East, West, HOME'S BEST

I've travelled the world and the seven seas, and I keep returning to the place where it all started

- Lorraine Kearney

I was 14 the first time I crossed the border into another country. That country happened to be Botswana, right next door but a world away.

I loved it; the friendly people, the dry air, the indescribably beautiful landscape. You think empty desert, but what you get is breathtaking life – the plants, the insects, the desert-adapted mammals. And the colours and the rocks; the allure of wide open spaces and solitude. It was a lot for an urban girl like me, born and raised in the thumping City of Gold.

But it kicked off an unquenchable lust for adventure, for finding new places, meeting new people, seeing new things.