Walking Barcelona
Through a comment on this blog, I have just been introduced to another great women’s tour company called Women on Tour.
This UK based company is for women and run by women – the have some great trips to Barcelona, Istanbul – meditation workshops, creative writing and drawing, walking in Spain and more. They are also looking always for new travel guides – perhaps that is you?
Our all-female company was set up to offer you the possibility of exploring new avenues in friendly and safe company. It is our experience that when choosing to travel alone – because of incompatible diaries with our friends or the need of independent travel or the simple freedom of not having to fall in with other people’s preferences – we’ve felt at times pulled between the need for adventure and exploration and the need for security and companionship.
As women travelling alone, we found that the prospect of having to wine and dine in the hotel every night of our stay or of feeling at times uncomfortable in unfamiliar circumstances could eventually dampen our plans.
It was these observations that first inspired us to facilitate a safe and relaxed environment for women to enjoy new experiences, to explore, whether it is outwards or inwards, whether they are travelling alone or accompanied.
Today, Women On Tour is an on-going project that follows a simple premise: to provide the opportunity of bringing together women from a wide spectrum to exchange knowledge and expand their horizons.
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 had to defrag my computer, and think it is a pretty good description of what has happened for and to me during my travels – I have been defragged.
My understanding of what defragging is on a PC, (or rebuilding the desktop with an Apple Mac) is that under normal working conditions we create a lot of ‘mess’ on a computer – files are disordered, temporary files are created, we jump from one thing to another, leaving a messy trail behind. Read more
Danielle, Rosemary and Ceridwyn in Florence
I have been travelling for six weeks with good friends from New Zealand Ceridwyn Parr and Danielle Melton. We have spent the time in Spain, Portugal and Italy. It has been a fantastic opportunity to explore these places which I would not have seen in such depth without them. Each of us fell into particular roles on the trip – Ceridwyn was the tour leader/planner, Danielle was the driver (we hired a car in Spain) and I was the personal chef when we had an apartment we could cook in. We formed a great team which enabled us to each have a great travel experience but within the security of companionship along the way.
It is why Women’s Tours are popular and growing – a small group of women, with an experienced guide – exploring a country, its a great way for women on their own to travel.
I am discovering traveling alone has its good and bad sides. Good because it is a time to tune in to your own rhythms and take stock of life – without the ‘noise’ of other people.
However occasionally I have caught myself wondering what on earth I am doing, so far from home and familiar surroundings. In New York one night I was sitting at a restaurant feeling decidedly sick – I suspect a bit of heat stroke, but I wondered if I could even make it the few blocks home. At moments like that you wonder what would happen if you collapsed – who would help, what would happen.
My new website has just flown off into cyberspace – Women Travel the World – www.womentravel.info Its a smart site (but I would say that!) – it uses google maps so you can find your way to a women’s hotel in Berlin or a B&B in Florence or Krete. And it has a Tour Calendar so that you can see when and where tours are across dozens of tour operators. Check out a safari in Africa, two weeks in New Zealand or Trekking in Nepal.
The site is offering free listings for the first year to any women owned and run accommodation and tour companies around the world.
After years of planning and working with local web designer Jan Malone it is out there flying on its own. I can hardly believe it.
Read the press release here
