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Includes New York Times bestselling authors Roxane Gay, Ann Hood, Marcia DeSanctis, and Susan Orlean
The newest collection in this award-winning series from Travelers' Tales invites you to join twenty-seven inspiring and thoughtful writers as they traverse the planet, crisscrossing all seven continents and exploring the ways travel can illuminate, heal, inform, and transform a life.
The essays probe themes as diverse as the locations, immersing us in experiences of kindness, adventure, nature, friendship, strength, marriage, motherhood, spirituality, the environment, belonging, healing, history, identity, romance, and resilience.
This beautiful and far-ranging collection helps us celebrate an appreciation for other cultures while proving that travel can be a profound gateway to connection, self-awareness, and an expanded worldview.
As Lavinia Spalding writes in her introduction, “In times of turmoil and despair, it becomes more vital to pay attention to how much there is live for, and travel for, and stand up for, and the stories in this volume shine light on this.”
In The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 13, you will:
The newest collection in this award-winning series from Travelers' Tales invites you to join twenty-seven inspiring and thoughtful writers as they traverse the planet, crisscrossing all seven continents and exploring the ways travel can illuminate, heal, inform, and transform a life.
The essays probe themes as diverse as the locations, immersing us in experiences of kindness, adventure, nature, friendship, strength, marriage, motherhood, spirituality, the environment, belonging, healing, history, identity, romance, and resilience.
This beautiful and far-ranging collection helps us celebrate an appreciation for other cultures while proving that travel can be a profound gateway to connection, self-awareness, and an expanded worldview.
As Lavinia Spalding writes in her introduction, “In times of turmoil and despair, it becomes more vital to pay attention to how much there is live for, and travel for, and stand up for, and the stories in this volume shine light on this.”
In The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 13, you will:
- Embrace contradictions on the late-night tango floors of Argentina
- Splash toward a sexual awakening in the depths of a French swimming pool
- Hike the ups and downs of an active volcano and a marriage in Sicily
- Learn to surf and face cultural stereotypes in Hawaii
- Experience a different relationship with grief during Day of the Dead in Mexico
- Uncover the nuances of hair braiding in Nigeria and Morocco
- Explore the joys and challenges of motherhood in Qatar’s singing sand dunes
- ...and much more.
Price: $19.99
Pages: 348
Publisher: Travelers' Tales
Imprint: Travelers' Tales
Publication Date:
09 June 2026
Trim Size: 8.00 X 5.25 in
ISBN: 9781609522179
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
TRAVEL / Special Interest / Adventure, Travel writing, TRAVEL / Essays & Travelogues, TRAVEL / Special Interest / Solo, TRAVEL / Food, Lodging & Transportation / Road Travel, TRAVEL / Special Interest / LGBTQ+, TRAVEL / Special Interest / Family, TRAVEL / Special Interest / Romantic, Essays
Praise for The Best Women's Travel Writing series:
“In story after story, the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world." —The New York Times Book Review
“The mix of tones and topics—sorrowful and joyful, the positive side of travel and the negative—reflects the “duality” many travelers face.” —AFAR
“In this, its twelfth edition, The Best Women's Travel Writing proves again that it has found a formula that works.” —Perceptive Travel
“The authors here know how to spin a tale.” —Body+Soul
“A contemplative break from daily life…a wise and affectionate collection.” —Clarion Reviews
“In story after story, the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world." —The New York Times Book Review
“The mix of tones and topics—sorrowful and joyful, the positive side of travel and the negative—reflects the “duality” many travelers face.” —AFAR
“In this, its twelfth edition, The Best Women's Travel Writing proves again that it has found a formula that works.” —Perceptive Travel
“The authors here know how to spin a tale.” —Body+Soul
“A contemplative break from daily life…a wise and affectionate collection.” —Clarion Reviews
Lavinia Spalding has edited six previous volumes of The Best Women's Travel Writing. She is also the author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler and With a Measure of Grace, the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant, and she introduced the reissued e-book edition of Edith Wharton's classic travelogue, A Motor-Flight Through France. Her writing appears in numerous print and online publications, including Sunset, Yoga Journal, San Francisco magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Tin House, and The Best Travel Writing. She lives in New Orleans.
