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With nothing but her backpack and an open-ended ticket, Torontonian Aly Coy spends five years travelling Western Europe. She is faced with a decision: to stay in a tumultuous relationship homesteading in The Spanish Pyrenees, or go back to a life she had given up as a young professional in Toronto. She attempts to live off-the-grid but finds herself planning an escape from an emotionally and verbally abusive partner.The reader travels in time and space where Aly has little-to-no money, works in tourism, learns how to garden, lives on a commune, dumpster dives, discovers herbal medicine, and falls for all the wrong men and women. In her heartfelt travel memoir, unpacked, Aly Coy goes into raw detail about her sexually charged, sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, life abroad. "I work through trauma by writing and sharing stories with others who have similar experiences," Aly Coy says. "I was lost, looking for a different way of life and my partner Josef seemed to have all the answers...There are many dark moments in the book but I also found humour in it all." unpacked: a memoir of checked baggage strips layers of emotional turmoil while Aly Coy hostel hops, books flights, and misses trains. Aly Coy is a herbalist, small business owner of Barefoot Daughter: botanical body care, and author of her debut memoir, unpacked. She has three European travel guides published on unanchor.com, and over a dozen articles published in The Dalhousie Gazette while she acted as arts and culture editor. She studied English Literature at Dalhousie University, True to Life: Writing Your Own Story at Ryerson University, and at the Creative Writing School at Humber College, and continues to write on her blog Barefoot Daughter.To order Aly Coy's botanical body care or find out more info on unpacked visit www.barefootdaughter.com (less)

With nothing but her backpack and an open-ended ticket, Torontonian Aly Coy spends five years travelling Western Europe. She is faced with a decision: to stay in a tumultuous relationship homesteading in The Spanish Pyrenees, or go (…more)