Every Step Is Home (Paper)

"A beautiful successor to Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and Kerouac’s On the Road, Lori Erickson’s Every Step Is Home illuminates our spiritual connection to the natural world. Her ‘pilgrimage of the heart’ reminds us that our future depends most of all on that connection." - Richard Louv, author of Our Wild Calling and Last Child in the Woods

"In this good-humored, rich blend of travelogue, spiritual reflection, and scientific inquiry, Lori Erickson asks and answers the question: If we engage deeply and intimately with nature’s sacred places, will we ever go back inside for spiritual experience? Using the author’s model of curiosity, wonder, and mindful attention, readers will be inspired to undergo their own spiritual quests to sacred sites near and far." - Beth Norcross, Executive Director, The Center for Spirituality in Nature

"As a fellow nomad, I resonate with the author’s discovery of the sacred in surprising places across the United States. This travelogue will encourage you to stretch your own spirituality with an invitation to explore the natural world as a touchstone to the shared story of God’s people." - Stephanie Fritz, Coordinator for Christian Formation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), full-time RVer, and digital nomad

"Movement and stillness, rhythm and silence, taking a trip and going home—this book will give you all that at once. Erikson creates a physical space with words. It’s a place where you can breathe deeply—in spite of everything. We all need more places like that." - Erin Wathen, pastor and author, www.homeandholler.com

"Travel writer Erickson has written a travelogue about areas of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, that have sacred and spiritual meaning to people now and throughout history. The author’s journeys, taken with her husband and mostly via camper during the start of the COVID lockdown, focus on the transformative power of land, air, water, landmarks, and animal migrations and roundups. Ideal for fans of Erickson’s work, curious readers, armchair travelers, and those who are compelled to take a spiritual pilgrimage." - Library Journal

"In this book, Erickson’s steps don’t lead to grand cathedrals but to the transformative, powerful elements supporting life itself. All of these sites moved her so much that she wondered why, after having encountered the spirit under the vastness of the sky, or in the majestic presence of nature’s wildness, anyone would ever again seek what’s holy in a building. Each mythical site visited in Every Step Is Home speaks to the bond between humans and the natural world, affirming the notion that 'some truths are so large that only a myth can contain them.'" - Foreword Reviews

"Erickson, who is always good company, contends that humans are designed to move, and her highly readable, thought-provoking pilgrimage is proof positive of that elemental fact. The peripatetic will rejoice." - Booklist