Womens Travel Memoirs

The stories in The Carry-On Imperative recount Pascoe’s ambitious beginnings as a journalist and broadcaster through her years as a not-so-diplomatic foreign service spouse. Her trail-blazing books about globally mobile families made her an in-demand speaker worldwide and led to the creation of The Expat Expert, one of the first websites for expats. Fans of The Diplomat will relish this rollicking memoir from “the wife”, who trails her husband to far-flung locales but works hard to establish her own identity and career.

As a young, single mother, Sara Schulting Kranz discovered her path to forgiveness and healing from the scars of sexual abuse and the trauma of an unexpected divorce started with a daily practice of actively embracing the power and beauty of nature. Along the way, Sara learned a key lesson that to heal from anything you must walk through it on your own terms.

When Susan quit her job in London and set sail off the south coast of England on her beloved sailboat, Isean, she was unaware this spontaneous departure would lead to a three-year journey spanning several countries across the continent. With only the very basics on board, resourcefulness becomes an unexpected source of joy and contentment. But for all the physical and navigational challenges of her journey, the other side of her story reveals a more important change - an inner journey - that took place along the way.

A memoir of homecoming—Heidi Across America is a gritty story of how opening our hearts to others enables us to open our hearts to ourselves and love what we find there.

Jackie was an ordinary American woman whose life changed after a blind date with rugged Antarctic explorer Finn Ronne. After marrying, they began planning the 1946-1948 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition. Her participation was not welcomed by the expedition team of red-blooded males eager to prove themselves in the frozen, hostile environment of Antarctica.

Stephanie White, from Charlotte NC, made up her mind to tackle the three individual 200-mile distance races known as the Triple Crown of 200’s. This includes the Bigfoot 205 mile race, Tahoe 200 mile race, and the Moab 240 mile race. While trying to figure out how to train for these races, she decided to do a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail and learned so much about herself and life, in general, along the way.

Three years ago, award-winning actress Angelina Jolie took on a radically different role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Here are her memoirs from her journeys to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Ecuador, where she lived and worked and gave her heart to those who suffer the world's most shattering violence and victimization. Here are her revelations of joy and warmth amid utter destitution...compelling snapshots of courageous and inspiring people for whom survival is their daily work.

Ellen Barone and her husband, Hank, are living a comfortable, creative life when they learn their rented house has sold. With no immediate solution, they hatch a plan to live in Mexico for the length of a visitor visa. They then move to Nicaragua. Then Ecuador...I Could Live Here is an intrepid woman's open-hearted chronicle of change and adaptation and joys and discoveries that come with seeking one's place in the world and what it means to be home.

Early in 1815, Louisa Catherine Adams and her young son left St. Petersburg in a heavy Russian carriage and set out on a difficult journey to meet her husband, John Quincy Adams, in Paris. She traveled through the snows of eastern Europe, down the Baltic coast to Prussia, across the battlefields of Germany, and into a France that was then experiencing the tumultuous events of Napoleon's return from Elba.

Newlywed Lisa Niver was on the adventure of a lifetime. She had quit her job, rented out her condo, and was traveling around Asia. To the outside world, Niver was a woman living out her dreams of exploring ancient ruins in Cambodia and seeing orangutans in Borneo. In private, she was keeping a dark secret. But, when she found herself lying on a sidewalk in Thailand, looking up at the sky in severe pain, she knew things had to change. At age forty-seven, Niver found the courage to set course on a new life.

Migrants and millionairesses, refugees and aristocrats all looking for a way to improve their lives. After WW1 a world of opportunity was opening up for women.... Before convenient air travel, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners and never more so than in the glory days of the interwar years. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women. Some traveled for leisure, some for work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. Their stories have remained largely untold - until now.

Atop a hill in the rainforest of Belize, next to the ruins of a fallen civilization, a butterfly farm raises the brilliant blue morpho. What starts out as the worst vacation ever turns into a quest to learn more about the first-of-its-kind farm when journalist Diana Marcum inadvertently discovers this wildlife sanctuary, which is supported by an international live-butterfly trade.

With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides - Pushkin and Tolstoy, among others - Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nationalities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Wheeler follows local guides; boards with families in modest homestays; eats roe, pelmeni, and cabbage soup; invokes recipes from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking; learns the language; and observes the pattern of outcry and silence that characterizes life under Vladimir Putin.

At the age of 19, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to "the world's longest, toughest horse race" - an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of 25 wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, and many fail to finish. Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

Shaken by the loss of her father, drained by her job at the United Nations, and conflicted over failed relationships, Natasha Scripture asked herself the question at the heart of her anxiety: What is my purpose? The answer was not about finding love; it was about recognizing its source. The result is Man Fast, a true and intimate spiritual detective story. With courage, honesty, and wit, Natasha shares the story of her awakening.

When Anna Maxymiw accepts a summer job as a housekeeper at a fishing lodge in Northern Ontario, she has little idea what to expect. At 23, she has decided to step away from her master's degree and city life to board a floatplane bound for the remote boreal forest. For 67 days, Anna will be working and living alongside 12 strangers. Together this group of young men and women will keep the lodge running. While the fishing guides head out on the water with the fishermen who are the lodge's guests, the women stay on land to clean and serve.

Rattled by fears, that she is losing not just keys, but her job, looks - even a sweetheart - Gail rashly announces that she will go alone to Paris, a dream postponed for 40 years. So begins the journey through France of an optimistic, infinitely curious, 62 year woman, who seeks to ransom her self-confidence and learn how to age. Deftly weaving scenic description with sketches of feisty Frenchwomen and flashbacks of older women she has admired, Gail draws wisdom from people and places that have gracefully endured the passing years.

All her life, Katherine Keith has hungered for remote, wild places that fill her soul with freedom and peace. Her travels take her across America, but it is in the vast and rugged landscape of Alaska that she finds her true home. Alaska is known as a place where people disappear - at least a couple thousand go missing each year. But the same vast and rugged landscape that contributed to so many people being lost is precisely what has gotten her found.

In November 2015 Sarah Outen completed her five-year, 25,000 mile journey looping the planet by cycling across Europe, Asia and North America and canoeing and kayaking across the North Pacific and most of the North Atlantic.

Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.