A woman who is not content with life and fears staying in one place works as a traveling writer, recording her thoughts and interactions on tape recorders and finding different lovers in each place she visits.

A man flies back to the country of his birth and reckons with people and places he longer seems to know.

A young Native American man visits a burial site on a nearby island and must reflect on both his allegiance to his culture and to himself.

While conducting research in the remote country of Keteng, a Stanford grad student hears that another American has entered the country and is challenging the power structures in place.

A chance encounter with an old ex-girlfriend causes a man to remember his past relationship with her and with his cousin, who immigrated from Korea to America to live with his family as a small child. Though she died in a motorcycle accident years ago, when his ex-girlfriend asks how she's doing he lies, creating the life she never had in his imagination.

When an officer in the State Department is sent to work as a diplomat for the CIA, he must balance the fate of other nations and politicians with his own interests and career goals.

A group of friends realize they have been living vicariously through one of their friend's travel stories for their entire lives.

A Chinese American woman living in contemporary Wisconsin plans out a vacation to England rather China, her usual destination. The thought of abandoning her home country takes her back to the more difficult moments of her life, from her estrangement from her parents to her failed marriage.

A U.S state department official encounters an infatuation on his trip to Eastern Europe that ends in despair.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.