When she was 11-years-old, a young girl met a traveler named Kino. He came to stay at her family’s hotel, where the two exchanged stories of their lives as Kino repaired his motorrad, Hermes. In the young girl’s country, when children turned 12, they got a brain operation that turned them into “adults”.

In a cruel twist of fate, Kino dies saving the young girl from the demented “adults,” and his motorrad whisks her away and out of the country. Thus, she decides to inherit Kino’s name, and his legacy of traveling around the world, staying no more than 3 days at a time, and learning about other people’s lives in a grand, beautiful adventure.