. >> their stories are intertwined, amanda and her mother lorinda stewart, both women driven by strength, courage, and most of all, endurance, a story amanda told in detail in the book she's written and here on dateline. it all begins here in western canada in the small town of sylvan lake, a place that looks and sounds idyllic. but her childhood wasn't. her parents divorced when she was 8. her mother worked mostly cashier jobs to raise three children. the family always seemed to be on the move. life wasn't easy for mother and daughter. amanda yearned even at an early age for a world beyond her hometown. >> one constant was that i wanted to be a world traveler. i wanted to go to every country in the world. >> you're a kid. how old are you? >> 8 years old. >> and you had stacks of national geographic. >> the images that i saw on the pages were everything that my hometown wasn't, like something out of a dream, really. >> amanda realized her dreams of seeing the world in the 1990s when she was 19. she saved up enough tips working as a waitress for her first big trip to venezuela. >> we're d