Zoe and Tod have been married for some time and seek to reignite their relationship with a trip abroad. Zoe wants to go to Europe, and Tod agrees on the condition they do one wild thing in each country. The wild thing leads to complications, from accidentally ingesting mushrooms in a remote region of Greece, to a bicycle fall amid windmills in Spain. In the end their adventures and misadventures lead them to discover something deeper in their relationship.
The author draws upon his travels to Europe and upon historical study for a course he taught on the central archetypes of Western Civilization. The challenge to do a wild thing, however, comes from a friend in his home state of Alabama after a trip to the deep south.