Beth Whitman Author of Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo, includes only the good in her writing. Quoted in the Seattle Weekly by Karla Star, Beth says “I don’t read movie reviews….I just want to know what the movie was about,” she says. “The job of a travel writer is to write about the good, to write about what excites you.” Read more
I have just finished Liz Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love, and I feel like I have been living it as I have travelled. I was sceptical about the book at first (before I read it), but it has proved a great companion on my travels, and has provided a fantastic grounding place for me.
EATING: I identified so much with her description of depression as she seeks a way to live again after a traumatic divorce. This month it is two years since my partner Ngaire died, and among other things this four month journey I am on is about finding a place to stand without her alongside me. Like Liz Gilbert, here I am in Italy eating my way around the city, discovering magic places and delights along the way, while processing that sense of loss, alongside a desire to move on.
Written in New York by Vicki J. Yiannias
Camille Cusumaro, editor of Greece, A Love Story, published by Seal Press, writes in her introduction to the collection of stories about the Greek experience that she visited that “isle-perforated land of scintillating whites and impossible blues” for the first time in 1976. She “drank ouzo and retsina, ate the unforgettable cream of yogurts and wrapped her tongue around few Greek phrases,” and thought she had experienced the culture. But when she began working with the stories of this anthology she was carried back to Greece and her perception of the place was broadened.
For those who have been to Greece some of the personal travel essays in Greece, A Love Story are likely to do the same; those who plan to go can explore inside views of the magical charm and appeal of Greece, and some of its idiosyncratic characteristics, as well.
For many visitors, Greece is a place where their lives were changed, and where they awakened culturally. As well as being a sharing of firsthand experiences the women’s essays go beyond ordinary travelogue to capture the ways in which the country has shaped their lives or influenced decisions.
Greece, A Love Story is the winner of BATW’s Best Travel Book for Planet Earth 2008, and Diane LeBow’s story Dancing on the Wine Dark Sea also won Best Story/Essay in a Travel Related Anthology.
Read the rest of this story HERE
Eleanor Meecham cycled alone around South America, and lived to tell the tale. And what a tale it is. Camping in a salt desert, getting altitude sickness, rough roads… this is definately an intrepid tale.
The book is Llamas and Empanadas, published by Penguin books.
Reviewed here
Someone just sent me something about this book by Thalia Zepatos. It has been reprinted 3 times, and is often referred to – here is a review from Paperback Swap
Originally published in 1992, with a second edition in 1996, A Journey of One_s Own has sold over 68,000 copies. Praised by travel experts across the spectrum, from Glamour to The Women_s Review of Books, from The Whole Earth Catalog to American Express, U.S. News and World Report, and Parade, and written about in over forty major dailies, A Journey of One_s Own has become an established title in the travel book category.
Although geared to women and including much information specific to women (how to deal with sexual harassment, for example) A Journey of One_s Own has also found an audience with men who value the extensive information and excellent advice that is not gender-specific.
The third edition sports a livelier and more compact text design, a smaller format, and shorter page count. The author has thoroughly updated the material and added new sections on health, safety, and traveling during times of international upheaval.
Yet, the basic structure has been maintained: excerpts from many women_s travel stories are interlaced with -detailed advice on practical matters (how to stay healthy, be safe, avoid theft, etc.). And the author_s own stories, which reflect on political and cultural explorations from her extensive travels, are engaging and thoughtful, and add depth to discussion of issues such as getting acquainted with new cultures, accepting hospitality, bargaining, and communicating without language.
“Thalia Zepatos is . . . teacher, spokeswoman, and heroine of sorts to a generation of travelers, both women and men, who understand travel as more than the periodic recreational migration that our commercial culture promotes.”_Seattle Times
“Superlatives generally make us suspicious, but we must say: This is THE best women_s travel resource we_ve seen, ever. . . . It_s authoritative; it_s supportive; it_s amusing; it really does have it all.”_New York Daily News
Thalia Zepatos is the author of Adventures in Good Company and Women for a Change: A Grassroots Guide to Activism and Politics.
Clover Stroud writes in the Telegraph, reviewing Women Travellers: A Century of Trailblazing Adventures 1850-1950 (Flammarion, £24)”In the wake of Sir Edmund Hillary’s death, it’s worth remembering not only the vast numbers of intrepid women explorers, but also – as this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book makes clear – the many “ordinary” women who travelled at times when one might have expected them to be homebound by convention.”
Read the article here
Wanderlust and Lipstick is Beth Whitman’s travel blog and also the name of her book which is subtitled The Essential Guide for Women Travelling Solo.
Foreword Magazine (May/June, 2007)
Media images of vacations tend to depict happy couples hiking, swimming or biking with a scenic vista in the background. Some scenes sport children looking blissful or a rugged man tackling a mountain or hitting the ski slopes. Rarely are there images of women alone, navigating unfamiliar streets or eating solo at a sidewalk cafe. And that’s a shame, believes this author. More reviews of her book
Beth has heaps of tips for solo women travellers, and l blogs about her own travels around the world, often leading small groups. I notice she has led a recent trip to China with tea enthusiasts – one thing I never really got to do in China was the Tea Thing, I am sorry to have missed that.
Isn’t networking a fabulous thing. I was just reading the Journeywoman newsletter and followed a link to a local kiwi travel writer Heather Hapeta. I was intrigued by the name of her book – Naked in Budapest: travels with a passionate nomad.
One of my best friends has just started a travel writing and photography course. Travelling makes us wonder and ask questions of ourselves and the world around us, and sharing this with others is part of that journey for many of us.
