We're excited to have author Tracy Smith join us for a blog tour of her book, The Purpose of Getting Lost. This book is perfect for readers navigating midlife transitions, questioning long-held identities, or longing to stop performing and finally feel at home within themselves. Join us as we celebrate the launch of her book and interview her about her writing journey. You'll also have the chance to win a copy for yourself.
Before we get to that, here's more about The Purpose of Getting Lost:
The Purpose of Getting Lost is a reflective memoir about identity, belonging, and the courage to question the life you’ve carefully built. As Tracy Smith enters midlife—navigating the end of a long marriage, children growing up, and a growing sense of disconnection—she realizes she has spent years performing for expectations rather than listening to herself.
Through solo travel across more than thirty countries, Tracy doesn’t search for reinvention or escape, but for clarity. In unfamiliar places and quiet moments in between, she begins to notice her patterns, longings, and the stories she’s lived by—some worth keeping, others ready to be released.
Told with honesty, warmth, and insight, The Purpose of Getting Lost explores what it means to stop waiting to belong and start building a sense of home from the inside out. It’s a book for anyone who has ever felt out of place, questioned who they are becoming, or sensed that getting lost might be an essential part of finding their way.
Publisher: Compass Story Press
ISBN-13: 979-8993320717
ASIN: B0GFY8KR3J
Print length: 264 pages
Purchase a copy of The Purpose of Getting Lost on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop. Be sure to add it to your GoodReads reading list.
About the Author, Tracy Smith
Tracy Smith, Ph.D. is a writer exploring the intersection of travel, identity, and belonging. Her work focuses on the small, often uncelebrated moments when women begin choosing themselves—sometimes quietly, sometimes far from home.
Through personal narrative and place-based storytelling, Tracy examines what happens when certainty loosens, expectations fall away, and life is allowed to remain unresolved. Her writing is less about escape and more about attention: noticing how freedom, acceptance, risk, and community take shape in everyday lives across cultures and landscapes.
She is the author of The Purpose of Getting Lost and the creator of The Geography of Connection, an ongoing project that follows these themes through travel, essays, and lived experience. Tracy’s work speaks to readers navigating reinvention, midlife change, and the courage it takes to live without a neat ending.
You can follow the author on:
Website: https://tracysmithauthor.com/
--- Interview by Nicole Pyles
WOW: Congrats on The Purpose of Getting Lost! How has your background in psychology shaped the way you approached writing this memoir?
Tracy: My background in psychology gave me tools for understanding cognitive patterns — how people process experience, make meaning, and behave in the world. But honestly, the more important thing it gave me was self-awareness. Writing this memoir forced me to look at my own patterns first. And once I could see them clearly in myself, I started recognizing them everywhere — in how strangers moved through a space, how people signaled connection without words. That's really what gave birth to the Geography of Connection. The good news is you don't need a doctorate to do this kind of looking. You just have to be willing to pay attention.
WOW: I love when we can recognize our own patterns in ourselves. How did the memoir evolve from your first draft to the final version?
Tracy: When I first decided to write this book, I downloaded my Facebook feed — I had been documenting my travel experiences there for the past several years. I had close to 100,000 words and 200 single-spaced pages. I sent it to an editor and thought, great, here is a book. It wasn't until he and I talked extensively that I realized I didn't have a message. I couldn't tell anyone why they should pick up my book of travel stories over anyone else's. A lot of writers have funny travel stories.
So he gave me a homework assignment. The question that turned everything around was deceptively simple: describe the demographic characteristics of your primary audience. I sat with it and realized I wasn't describing a stranger. I was describing women in my everyday life: women who had lost themselves, who didn't feel like they belonged anywhere, who were one life event away from blowing everything up or breaking open. Once I saw her clearly, I saw her everywhere. That became the spine of the book.
WOW: What an inspiring assignment! Tell us about The Geography of Connection and how it relates to The Purpose of Getting Lost.
Tracy: Most people think belonging is something you feel. I’m interested in how it’s something you can see.
The Geography of Connection is a project that examines what belonging looks like, not as a feeling, but as something you can observe— through behaviors, postures, and movement, and then questions how those signals of belonging are shaped by culture and environment.
The project grew directly out of writing the memoir, where I started by looking at my own patterns. That process forced me to look at my own patterns first, to understand where I had and hadn't felt like I belonged. Once I could see those signals in myself, I started recognizing them everywhere — in how strangers moved through a space, how people positioned themselves toward or away from each other. What struck me was how universal the signals were across cultures, even when everything else was different.
