Two Month Review: Women Who Travel

My blog is two months old today! It has been another fun month of writing, reading, learning and getting to know people. For this month’s round up I thought I would continue highlighting some of the women who have been keeping me inspired.

“My relationship to travel has always been… a kind of ferocious eagerness and a pit of my stomach driven desire to be in all the places at the same time.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, interviewed on the Women Who Travel podcast (Conde Nast, first released 4 June 2019)

A few years ago I decided I was going to cycle round Cuba. I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a kid, I had no inclination to get on a bike here in the UK, but something about cycling around Cuba called to me. Destiny took the wheel, or the handlebars in this case, and booked me on a flight.

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Once the giddy ‘oh my God I’m doing this,’ had passed and the real ‘oh my god, I’m doing this,’ set in, I realised I was going to have to get to a gym sharpish and build up some leg muscles. To inspire me I googled podcasts about solo-women travel to listen to while I was on the bike machine. Women Who Travel, the Condé Nast podcast, came up with an episode about the women changing the food industry in New York. So I plugged my earphones in, they still had wires at that time (my goodness, do you remember walking round the gym with your earphones attached by a wire to your phone?!), and immediately fell in love with the hosts Meredith Carey and Lale Arikoglu.

Since then, I have listened to each episode. I have learnt so much: from what safari I should go on, what it is like to be a professional diver, what it is like to be the first women to visit every country, and, my favourite episodes, what books I should be reading (not always travel related). They have so many interesting guests who really know what they are talking about – you can learn so much about travelling solo and what it’s like to live the life you’ve been imagining. What’s it like to pack up your life and live in a van? There’s a few episodes on that. I was introduced to Yaa Gyasi’s incredible writing through Women Who Travel. So many travel stories, so much advice = my happy place.  

For my two-month review, I want to celebrate the Women Who Travel podcast and one of my favourite writers (who also has happened to be a guest), Elizabeth Gilbert. Come on, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a solo woman traveller, aged 30 or over, owes a certain amount of her bravery and travel addiction to Gilbert. I was bound to talk about her eventually. She was the one who made me think it would be ok, made it seem possible, and then gave me the tools to do it (just fucking do it, basically).

“After a break-up you either go on a trip or you cut your hair.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, interviewed on the Women Who Travel podcast (Conde Nast, first released 4 June 2019)

When I decided to go to Cuba I had not had a break up. I had got a job: a proper 9-5 job. In an office. The kind that Dolly always warned us about. I was flooded with a sudden need for adventure: to prove that I was not settling down. That I was still a free spirit with itchy feet that couldn’t be controlled.

I read Eat, Pry, Love whilst I was travelling round Australia when I was 18 which seemed to be the place you went to if you had a gap year. Eat, Pray, Love made me think about India and South-East Asia and all the amazing places there that were waiting for me to discover. I’m devastated that I seem to have lost my original copy that had all my flight tickets stuck on the inside of the front cover. But, armed with that knowledge, I didn’t worry about booking myself on flights to these places.

Listening to the WWT podcast episode, Gilbert sounds like a fun person to travel with: first of all, she’s up for drinks on the plane and a nap upon arrival. Two big ticks from me. She’s not into museums or galleries: me neither! I’m “a cultural dolt” too, Liz, I like to be outside experiencing a place on foot until my feet feel swollen and happy. I love that feeling.

After Eat, Pray, Love, then came Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (which, I’m pleased to say I’ve managed not to lose my copy of). It’s full of tips on how to write and general encouragement that you can do it! You don’t have to make money from it, if the need to write is there, it’s there regardless. And that’s fine. I also found her description of inspiration as an energy that chooses you, if you show it that you are ready for commitment and hard work, to tell great stories.  

In the end, it’s all just violets trying to come to life.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

So if you are looking for some pure escapism to Antarctica or Ghana, Italy or a big American road trip, if you want to know what it takes to complete the itidarod (a dog sledding race I’d never even heard of) or to bike the Silk Road, Women Who Travel will fill that travel-shaped hole. And for something to read, other than Eat, Pray, Love or Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls, set in a 1920s New York theatre, is packed with so much fun and is a great read for these summer nights.

I’m so glad I found the podcast when I did, building up my confidence to fly to Havana alone. Thank you Meredith, Lale and Elizabeth.

The episode with Elizabeth Gilbert was first released on 4 June 2019 and again on 12 May 2020.

Link to Women Who Travel: https://www.cntraveler.com/tag/women-who-travel-podcast