The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 9: True Stories from Around the World

The Best Women's Travel Writing #9

by Lavinia Spalding (Editor)

Anyone whose passport has been stamped a few times knows the surest method of keeping the travel fire alive: by reading and telling stories from the road, passing them along like a torch in a relay race.

From Travelers’ Tales comes The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 9: True Stories from Around the World—the ninth collection in the annual best-selling, award-winning series that invites readers to ride shotgun alongside intrepid female nomads as they travel the globe to discover new places, people, and facets of themselves. The stories in this edition are as diverse as the destinations, the common thread being fresh, compelling storytelling that will make you laugh, weep, wish you were there, or be glad you weren’t.

In The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 9, readers will:

Tangle with snakes and alligators in Bangladesh
Chase tornadoes with Chinese celebrities
Dodge fireballs while half-naked in Ecuador
Get stuck in the mud by the Ganges in India
Hunt frogs in a Louisiana bayou
Get cheerfully deported from South Africa
Be transformed by a Mexican revolution
Survive close encounters with rhinos in Namibia
Experience life under niqab in Egypt
Climb a volcano during a hailstorm in Rwanda
Find love in a tree house in Laos
... and much, much more.

Featuring stories by Holly Morris, Marcia DeSanctis, Apricot Irving Anderson, Laura Fraser, Amanda Jones, and Laura Resau.


About the author:
Lavinia Spalding is the author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler (named one of the best travel books of 2009 by the Los Angeles Times), co-author of With a Measure of Grace, the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant, and editor of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 editions of The Best Women's Travel Writing. She’s a regular contributor to Yoga Journal, and her work has appeared in many print and online publications, including Sunset, San Francisco magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Gadling, Post Road, Tin House, Inkwell, and The Best Travel Writing, Volume 9. She lives in San Francisco, where she’s a member of the Writers' Grotto and co-founder of Weekday Wanderlust, a monthly travel reading series.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Essays

350 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2012

About the author

Lavinia Spalding is the seven-time editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing and the author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler, named one of the best travel books of 2009 by The LA Times. She has also co-authored four books, including This Immeasurable Place, Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness, named one of NPR’s best books of 2017. Her award-winning writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Walrus, Longreads, Afar, Tin House, River Teeth, Post Road, Off Assignment, and others. Her essays have been widely anthologized, and she introduced the Restless Books edition of Edith Wharton’s classic travelogue, A Motor-Flight Through France. She lives with her family in New Orleans.

Reviews

[Martha Heil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some stories were more travel-related than others, but still the feelings and experiences that the women shared were often what I am looking for in travel: making connections to the people of the country being visited. People everywhere are, more often than not, interesting, welcoming, thoughtful and just like you! It's also a reminder of how fortunate the traveler is to be able to experience their culture, and realize what it is about home that should be appreciated.

[Niniane · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was one annoying story about a woman who helped a guy cheat on his girlfriend, then dated him and was surprised when he cheated on her. But she described him in gushing tones while she blamed the other women for being "sluts" and "whores".

The stories were interesting but less interesting than other volumes.

[Gladys Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great thing is to travel and create bridges. Better, to translate those to stories that might touch lives in every corner of the world. Invited to keep reading these books.

P.S. I bought this book as second hand. Surprised to realize its autographed 😊

[Kaleigh Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughed out loud at some of the stories. Want to read every book she has written!

[Kristy McCaffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of 30 travel essays written by women will entertain and enlighten both the adventurer and the arm-chair enthusiast. The stories range from searching for frogs in southern Louisiana to chasing tornadoes in Oklahoma to a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico with a mother and her young son. Each author invites the reader to not just visit a place, but to see it through the lens of the people and the local culture, accompanying the writer on her own emotional journey. I enjoyed Blair Braverman's "Rangefinder Girl" as she trekked through Namibia studying black rhinos. Fearful at the beginning, she comes to appreciate the land and the creatures that occupy it, calmly flicking a scorpion from her leg on the last night. I also liked Holly Morris's "The Risky Path," a recounting of her fear of snakes and an effort to overcome it while in Bangladesh. She quotes Martin Luther King Jr., "Salvation is being on the right road, not having reached a destination." Each of these stories is a possible road, traversed by other women, but in the sharing perhaps they will spur you toward your own.

[Sharry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection of 30 essays Lavinia Spalding put together in The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 9: True Stories from Around the World is absolutely wonderful. The essays introduce the reader to places exotic and familiar, always in ways which bring the locations and their peoples vividly to life. Along the way, we get glimpses of the authors' lives, their sorrows and joys and learning experiences. Travel to Mexico, Cuba, Italy, Jordan, Egypt, Louisiana, Scotland, Russia, and many more locations with a variety of adventurous women. You're sure to get an itch to go somewhere new yourself, even if it's just down the road.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific anthology of 30 pieces whose settings range from Louisiana to Suriname to S. Dakota to India to Thailand to Italy to Cuba to Australia to Ethiopia and Jordan and beyond. Amazing collection that will whet the appetite of inveterate travelers and those who are more geographically challenged alike.
Especially liked pieces by Apricot Anderson Irving, Marcia DeSanctis, Julia Cooke, Sara Katin, Jenna Scatena, Meera Subramanian, Molly Beer, Blair Bravermann and Natalie Baszile.
Lavinia Spaulding did a fine job editing and arranging.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no way I could ever travel enough, so I satisfy that itch by reading travel essays. I'm the rare person who really does want to see your vacation pictures. The Travelers Tales series never fail to satisfy and this one does its job. very enjoyable.

[Anhnguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cool!

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An inspiring collection of stories of travel from all over the world. Like any anthology, I appreciated the variety of voices and experiences.