Skip to main content
Lights to Guide Me Home

Lights to Guide Me Home

A Journey Off the Beaten Track in Life, Love, Adventure, and Parenting
ISBN: 9781771603591
$25.00
  • Paperback / softback Trade paperback (US)
This debut memoir is at once a captivating travelogue and an introspective look at what it takes to navigate the unfamiliar and find your way back home.

Meghan J. Ward was 21 years old when she journeyed across the country for a summer job in the Canadian Rockies. As an inexperienced hiker from the suburbs of the nation’s capital, she knew she was in for an adventure. But what she didn’t know was that her move to the mountains would result in a 90-degree turn towards a life she never expected.

In the Rockies, Meghan fell in love with the wilderness, the high elevations, and a man whose way of life expanded her horizons. As that summer drew to a close, she took her first of many courageous steps off the beaten path to create the life of her choosing—one that brought her a sense of purpose and meaning, and a new set of challenges.

In Lights to Guide Me Home Meghan takes us on a trip around the world while chronicling her transitions through some of life’s major milestones. From Costa Rica to Nepal, Rapa Nui to Malta, Meghan explores what it means to carve out her own identity amidst family expectations, her responsibilities as a parent to young children, and her marriage to an ambitious travel and landscape photographer. Whom will she discover beneath these entanglements?

Customer Reviews

Based on 28 reviews
96%
(27)
0%
(0)
4%
(1)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
J
Jennifer Roger
Captured so beautifully the growing pains of bringing a family into a life of adventure

Meghan was able to put into words so many of the feelings and emotions I experienced as I navigated how to incorporate my love of adventure with the pull and needs of motherhood. I have been to a few of the places she traveled to and so it was nostalgic to revisit them through her eyes. Her introspection made the big picture much more clear.

b
breexox
Not what I was hoping for

I had high hopes for this book but I didn't really care to hear the author's entire background. I was hoping for more of a focus on her parenting and continuing to live an adventurous life while doing so. For the primary audience of this book which is likely to be adventurous people who have or are thinking of having kids, her background is not all that interesting or inspiring and she comes across as very privileged and pretentious. It's things we've all done or could do. Couldn't get through the first quarter of the book.

N
Nordbye Family
Must Buy - Inspirational for all

Inspiring, honest, transparent, raw, and a list of very cool off-the-beaten-path places to visit, Lights to Guide Me Home is a must-read. Perhaps off Meghan’s primary market, as a male in my 50s, I found Lights to Guide Me Home one of the most inspiring books I have read. Meghan and her partner Paul are passionate about traveling far off the beaten path places with their very young family. Meghan is very honest about the challenges, whether small or large, of traveling with young children and, at times, the differences with her husband on the places to go. Through it all, Meghan and Paul overcome these challenges and experience great delight in their travels with their children. I find their passion, perseverance, and patience to figure out their challenges inspiring in figuring out my own challenges. Meghan’s honesty and transparency about her life are also inspiring. Whether you are looking for inspiration on traveling with a young family, overcoming your own challenges, and/or a list of very cool, off-the-beaten-path places to travel, you must buy and read Lights to Guide Me Home.

M
Matt Hill
Wonderful read that stirred memories

As Meghan shares her stories and challenges associated with maintaining her own identity and establishing a balance with a growing family, I was reminded of the journey and early days after my wife and I moved out West from Montreal. With our 4 years and 6 month old daughters in tow, we faced many new challenges, far from the support network of our extended families. It was wonderful to read Meghan’s well written stories that likely resonate with many of us.

m
mike
An important book about finding a balance between adventure and parenting.

I bought Meghan's book after hearing her read at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Meghan writes and speaks honestly about choosing a life outside the lines, and then what it's like bringing children into that life. She doesn't shy away from the realities of what it's like to bring children on big journeys and backcountry adventures (not easy!), yet she shows the other side of the story -- the joy of certain moments, and the power in passing on a lifestyle that's connected to the outdoors. As a parent and adventure traveller, I could relate at a deep level to Meghan's challenges and triumphs. A fantastic book for anyone navigating the massive shift from solo to family, and family to adventure family.

-Jane Marshall

Book Details

320

September 27, 2022

Width: 5.50 in
Height: 8.50 in

“Adventurers and parents alike often struggle to navigate through uncertain and ever-changing landscapes. Tackling both of those difficult endeavors at the same time compounds the challenges. Yet, in this fine book, author Meghan Ward illuminates how to seek adventure while still raising and guiding a family. Her wild tales and honest self-reflections reveal how juggling career, family and travel is not easy but can be done, and done well. This book will inspire moms and dads alike to be the best and bravest parents they can be as life’s wild journeys unfold.” —Jim Davidson, New York Times bestselling author of The Ledge: An Inspirational Story of Friendship and Survival and The Next Everest: Surviving the Mountain’s Deadliest Day and Finding the Resilience to Climb Again

“Before you set off into the wilds with a baby on your back, read this book! Meghan Ward gets down to the nitty-gritty of adventuring with infants: the frustrations and limitations, the sleep deprivation and drudgery, and the moments of sublime joy. With searing honesty, she also recounts her emotional voyage into motherhood as she refigures the balance in her marriage, recalibrates her dreams, and discovers a new version of herself. Beautifully crafted, and tackling the universal theme of facing big change, this is an engaging and thought-provoking read.” —Maria Coffey, award-winning author of Explorers of the Infinite, Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow, Fragile Edge and Visions of the Wild

“With clear eyes and ferocious honesty, Meghan Ward weaves together the hopes, struggles and joys that accompany her journey beyond the ‘standard 9-to-5’, and the quest for a life more true to her inner compass. In an age when long-standing societal assumptions about life, work, career and family are increasingly questioned, Lights to Guide Me Home offers a spark of possibility, a reminder that the act of untethering and leaping towards the unknown – never easy or simple – inevitably brings us closer to the things that really matter in life.” —Bruce Kirkby, author of Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of the Himalaya

Lights to Guide Me Home is the story of one woman’s deliberate creation of a new identity through adventure, and the reclamation of that adventure amidst the messy entanglements of motherhood. Ward’s prose is lively, crisp and full of sensory details that plunge us into each scene. Though she never sugarcoats the sometimes cringe-inducing chaos of travelling with young children in tow, Ward’s message is clear: life is wild and magical when we step off the beaten path.” —Jan Redford, author of End of the Rope: Mountains, Marriage & Motherhood

Lights to Guide Me Home is a stunning memoir that follows Meghan J. Ward, a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, on her journeys around the world and through her internal dialogues. Meghan grapples with motherhood and marriage in some of Earth’s most gorgeous terrains and tries to uncover what it means to return home. Fans of Wild and wilderness documentaries will love this unique debut!" - Zibby Mag

Lights to Guide Me Home is a candid tale of breaking with conventions and finding your true sense of self through outdoor adventure, then reinventing yourself as you become a mother. Through the good times and bad, Meghan explores her dual identities and what it means to raise a child while following your passion for travelling and living an open-air life. It is a journey that not only takes her to exotic locations around the world but also forces her to explore unknown spaces within herself. Meghan’s vulnerability and strength make her story equal parts relatable and inspiring.” —Linda Åkeson McGurk, author of The Open-Air Life and There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather