Lavinia Spalding - The Best Womens Travel Writing, Volume 11: True Stories from Around the World

A CCLAIM FOR T RAVELERS T ALES B OOKS B Y AND F OR W OMEN

100 Places Every Woman Should Go

Will ignite the wanderlust in any woman... inspiring and delightful.

Lowell Thomas Awards judges citation, Best Travel Book 2007

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

Reveals an intimacy with Italy and hones sense of adventure. Andiamo!

France Mayes

100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in France is a treasure for any woman who wishes to know the country intimately, from its most delectable and stylish surfaces (lingerie! parfum!) to its nuanced and profound depths.

Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing

The Best Womens Travel Writing

The authors here know how to spin a tale.

Body+Soul

Sand in My Bra

Bursting with exuberant candor and crackling humor.

Publishers Weekly

Women in the Wild

A spiritual, moving and totally female book to take you around the world and back.

Mademoiselle

A Womans Europe

These stories will inspire women to find a way to visit places theyve only dreamed of.

The Globe and Mail

Wings: Gifts of Art, Life, and Travels in France

A reverie-inducing glimpse of past and present France.

Phil Cousineau, author of The Book of Roads

A Womans Path

A sensitive exploration of womens lives that have been unexpectedly and spiritually touched by travel experiences... highly recommended.

Library Journal

A Womans World

Packed with stories of courage and confidence, independence and introspection.

Self Magazine

Writing Away

A witty, profound, and accessible exploration of journal-keeping.

Anthony Weller

W OMENS T RAVEL L ITERATURE FROM T RAVELERS T ALES

100 Places Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in Greece Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in Spain Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in the USA Every Woman Should Go

50 Places in Rome, Florence & Venice Every Woman Should Go

Best Womens Travel Writing series

Gutsy Women

Gutsy Mamas

Her Fork in the Road

Kite Strings of the Southern Cross

A Mile in Her Boots

Sand in Her Bra

More Sand in My Bra

A Mothers World

Safety and Security for Women Who Travel

The Thong Also Rises

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

Whose Panties Are These?

Wild With Child

A Womans Asia

A Womans Europe

A Womans Passion for Travel

A Womans Path

A Womans World

A Womans World Again

Women in the Wild

Copyright 2017 Travelers Tales. All rights reserved.

Travelers Tales and Solas House are trademarks of Solas House, Inc., Palo Alto, California 94306. travelerstales.com | solashouse.com

Credits and copyright notices for the individual articles in this collection are given starting on .

Art Direction: Kimberly Coombs

Cover Photograph: Copyright Shutterstock. Cyclist on a remote road in Xinjang province, China, leading to Western Tibet.

Interior Design and Page Layout: Scribe Inc.

Production Director: Susan Brady

ISBN: 978-1-60952-111-0

ISSN: 1553-054X

E-ISBN: 978-1-60952-112-7

First Edition

Im restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.

A NAS N IN

For Ellis, who has traveled so far to be in this world and has made it a better place.

Lavinia Spalding

Zora ONeill

TURKEY/GREECE

Jill K. Robinson

SWITZERLAND

Samantha Schoech

ITALY

Jenna Scatena

OMAN

Elen Turner

NEPAL

Jennifer Kelley

THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Maxine Rose Schur

IRAN

Allegra Hyde

BULGARIA

Christine Loomis

MONTANA

Anna Vodicka

PALAU

Colette Hannahan

FRANCE

Sarah Gilman

MONGOLIA

Rachel Levin

CUBA

Lindsey Crittenden

CALIFORNIA

Holly H. Jones

PAKISTAN

Janis Cooke Newman

ARIZONA

Marcia DeSanctis

RUSSIA

Maggie Downs

UGANDA

Colleen Kinder

ICELAND

Sara C. Bathum

ETHIOPIA

Catherine Watson

MEXICO

Abbie Kozolchyk

SINGAPORE

Julie Callahan

HUNGARY/BRATISLAVA

Yukari Iwatani Kane

JAPAN

Pam Mandel

HAWAII

Anne P. Beatty

NEPAL

Sandra Gail Lambert

FLORIDA

Suzanne Kamata

JAPAN

Erin Byrne

FRANCE

Katharine Harer

ITALY

Anna Badkhen

MALI

O n the first day of 2017, I sat in a room I lovea small, bright space with green wicker furniture, three neglected but determined ferns, and five slim hardbacks in an old wooden crate. My toddler was napping, my husband was working in another room, and the next two hours were all mine. As winter sunlight streamed through the windows, I sipped coffee and leafed through the stack of books, all collections of poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The pages were old, sepia, and brittle. I paused on the first stanza of a poem called Exiled.

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,

This is the thing I find to be:

That I am weary of words and people,

Sick of the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness

Of the strong wind and shattered spray,

Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound

Of the big surf that breaks all day.

The words didnt exactly apply to me, but they spoke to me and made me think. About sorrow and weariness, words and people, and wanting. And about water.

Im not a water person, never have been. I cant swim, and Ive always been scared of any body of water bigger than a hot tub. I dont even like to drink the stuff. Though I enjoy lying on a beach, Im not drawn to water the way Millay was and countless others are. I was born near the New Hampshire seacoast, but raised in Arizona. My grounding place is the desertits perfect stillness and quietude allow my busy mind to settle.

When I travel, however, my life seems to turn aquatic. Ive bobbed in the waves of Mexico, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, and Cuba (up to my shoulders, anyway); snorkeled in the Philippines, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Saipan (I had fins, and sometimes a flotation device); and tried to scuba dive in Guam and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (both attempts largely unsuccessful).

Ive also taken passage on innumerable waterborne vessels: an inflatable raft on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon; a hastily assembled bamboo contraption in Northern Thailand that wound up sinking (we were rescued by another hastily assembled bamboo contraption); a couple of shaky motorboats and a barge in Nicaragua; a junk on the Mekong in Vietnam; a river boat in Cambodia that got stuck in the mud (we passengers got out and pushed). There was a barf-inducing overnight ferry from Ireland to France, a civilized overnighter from Tunisia to Sicily, and half a dozen jaunts between South Korea and Japan. Thats the short list.

So, even as Ive habitually rejected waterrefusing to jump in lakes or stand beneath waterfalls or dive in pools or even take swimming lessonswater has trickled into my travel life, mesmerizing me with its bioluminescence, its schools of startlingly blue fish, its coolness on a hot island day. I have been lulled by the flutter of an overhead sail, restored by the steam of a natural hot spring, transported while my fingers dipped into the current as I floated downriver. Its hard to deny its power.