Introduction
Lavinia Spalding
Vast and Unknowable
Roxane Gay
ANTARCTICA
O Brother, Where Art We?
Melissa Remark
NEW ZEALAND
Time Passage
Alenka Vrecek
CROATIA
To the Thai Woman Who Touched Me
Pier Nirandara
SOUTH AFRICA
Playing the World by Ear
Abbie Kozolchyk
SENEGAL / FIJI / NEPAL / SLOVAKIA
Why to Climb a Volcano Twice
Marcia DeSanctis
ITALY
Unbridled Joy
Susan Orlean
VIRGINIA
Traveling with Baggage
Christina Brobby
DENMARK
Into the Wind
Laura Killingbeck
CANADA / USA
Radioactive Memory
Theresa Lin
JAPAN
It Can Be Beautiful for Everyone
Katrina Woznicki
LOS ANGELES
The Donation
Stephanie Knapp
FRANCE
Tenderheaded
Faith Adiele
MOROCCO / NIGERIA
Carrying On
Caletha Crawford
SPAIN
Meeting the Mistress
Lisa VanderVeen
SINGAPORE
The Weight of Paradise
Cherene Sherrard
HAWAI'I
The Sound of a Hummingbird’s Wings
Ann Hood
MEXICO
Surrendering the Search
Maggie Downs
COSTA RICA
Boob Deck
Paulette Perhach
BAHAMAS
The Magnificent Mother of Sea Country
Jayme Moye
AUSTRALIA
Pastizzi
Kristin Winet
MALTA
The Living Goddess
Adriana Páramo
NEPAL
Honor and the Sea
Janna Brancolini
ITALY
Ripple Effects
Aislyn Greene
FRANCE
You Can’t Get There from Here
Sue Parman
SCOTLAND
Shifting Sands
Emma Morrell
QATAR
Milonga After Midnight
Marta Hanson
ARGENTINA
Acknowledgments
More Stories We Love
About the Editor
Vast and Unknowable
Roxane Gay
ANTARCTICA
O Brother, Where Art We?
Melissa Remark
NEW ZEALAND
Time Passage
Alenka Vrecek
CROATIA
To the Thai Woman Who Touched Me
Pier Nirandara
SOUTH AFRICA
Playing the World by Ear
Abbie Kozolchyk
SENEGAL / FIJI / NEPAL / SLOVAKIA
Why to Climb a Volcano Twice
Marcia DeSanctis
ITALY
Unbridled Joy
Susan Orlean
VIRGINIA
Traveling with Baggage
Christina Brobby
DENMARK
Into the Wind
Laura Killingbeck
CANADA / USA
Radioactive Memory
Theresa Lin
JAPAN
It Can Be Beautiful for Everyone
Katrina Woznicki
LOS ANGELES
The Donation
Stephanie Knapp
FRANCE
Tenderheaded
Faith Adiele
MOROCCO / NIGERIA
Carrying On
Caletha Crawford
SPAIN
Meeting the Mistress
Lisa VanderVeen
SINGAPORE
The Weight of Paradise
Cherene Sherrard
HAWAI'I
The Sound of a Hummingbird’s Wings
Ann Hood
MEXICO
Surrendering the Search
Maggie Downs
COSTA RICA
Boob Deck
Paulette Perhach
BAHAMAS
The Magnificent Mother of Sea Country
Jayme Moye
AUSTRALIA
Pastizzi
Kristin Winet
MALTA
The Living Goddess
Adriana Páramo
NEPAL
Honor and the Sea
Janna Brancolini
ITALY
Ripple Effects
Aislyn Greene
FRANCE
You Can’t Get There from Here
Sue Parman
SCOTLAND
Shifting Sands
Emma Morrell
QATAR
Milonga After Midnight
Marta Hanson
ARGENTINA
Acknowledgments
More Stories We Love
About the Editor