There is nothing quite like hitting the road by yourself to awaken your senses, sharpen your mind, and build your confidence. In twenty-three beautifully crafted essays, women recount the thrills of traveling solo.
Despite threat-assessment levels and airport-security hassles, women of all generations are traveling more freely and independently than ever before. In that go-for-it spirit, Go Your Own Way spans the globe: adventure diva Holly Morris finds herself lost in the jungles of Borneo, alone with her thoughts and a cold-blooded companion; Lara Triback's quest to learn the tango takes her to the late-night dance floors of Buenos Aires; Stephanie Griest finds female friends invaluable in her journey through Uzbekistan; and Amy Balfour recounts a hilarious trek up Yosemite's Half Dome.
The writers in Go Your Own Way pay tribute to the empowerment of independent adventure and discovery, offering up the perfect antidote for today's climate of fear and international discord. All the while, they show that alone doesn't have to mean lonely.
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The quality of the writing in this book is more consistently high than in many travel anthologies I have read. The wide variety of stories encompasses both adventure and thoughtfulness. They are about:
- hunting boar with the Dayak tribe of Borneo - the advantages of exploring New York and Paris alone - making friends among the locals in Uzbekistan - abandoning suspicion to witness a very special event in Florence - searching for a newly-discovered Mayan tomb in a dangerous area with only a bow and arrow for protection - beginning a three month quest in Iceland to follow in the footsteps of a real 10th-century Viking woman (I'd love to read about the rest of the quest but unfortunately the author's short pieces about it have not been published together in a single volume and are hard to find.) - finding a job as a laundress in order to finance a low-budget no-frills stay in Provence in 1992 - an embarrassing social gaffe made while fending off the unwanted and ceaseless attentions of men in a Senegalese market - pairing up with a former Sandinista for romance, protection, and practical help while trying to launch a journalistic career in Guatemala and Nicaragua during a dangerous time of violence - conquering fears and other hikers while climbing Yosemite's Half Dome - following an obsession for tango to Buenos Aires only to meet with constant rejection from potential male dance partners - taking the wrong train on an Orient-Express trip from France to Germany, with a funny ending - loss of innocence and the awakening discovery of sexual power for a 13-year-old girl on a mother-and-daughter trip to Athens (This disturbing story by Gail Hudson is one of the best in the book) - having second thoughts about an upcoming marriage while traveling up the icy coast of Labrador on a freighter - trekking in the Himalayans in the last hours of the writer's 20-something decade - a creepy presentiment of doom in Copenhagen that results in actually feeling relief when a purse containing the writer's passport and all of her money and credit cards is stolen - learning the deeper meaning of the word "shokran" ("thank-you") on a visit to the Nile and the Pyramids - feeling the opposite of pampered while visiting two upscale spa resorts in Arizona - in search of Aphrodite after being dumped by a boyfriend on what had been planned as a trip for two - awaiting the imminent birth of the author's first child at a family home in Kauai where she'd spent her childhood vacations - unexpectedly encountering the spirit of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (aviator and author of The Little Prince) in Japan (another of the best stories in the book, by Edith Perlman) - attending graduate school in Nigeria, the homeland of the writer's father. (This is the most discomforting and most-likely-to-make-you-want-to-stay-home story in the book. Which is not a bad thing. It's excellent writing when a short story can inspire such strong feelings.) - the advantages of solo travel as a vacation from motherhood
As with every travel anthology I've read in the last month, not all of the stories fit the book's title. There are a couple in which two women travel together without the company or protection of men; one in which a solo woman partners with a local male for her travels; and another in which a woman is part of a group in which she is the only female and the only English speaker. If the title said "women traveling alone," you could stretch the meaning of that phrase to include those stories, so I'd buy that. But "solo" has the very specific meaning of one person and one person only. Oh, well. With writing this good, who cares about semantics?
I love this book. I read pieces of it everytime I went into a bookstore in my hometown until I finally caved and bought it. There are stories from just about every type of place in the world from just about every type of woman--single, married, divorced, dating, young, old--it's got something for everyone. The diversity of perspective in this well-written prose absorbs me every time I pick it up--and makes me long for travel!
One of my personal favorites in the book is "Wolf Pleasures"; it is evocative of the essence of the solo traveler's instinct.
Another great book to pick up if you're interested in travel is "A Woman Alone." Happy reading!
This book was easy to pick up and read a short story and then set down and forget about it only to pick it up a couple days later for another one. The overall feeling I got was that I hope my travels abroad will in no way reflect what any of these women experienced. These woman have chosen not only to go it alone, but to go to places that I have never even considered. From ice and bullets to vertical climbs and running from horny men, please I beg...let me have a less interesting story to share when I return. While I was certainly inspired by the strength, courage and passion demonstrated by this group, part of me was hoping for a more naive, first time abroad, simple traveler like I'm about to become in a few days. My favorite thing about this book was the cover, I could gaze at it over and over. If you are looking for adventure, REAL adventure by REAL women, give it a read.
