Heidi Beierle
Bellingham, WA
Artist, writer, adventurer, and author of Heidi Across America
BOOK COVER
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: April 30, 2024
Genre: Travel, Self-Help
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
Page Count: 368
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0757324970
Price: $17.95
ABOUT THE BOOK
Heidi Across America is a gritty story of homecoming and the power of an open heart to connect with people across the nation. With the divisive politics of America in 2024, this memoir offers consideration for others and respect for the spirit of place as bridges to encounter our country and its people beyond the rifts.
Heidi Beierle had just finished her first year of graduate studies in community and regional planning and decided to pedal her bicycle solo from her home on the West Coast across rural America to the Preserving the Historic Road conference in Washington, D.C. What started as a research trip turned into an intimately physical and psychological encounter with self and nationhood.
Heidi was 35 and didn’t love much about herself except her ability to endure grueling physical undertakings. She viewed her journey as an opportunity to fix her failures and insufficiencies. There were also some research questions she wanted to explore: Why do people live in small towns and what do they like about it? Did a bicyclist like herself bring economic benefit to the small towns she visited? What could communities do to support or invite cyclists to stay in their towns? What could cyclists do to support the communities? It was an immersion in slow travel.
She was surprised by the kindness of strangers and the emotional pinch of traveling through Wyoming, where she grew up. Her journey led her through the plains and into the Ozarks, where the heat climbed to agonizing temperatures; every pedal stroke in the heat felt closer to death. By the time she completed the trip, Heidi discovered a newfound compassion for herself and a growing love for her country. Strangers opened their hearts to her, and in turn, she opened her heart to herself.
Many Americans are asking themselves the same questions today: How can I be okay in my own skin? What does it mean to be enough? How do I satisfy my desire to travel without harming the planet? What does it mean to love America?
We don’t often talk about how Americans seeing America can open us to the diversity, awe, and wonder available right here in our nation. Heidi Across America offers a journey to self-love, consideration for others, and respect for the spirit of place as pathways to find connection and home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heidi is a writer, artist, and creepy-crawly lover based in Bellingham, Washington. She writes about the sensory experience of being alive and enjoys detours to the underworld, inner space, and the cosmos. Her work has been published in National Geographic Traveler, High Desert Journal, VoiceCatcher Journal, Journal of America’s Byways, and on the Adventure Cycling Association blog.
Heidi grew up in Wyoming, where the wind, dryness, and desolate landscape made an imprint on her. This punishing environment taught her self-reliance, the beautiful dimensions of solitude, how to push through pain, and that survival is best friends with adaptation and death.
She earned three degrees, two in English and one in Community and Regional Planning, and worked as a consultant in active transportation planning and destination management.
Heidi makes personalized collage art postcards and won an award for the cowgirl outfit she crafted from trash bags and duct tape for the Worst Day of the Year Ride.
TALKING POINTS
- How towns can improve the health of their people and economies through equitable access to outdoor recreation
- What Heidi learned about the kindness of others and America along the way
- In an election year when tensions are high, Heidi can share how slow travel can build empathy among strangers and bring people together.
- Tips for a multi-day bicycling journey: how to pick your destinations and routes, and what to pack
- Her advice for other women wanting to go on a solo adventure
- How opening our hearts to others enables us to open our hearts to ourselves
- Tourism focused on learning and understanding an area: climate-friendly and slow travel, equitable access to outdoor recreation, and nature’s awesomeness
PRAISE
“Heidi Across America is a glorious celebration of adventure, the unwavering spirit, and the boundless potential that resides within each of us. As she pedals her way across the heartland, Heidi discover magnificent and challenging landscapes, captivating characters, and what it means to be a woman on her own in contemporary America. An unforgettable adventure that transcends miles, this beautiful book reveals the transformative power of the open road and the profound joy of self-discovery.”
—Karen Karbo, author of In Praise of Difficult Women
“Beierle’s honest account of her cross-country adventure scrapes off the veneer of bike touring and exposes the truth of pedaling away from the past. Readers will discover the grace and power that come from being vulnerable on a bike and on the page. I was rooting for Beierle to the very last page.”
—Sara Dykman, author of Bicycling with Butterflies
“Heidi Across America is a thrilling ride and glide through both landscape and story space. In these times where travel has turned into a complex labyrinth of stress, I found a home inside the journey, and heart enough for all of us. A triumph for those of us who care about moving through the world with care, compassion, and consciousness.”
—Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water and Thrust
“In the tradition of Wild and Eat Pray Love, Heidi Beierle’s memoir takes us on a courageous, unflinching journey of the road and spirit. Written with the kind of searing honesty so deeply needed in today’s Facebook and TikTok world, this book is a feast, an inspiration and an invitation to look within and find out what really matters.”
—Sara Connell, bestselling author of Thought Leader Academy and The Science of Getting Rich for Women
“Heidi Beierle lets us sit side-saddle as she rides from coast to coast, facing heat and headwinds, finding new friends and old demons, in a search for this place called America and her place within it. At once propulsive and poetic, epic and intimate, Heidi Across America will make you want to drop everything, take to the road, and see where you end up.”
—Brian Benson, author of Going Somewhere and co-author with Richard Brown of This Is Not for You
“Heidi Beierle’s memoir, Heidi Across America, is what we all need to read in our current climate of cultural and political division. Beierle brings her open-hearted curiosity to every roadway, every diner, and every person (or animal) she encounters, offering the reader a glimpse into what it really means to be a true citizen of a homeland as vast and diverse as the United States. On a bicycle and depending upon the kindness of strangers, this author takes us on a journey that is more than a grueling ride through the heartland. It is a guide for all of us to slow down and really look at what is right in front of us. If you need a shot of optimism and hope, Heidi Across America will put it right into your veins.”
—Cami Ostman, founder of The Narrative Project and author of Second Wind
“A journey of discovery from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Heidi Beierle’s solo bicycle adventure reveals an America writ small but full of generous, kind-hearted people. It is a vivid tale of a soul stretched across a continent, a story of strength and pain and resilience. It’s like seeing old friends in the people and places of America through new eyes.”
—David Goodrich, author of A Hole in the Wind and A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: May 17, 2022
Genre: Memoir / Christian Inspirational
Publisher: She Writes Press
Page Count: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1647429003
Price: $15.99