When Dutch News was launched nearly 18 years ago, I quickly became aware that somewhere out there I had a doppelganger. Her name was Robin Pascoe, she was a journalist and she had written several books about being an expat. She was then known as the “expat expert”.

I soon got used to fielding requests to give a talk by answering, “I think you mean the other one”. Or more than one occasion at event, someone came up to me, looked at my name badge and said “oh no, you’re not”. Little did I know that across the pond in Canada my alter ego had been congratulated on her guidebook to Amsterdam.

We’ve since met several times, on one occasion having lunch in a swanky café in Amsterdam Zuid with footballer Edgar Davids sitting next to us, complete with dark glasses. And, I was touched to discover, one of our meetings is immortalised in Robin’s new book, The Carry-On Imperative, which she describes as a memoir of travel, reinvention and giving back.

You may well have had some of Robin’s earlier books – Raising Global Nomads, a Moveable Marriage to name just two – in your bookshelf. The Carry-On Imperative is different to these. It’s a book of adventures, about her beginnings as a journalist and broadcaster and her years as a “not so diplomatic foreign service spouse”.

She writes about her journeys to far-flung places, about giving talks all over the globe, about heading off to South Africa on safari with three men she barely knew and about smoking weed in South America. And all of this with a healthy dose of introspection and self-doubt mixed in.

Like Robin herself, the book is fast-paced and funny. Reading it at bedtime was like listening to the late-night stories of a good friend after a glass or three of wine.

“Traveling around the world the way I did was fantastic too, despite my fear of flying,” she tells me.  “So many of the people I met on those journeys are still friends and certainly popped up in my memoir. Most importantly I felt I had an impact in giving attention to expat family matters that were just being ignored.”

Robin actually set up The Expat Expert website in 1998 and after “retiring” from the role when she turned 60, she worked on creating the brand for Maple Bear, an Canadian education company founded by her husband which is now in almost 40 countries.

“All of my expat experience proved to be a wonderful advantage in understanding local cultures, especially parents who by the way,” she says. “They are truly the same everywhere!”

100% of the sales of The Carry-On Imperative will go toward fighting climate change in Costa Rica, via the family environmental NGO  which was founded by Robin’s daughter.

Buy this book.