About The Author

AbOUT tHE Author

Alena Zhdanava

Curiosity has always been my compass. What began as an ordinary childhood in Belarus, turned into an extraordinary journey across the globe. I grew up believing in the traditional formula for happiness – study hard, earn a degree, find a stable job – but the first time I set foot abroad, everything changed. I discovered how vast, complex, and beautifully diverse the world truly is, and I’ve been exploring it ever since.

Over the years, I’ve lived in ten countries and traveled to nearly a hundred across the continents. I’ve taught English in China, Thailand, Malaysia, and the UAE; worked in post-civil-war Angola and dynamic, multicultural Australia; pursued Master’s degrees in Greece and South Korea; earned a Ph.D. in Malaysia. I’ve traveled through the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Each place has left its mark, teaching me about resilience, culture, empathy, and the shared human experience.

These adventures inspired three travel memoirs that explore the deeper meaning of life through movement, adaptation, and connection. My most recent 1.5-year journey across continents has become the foundation of my fourth book.

When I’m not writing or wandering, I create travel videos for YouTube, read about personal growth, and explore vegan cuisine wherever I go. My greatest education has come from the road, from conversations with strangers, moments of uncertainty, the quiet awe of seeing the world with open eyes, and this is what I aim to share with you.

My Mission

I write to explore what it means to belong – to a place, to a moment, to ourselves. Through my years of travel, I’ve discovered that home isn’t always a single destination on the map; sometimes it’s a fleeting sunrise, a shared story, or that quiet feeling of being exactly where you’re meant to be. My mission is to transform the miles I’ve traveled into stories that awaken something in others: the courage to go, the curiosity to see the world differently, and the passion to live a life that truly feels like your own.

Life is too short to wait for the “right time,” and too precious to spend standing still. Every day is an opportunity to begin, to explore, and to step into something bigger than fear or routine. These memoirs and reflections are not just tales; they are my invitation to you: to chase what lights you up, to follow the road that calls your name, and to find your own version of home in this wide, wonderful world. The journey I’ve lived has taught me invaluable life lessons from traveling that I hope to share with you through my travel around the world memoirs.