Sophia Dembling - 100 Places in the USA Every Woman Should Go

Copyright 2014 Sophia Dembling. All rights reserved.

Travelers Tales and Solas House are trademarks of Solas House, Inc.,
2320 Bowdoin Street, Palo Alto, California 94306. www.travelerstales.com

Art Direction: Stefan Gutermuth

Cover Design: Kimberly Coombs

Interior Design and Page Layout: Howie Severson

Author Photo: David Baumbach

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Available upon request

ISBN-10: 1-932361-92-8

ISBN-13: 978-1932361-92-6

First Edition

Printed in the United States

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to all the remarkable American women through history,
whose stories have only just begun to be heard.

I feel there is something unexplored about woman
that only a woman can explore.
G EORGIA OK EEFFE

OTHER BOOKS IN THE 100 PLACES SERIES

100 Places Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

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

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Writing Away

S ECTION I
G ET TO K NOW A MERICA

America the Beautiful

Essential Cities

Americana

All-American Kitsch

S ECTION II
A MERICANS H ISTORY

The American Melting Pot

Womens History

Tough Cookies You Should Know

Artists and Writers

Musical Museums

S ECTION III
P ARTICIPATE

The Great Outdoors

Retreats and Spiritual Escapes

S ECTION IV
X (C HROMOSOME ) R ATED

Just Kinda Girly

Home and Hearth

W HEN I TOLD PEOPLE I WAS writing 100 Places in the USA Every Woman Should Go , their first question was usually, What are your criteria? Or, less eloquently, Sez who?

A fair enough question, to which the answer is: Sez me.

I did first poll friends and colleagues and got some excellent ideas from them, but in the end what we have here is an entirely subjective selection of American places I think are important or cool or fun or quintessentially American. Some are of particular relevance to women, some arent.

So, who am I to say so? For one thing, I love traveling in the USA, and Ive done a lot of it. I took my first cross-country road trip with two girlfriends when I was 19 years old. At that point, I had barely left my hometown of New York Citywhich, like Los Angeles, both defines America and barely resembles it. I was astonished and awed as much by cornfields as mountains. The solid farmers and their stolid wives we saw in diners and truck stops were wondrous as unicorns, and Iowa and Nevada were as magical as Oz. By the time we hit California, with the whole nation stretched out behind us, I was madly in love.

Ive traveled the country extensively ever sinceby car, by bus, by airplane, staying in luxury hotels and cinderblock motels. (Once, by choosing a motel because we liked its neon, my husband and I accidentally checked into a whorehouse.) Ive been as far south as Key West and as far north as Seattle. (North Dakota, Ive got my eye on you.)

My first published article in the mid 1980s, in the Dallas Morning News , was about touring the United States by Greyhound bus. My second was about touring the stars homes in Nashville. Ive written for the Los Angeles Times , the Chicago Tribune , the Miami Herald , and many other newspapers, magazines, and websites. For a couple of years, my friend Jenna Schnuer and I wrote a website called Flyover America, in which we shared our passion for Americas out-of-the-way places.

I love the scale of America. I love her grand places and brash cities, her wilderness and forgotten hamlets. I love her breadth and depth and roadside attractions. I roll my eyes at world-traveling Americans who have never explored their own backyardswho have never seen a thunderstorm over Nebraska or the Atlantic pounding the coast of Maine, never eaten grits in the South or salmon in Alaska, seen real Western art or a jackalope trophy. Im so passionate for travel in America, I even argue that Las Vegas is a must-see, no matter how highbrow you consider yourself.

After gathering a mess of suggestions, I cast a wide net of criteria to decide among them and which others to add. Some places are no-brainersNew York City, the Grand Canyon, that kind of thing. Americas greatest hits, as it were. And I wanted to include sites related to womens history. From there, I moved on to sites relevant to the lives of prominent women writers and artists and some of Americas toughest cookies. I included immigrant history because thats the story of all of us. There are places related to American music and places I consider Americana. There are girly-girl places and activities, adventures, spiritual places, places related to home and hearth, and silly, silly kitschy places. I tried to find a female story in everything I included, but didnt insist on it. Some places arent places so much as activities (surfing, rafting), with suggestions for places to do them.

There is a lot about some states and not so much about others, but I tried to cover as much of the country as I could. I cant help it if a lot of really important historic things happened in New York and Massachusetts. I tried to include sites so big that you shouldnt miss them and so small you probably dont know about them.

And a note about the historical sections of the book: Some of the places included are not much to speak of. One is a mere plaque in a hallwaynothing to make a special trip for. Its more if you happen to be in Nashville. But its a good story, and here is my thinking on things like that: If we go, they will build it. Tourism has a lot of clout for local economies. If we show interest in womens history sites, tourist boards and businesses will respond, and the ragtag sites full of fascinating womens stories will grow, pushing womens history aboveground.

I have been to the majority of the places in here. Many I visited in the past, others specifically for this book. But in saying every woman should go, I include myself. No matter how much travel I did, I kept finding other must-see places. I just ran out of time. Flat up against my deadline, I remembered Eudora Weltys home in Jackson, Mississippi. What a bummer that I didnt have time to go there and had to rely on research. Thank heavens for the interweb, but the photographs made me yearn to see it for myself, especially since Ive never really been to Mississippi, only through it. Mississippi, I have my eye on you, too.

Naturally, theres no place or experience in this book that men wouldnt enjoy as well. Any American, male or female, who doesnt make a point of seeing Yellowstone National Park is a knucklehead, in my humble opinion. (People from other nations get a pass, but I know theyre out seeing stuff like that anyway because I run into them all the time.)