting go and stepping out into the rain.”       
—Ana Maria Spagna, author of Uplake
 
“Uncharted is the Moby Dick of empty-nest tales. Kim Brown Seely, her sons suddenly grown-up and gone, journeys on a sailboat through risky Northwest waters, meditating on the pains and blessings of marriage, parenthood, and escape to the wilds. She writes so exquisitely well—you can hear the humpback whales breathe.”         
—Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14
 
“Kim Seely’s page-turning meditation on marriage, family, letting go, and the pull of the unknown is equal parts inspiration and confessional, with the untamed Pacific Northwest coast as a backdrop. A deftly written Wild for the empty-nest set—and for anyone who’s ever arrived at a crossroads in life—it lays bare a reckoning with midlife in all its messy, tearful, triumphant revelation.”     
—Marika Cain, Virtuoso Life
 
“Uncharted takes us on a voyage of adventure that is at its heart, a meditation on the changing nature of love.”       
—Leslie T. Sharpe, author of The Quarry Fox
 
“A beautifully transporting journey.” 
—Paul Nicklen, National Geographic photographer