An Experience Definitely Worth Allegedly Having: Travel Stories from The Hairpin

by Edith Zimmerman (Editor), Carrie Frye, Maria Bustillos

An Experience Definitely Worth Allegedly Having is a collection of essays on travel selected by Edith Zimmerman, the founder of the colorfully offbeat women’s website The Hairpin. Like The Hairpin, these essays are funny, weird, adventurous, and moving. There are stories about following a mysterious stranger’s maps in Mexico, attending endless step aerobics classes in Buenos Aires, faking a terrible British accent in London, and navigating a nude spa in Stockholm. About loneliness, connection, and sunburn. And about daring ourselves to be brave and embracing being scared.



These stories are tied together by relationships: making them, losing them, how we behave in their absence. How we thrive when we’re far from home and falling in and out of love in all of the world’s beautiful places.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Essays, Beach Reads, Womens, France, 21st Century

ebook

First published August 13, 2013

Reviews

[Kirsten Schlewitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off great and slid downhill. While much travel writing is expected to be indulgent -- it is after all, about an intensely personal experience -- the best writers will manage to relate it to the wider world...which many of these writers did. They made you realize it's ok to travel to get over a broken heart, or to prove something to yourself.

But then you get to the end, and the last few entries seem to be thrown together mishmash. I was especially disappointed with the final story, which turned out to be from the Hairpin editor herself. It read like a stream of consciousness blurb on the random travel experiences she'd had when she was younger, but nothing seemed to tie together. It was as though she simply wanted to spit out memories.

Other sections definitely redeemed the book, however.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was interested in this book because the essays promised to be "funny, weird, adventurous, and moving." Early in the book, all I felt was sorry for the people in the essays. They were dealing with depression, a feeling of being lost and unloved, uncertain about what they wanted in life. It may be normal to feel this way sometimes in your younger years, but this read like the depression and confusion was an all-encompassing thing. There is so much sadness in this book.
More than once, I thought "You know, you can travel and not get drunk everyday." One story centered around not liking to travel, and not liking the food when he got there. Why would I, or anyone, want to read about how grumpy a person gets when he travels?
There is little humor, and while there are some good tidbits thrown throughout these essays, you have to look hard and it's not enough to like the book overall.

[Laura Guidry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection - there were some essays that I was drawn to more than others (specifically Edith Zimmerman's That Witch is Tied Up and Carrie Frye's Let Us Go Then). There is something really alluring to this travel collection. In these essays you explore mental health, relationships and general life path uncertainty among other topics. I felt like they touched on more than what I was expecting from a book of travel essays. I enjoyed how each writer played with the structure of their essays, there weren't any that were too similar to the others.

[Ida Electra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories were good. I especially enjoyed the one about Paris. Some of these stories were less good. I did not understand the purpose of the last one, which seemed more like a collection of ideas that led nowhere. I enjoyed that there was a good variety here, but overall I was not very impressed.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of fun essays

[Beth Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd travel book. Well-written but more inner focused than I prefer. I didn't get to know the places they traveled to.

[Mark U · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this. Read in a day.

[Jenn Estepp · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I actually subscribed to this back when it was first coming out, because I wanted to see what the Kindle Serials program was like and how it would be to read things as they came out on it and I was a big Hairpin fan. Ooops. That totally didn't work out, huh? The keeping up with a serial thing, not reading the Hairpin (that one is debatable. It did totally make miss a Hairpin led by Zimmerman, though.) I think I only read, like, the first one back then?

But years later, it makes for pretty good bus reading. It's probably stronger than your average collection, just because it's well-curated (there are only eight essays here) and the over-all quality is better than I usually see in things like this. Meaning that even though some of the contributors came off like someone I would *not* like to share a drink with (there's some privilege at work, like, whoa), they all have legit writing chops, solid voice and tell their stories well.

[Ann Addley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. As someone who has traveled extensively this collection of stories captures something that is often missing in popular travel books. A sort of philosophical narcissism that dominates ones personal dialog when you are young and traveling for the purposes of self discovery.
I suppose that doesn't sound particularly appealing but I think lots of people would enjoy this book particularly those who have done their own travel but the slice of life, eclectic adventures covered in this book would also inspire many a new traveler.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Travel essays that were just okay.

I was hoping for a bit more, I like travel essays and with the 'Pin I thought it would be a collection I would find a lot to identify with (being an expat). There were moments but the best way I can describe why I didn't enjoy it overall as a collection is it felt very old. It's a bit ridiculous in that we're not dealing with the past is another country territory - at the furthest it's the 80s and these are universal experiences which aren't affected by time... but I just felt out of step with everything I read.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun, light read. I enjoyed the essays, which (as you can guess from the title) focus on the writers' travels. Most of them wrote an essay about one particular trip, but there was one where someone threw together lots of prose snapshots of various trips. Anyway apparently I do not have much to say about this but if you like reading travel stories, and you like the tone of The Hairpin, I'd say to grab this form Amazon (it was a Kindle Serial).

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most good, some not so good stories

All of the stories were entertaining, I enjoyed being exposed to writers new to me and comparing the different writing styles. Some I clicked with, others not so much. Oddly the only story I didn't like was the last one and that turned out to be written by the editor! It came off as to most annoyingly flippant/childish piece in the whole collection.

[Sorcered · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rich American kids (all with humongous first world problems :P) try to demonstrate why travelling is a worthwhile occupation. 8 essays, 3 of which were passably funny and decently written (the ones on Buenos Aires, Paris and London). Light read, nothing to learn from here unless you were born in a remote Himalayan village and remained there all your life. Move on, read something else already.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsurprisingly, I really liked this collection of short non-fiction travel stories. This was also my first Kindle Serial experience and I really liked having a new story to look forward to every other week.

[Beckie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meandery, memoirish essays about travel that are mainly about not-entirely-positive experiences, but they still made me wish I'd backpacked more. My favourites were by Chiara Atik and Nicole Cliffe about being alone in Paris and a Let's Go editor in London, respectively.

[Layne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly enjoyable travel dispatch.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read--and I enjoyed the serial nature of delivery. Some poignant stories and I was reminded why I love traveling so much.

[amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is fascinating and really great. I love that they're all not stories of AMAZING travel experiences - lots of love and loss and hard times too.

[Ann Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of The Hairpin will enjoy these stories. It's the first Kindle book I've bought that automatically upgrades, and I admit it feels like a gift each time I sync and find another chapter added.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

there was only one of the essays on travel that I could really relate to and I found that one very funny and amusing.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as a break after GoT 1 and it made me nostalgic for my own travel experiences, in the best way possible.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Travel mémoires. I want more.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love travel writing, and some of these stories are great. Some are not.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What, you're not going to read a collection of essays by Hairpin writers about travel adventures? Come onnnn. Even the crap ones are pretty good.

[Stephanie Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it!!

[Pao Zavala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ensayos sobre viajes = sísísí