The Geography of Connection is my attempt to build a framework around that — to make that kind of looking accessible to anyone, not just researchers. Because once you learn to see belonging, you start to understand what you've been missing and now you can feel it differently. And that's where everything changes.
WOW: That's amazing. What advice would you offer women who feel nervous about breaking free from the traditional path, as you did?
Tracy: Somewhere along the way, most women I know stopped being a person and became a collection of roles — mother, daughter, wife, friend, colleague. Those identities aren't wrong, but they have a way of crowding out the one underneath. The woman who existed before all of them.
The first step back is smaller than you think. Maybe it's reading a chapter before washing the dishes. A walk at sunset before the nighttime routine starts. It sounds almost too simple — but what those small acts do, over time, is remind you that you exist outside of what you do for everyone else. And once you see that, once you feel it even briefly, something shifts. You start to understand that choosing yourself isn't abandonment. It's just remembering.
WOW: I love your advice on taking that first step back. What are you working on now that you can share with us?
Tracy: I am currently designing a 90-day place-based inquiry in West Africa — specifically Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. My project is not just travel and it is not academic research, though it borrows from both. It merges the rigor of structured observation with the intimacy of actually being somewhere, living inside a culture rather than passing through it.
The methodology is the Geography of Connection. I'll be observing how belonging is expressed differently across communities — what it looks like, how it moves, what culture and place do to it. But here's what I want people to understand: you don't need to be a traveler or a researcher to do this kind of work. You can practice it in your own neighborhood, your own kitchen. West Africa is just where I'm taking it next.
The 90-day residency is the first chapter. What I'm building toward is a year-long program rooted in the same methodology — but that's still taking shape. The Substack is where I'm thinking out loud, designing in public. That's the most honest way I know to do this work.
WOW: We can't wait to hear more! Thank you for joining us today. Best of luck on your tour!
--- Blog Tour Calendar
April 6 @ The Muffin
Join us at the Muffin as we celebrate the launch of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith. We interview the author and give you a chance to win a copy of the book.
April 9 @ Rachael's Thoughts
Join Rachael for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
April 10 @ What Is That Book About
Join Michelle for her spotlight of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
April 18 @ Boots, Shoes and Fashion
Visit Linda's blog for her in-depth interview with author Tracy Smith.
April 22 @ Writer Advice
Join B. Lynn Goodwin for a guest post by Tracy Smith on finding purpose in uncertainty and “in-between” seasons.
April 23 @ Words by Webb
Jodi shares her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
April 23 @ Knotty Needle
Visit Judy's blog for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
April 25 @ A Wonderful World of Words
Visit Joy's blog for a guest post by Tracy Smith on midlife reinvention: identity, courage, and starting again.
April 27 @ World of My Imagination
Join Nicole for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
April 30 @ Words by Webb
Jodi responds to our tour prompt of something she learned about herself later in life that surprised her.
May 1 @ A Storybook World
Join Deirdra for her spotlight of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
May 3 @ Bookwoman Joan
Stop by Joan's blog for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
May 5 @ Sarandipity's
Stop by Sara's blog for her spotlight of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
May 6 @ Bring on Lemons
Visit Crystal's blog for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
May 7 @ Balance and Joy
Visit Sheri's blog for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
May 8 @ Boys' Mom Reads
Join Karen's blog for her review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith.
May 9 @ Just Katherine
Katherine joins us for a review of The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith. She also shares Tracy's guest post writing memoir from lived experience without polishing the truth. Katherine also responds to the tour prompt about what does “belonging” mean now and how that has changed over time.
***** BOOK GIVEAWAY *****
Enter the Gleam form for a chance to win a copy of the memoir The Purpose of Getting Lost by Tracy Smith! The giveaway ends April 19th at 11:59 pm CT. We will randomly choose a winner the next day. Good luck!
9 comments:
I am going to be 44 this year and am wanting to travel more as well. It's been a thought that has persisted every day. Time to start planning!
Love this! I feel like this that Im lost I know what I want just trying how to get it!
The information I've read about the book intrigues me. Thanks for sharing it! :-)
Looks very inspiring
Have found some of the most inspiring things getting lost. ♡ Thanks for the reminder.
This really resonates with me. The idea of “getting lost” not as something negative, but as a necessary part of finding yourself is so powerful. I love that this isn’t about escaping life, but actually slowing down enough to understand it. Definitely adding this to my reading list.
I'm not someone who generally likes "getting lost" but as I get older I can see how that sometimes leads to the best things.
I think you have to truly get lost to find the parts of yourself that you have kept hidden
How lucky and good! Not all people/women ever find themselves!
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