Published by The Eighth Mountain Press, 1997, 368 pages

Elaine Lee is an African-American woman who has made travel a way of life. Her compilation of 52 pieces of travel writing by African-American women encourages black women to travel by saying if these women could do it, so can you! 

The book covers all continents, with a focus on Africa.

Maya Angelou recounts her visit to Ghana when she was told she belonged to the Bambara tribe; Alice Walker describes her visit to Bali and finding peace there, and Gwendolyn Brooks tells of her visit to the Soviet Union as part of a group of American writers.

Marianne Ilaw gives a laugh-out-loud account of some of the men she came across in the Caribbean. One of them, Humphrey, offers to be her bodyguard because he tells her, he had killed three men with a machete. But Virgil, a beachside vendor, tells her the truth: “Dat bwoy kunna kill a damn mosquito if it lands on him nose!” Adrienne Johnson and Opal Palmer Adisa write movingly about visiting the Door of No Return in Ghana, from where slaves were sent to the Americas. Palmer Odisa describes the “ironically beautiful” view of the sea, in contrast to the cramped, dark rooms in which they were held.

Travelling is also about taking chances (intelligently, of course!) On her first visit to Egypt, Evelyn C. White is left behind in a small town while she’s cruising down the Nile. In spite of her unfamiliarity with the country, she decides to hire a taxi driver called Aesop to deliver her to her next destination.

I know travel is liberating, but one of the things that stands out in this collection is how much that is true for African-American women—liberation from the racism, overt or covert, they face in the United States. There is plenty of racism abroad, of course, but it can be tinged with curiosity and African-Americans are often seen as Americans first.

For me, reading the book felt, in a way, very personal—a camaraderie of sorts. I was familiar with some of the writers but this collection introduced me to others. 

This quote by Dawn Comer, who goes to Venice for the Carnival in spite of warnings from her friends, sums up the book: “Yes, the world can be dangerous… We see and hear about tragedy every day. But, for me, the tragedy would be not going out and exploring the world.”

This review first appeared on Women on the Road.