Latest Posts
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Reading Travel Books by Women
Welcome to this site! Many of the travel books featured in book reviews in the mainstream media tend to be by men, although that is slowly changing. On this site, I will be highlighting travel books written by women (and… Continue reading
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Flâneuse—Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London: Lauren Elkin
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017, 336 pages Flâneur is a French word that means “one who wanders aimlessly”. It always refers to a man with time and money, who walks the streets of a city. Elkin appropriates the concept… Continue reading
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The Shooting Star—A Girl, Her Backpack and the World: Shivya Nath
Published by Penguin, 2018, 201 pages The Shooting Star starts with Shivya Nath deep in the Amazon rainforest (around the border between Ecuador and Peru), taking part in a shamanic cleansing ritual that involves drinking ayahuasca, an Amazonian plant that is… Continue reading
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Explore Europe on Foot—Your Complete Guide to Planning a Cultural Hiking Adventure: Cassandra Overby
Published by Mountaineers Books, 2018, 352 pages This book is another in a series on slow travel, an alternative to rushing around with crowds of people, trying to see everything as quickly as possible before moving on. This is all… Continue reading
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Her Fork in the Road—Women Celebrate Food and Travel: Edited by Lisa Bach
Published by Traveler’s Tales, 2001, 248 pages Food and travel—what more could you want? Her Fork in the Road is a collection of pieces by women writers including MFK Fisher, Isabel Allende, Francis Mayes, and Dervla Murphy. I love the… Continue reading
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Around the Bloc—My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana: Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Published by Random House, 2004, 416 pages Growing up in Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreams of becoming a foreign correspondent and roaming the world. The advice of a journalist to learn Russian opens the door to what turns into a… Continue reading
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Alone Time—Four Cities, Four Seasons and the Pleasures of Solitude: Stephanie Rosenbloom
Published by Viking, 2018, 288 pages Slow down and take the time to look around you: that is the message of this book, an antidote to our busy and always-on culture. It is, as its title suggests, a paean to… Continue reading
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Travels with My Radio: Fi Glover
Published by Random House UK, 2002, 352 pages Fi Glover starts each day by tuning into the local radio station; it gives her a sense of being a part of the daily routine, no matter where she is. The idea of… Continue reading
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Destination Heartland—A Guide to Discovering the Midwest’s Remarkable Past: Cynthia Clampitt
Published by 3 Fields Books, 2022, 272 pages “Why Midwestern history? Because I love American history, and the history of the Midwest is, to a greater extent than most people realize, a key element of that history. … [P]eople need… Continue reading
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One More Croissant for the Road: Felicity Cloake
Published by Mudlark, 2019, 344 pages A travel book by a food writer—what more could you want? Felicity Cloake, inspired by the Tour de France, decides to do a tour herself with a slight difference. She would cycle around France,… Continue reading
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What Is Africa To Me? – Fragments of a True-to-Life Autobiography: Maryse Condé
Translated from French by Richard PhilcoxPublished by Seagull Books, 2017, 264 pages “Why is it that any attempt to write about one’s life ends up as a jumble of half-truths? … In the pages that follow…I shall try…to figure out… Continue reading
Women's Travel Books 