The Best Women's Travel Writing Series

Published by Travelers' Tales, 12th edition (2020)
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THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

One of our favorite travel writing collections is The Best Women’s Travel Writing, and we expect after a couple year hiatus that this edition will be one of the best.  The common theme of this well-known series is of course a selection from some of the best up-and-coming female travel writers, but the essays always cover a wide range of adventures and experiences.  This year’s book showcases adventures in Canada and Cuba, Ireland and Italy, Nepal and Kilimanjaro, and even Azerbaijan.  The stories in this volume are as diverse as the destinations, exploring themes of kindness, transformation, nature, friendship, family, strength, and resilience.  This series comes from Travelers’ Tales, a California-based book publisher with over 100 travel book titles in print.  They also publish The Best Travel Writing Series..
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Past Editions of The Best Women's Travel Writing

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2017 (volume 11) - Lavinia Spalding, Editor

"I reflect on this again and again after reading Jones' essay, and come to the conclusion that to be good travelers, we must embody the qualities of water: its beauty, strength, mutability, fluidity, and determination.  We need its capacity to ebb and flow; to permeate the most hidden and unreachable places; to soften and smooth what it moves against; to charge a path through seemingly impenetrable obstacles; to change form, and allow itself to be changed."
- Lavinia Spalding, introduction
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2014 (volume 10) - Lavinia Spalding, Editor

"This is precisely why many of us travel—to face fears and slake our thirst for the unknown. To force ourselves to be a little bolder, a little bigger. We seek renewal, and we’ve discovered it’s most easily attained with passport in hand. Travel is one of the most important acts we can engage in as humans, if only because it reboots our regular lives. The more we set out to discover the universe, the more we habituate ourselves to pursuing rich opportunities and infusing wonder into every moment. Being alive--truly alive, not merely existing—requires a refusal to grow complacent, and a deliberate effort to routinely wake ourselves up. And in travel we have an obvious—and exquisite—wake-up call."
- Lavinia Spalding, introduction
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2013 (volume 9) - Lavinia Spalding, Editor

"But I’ve also realized that the transformative effect of travel sometimes bears little relation to the distance of destination. That profundity and cultural diversity can be found anywhere. That what we take from a place is directly proportionate to what we bring to it. And that what we gain from our wanderings depends more on our mentality than our locality."
- Lavinia Spalding, introduction
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2012 (volume 8) - Lavinia Spalding, Editor

"There’s something profoundly intense and intoxicating about friendship found en route. It’s the bond that arises from being thrust into uncomfortable circumstances, and the vulnerability in trusting others to help navigate those situations. It’s the exhilaration of meeting someone when we are our most alive selves, breathing new air, high on life-altering moments. It’s the discovery of the commonality of the world’s people and the attendant rejection of prejudices. It’s the humbling experience of being suspicious of a stranger who then extends a great kindness. It’s the astonishment of learning from those whom we set out to teach. It’s the intimacy of sharing small spaces, the recognition of a kindred soul across the globe."
- Lavinia Spalding, introduction
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2011 - Lavinia Spalding, Editor

"If your passport has been stamped a few times, you probably already know that the surest method of keeping your travel fire alive is by reading and telling tales from the road, passing them along like a torch in a relay race. And if you haven’t yet traveled but aspire to, I hope this book provides the fan to turn your own spark of interest into a blaze of inspiration. Either way, consider this your invitation into the community of the thirty-three incredible women whose stories make up this year’s anthology. They think you might have caught the travel bug, and they want to talk to you about it."
- Lavinia Spalding, introduction
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 2010 - Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Editor

"This is why Travelers’ Tales publishes an annual anthology of women’s travel writing: so we can prove to each other that yes, we can do this. We don’t have to wait until our college loans are paid off, or our kids are grown, or our bank account is stabilized (because really—will that ever happen?). We don’t even have to wait until the perfect travel companion strolls along. We can quit our jobs—yes, even the one with dental insurance—kiss our beloveds goodbye, and fly. And this anthology shows just how supremely we capture the adventures that ensue."
.- Stephanie Elizondo Griest, introduction
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2009 - Lucy McCauley, Editor

"So when at bookstore readings I sometimes get the question, Why a women‘s travel book?—the answer is clear: As a woman, especially one who often travels alone, I think there is value in learning about how other women move in the world. How do we use our wisdom, strength, and vitality to navigate new territory? And how do we handle the vulnerability we might occasionally feel where, in the same situation, a man likely wouldn’t? From reading stories of women’s wild and adventurous spirits, of their acts of daring, I draw inspiration and the courage to try new things."
- Lucy McCauley, introduction

2008 - Lucy McCauley, Editor

"Once in a while it's why we go traveling in the first place (especially women, who so often seem to understand that the biggest part of being unprepared is remembering to set a place at the table for the unexpected guest).  Sometimes we go looking for one thing actually hoping that we might find another thing, even if we've no idea what that other thing might be."
- Linda Ellerbee, introduction to The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008

2007 - Lucy McCauley, Editor

"I hope that as you turn the pages of this volume, you’ll find again places that had been lost to the realm of memory-even as you discover here new places for the first time. As T.S. Eliot wrote (again in the Four Quartets): “The end is where we start from.” May you find in these stories an ending that lifts a veil onto some new beginning, opening a doorway to your own return."
- Lucy McCauley, introduction

2006 - Lucy McCauley, Editor

"Travel allows us the anonymity and solitude of the wanderer; it opens a place of suspended time that enables us, for a while, to be neither here nor there. To happen upon experience through the act of putting one foot in front of the other, inviting insight and inner meandering. Through travel we discover parts of ourselves whose outlines are usually obscured by the veneer of daily life. In moving from this periphery outward—in the journey away from the selves that we cultivate in our everyday lives—we come, paradoxically, to our center. We remember, then, what we’ve always known, connecting with memory that resides in our bodies, hearts, unconscious, and the part of ourselves that exists out of time."
- Lucy McCauley, introduction

2005 - Lucy McCauley, Editor

"Now, as women, we can not only see the world. We can become it in our own way as we bring our unique personal vision to what we see, what is around us. The journey, after all, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and I am grateful that the women in this book have brought their visions to bear."
- Mary Morris, in the preface