14 Books Every Solo Female Traveller Should Read
19 March, 2020
Online
searches for the “best” or “most inspiring” travel
stories are likely to yield books by Bill Bryson, Jack Kerouac,
Paul Theroux and other male authors. As much as we admire their
tales, we want to spotlight the women who paved the way for modern
solo travel and penned the travelogues that have us packing our
bags and crying out for an adventure.
Inspiring stories from women who dared to travel
A House in the Sky
by Amanda Lindhout
Lindhout backpacked through countries such as India and Syria
before working as a reporter in the Middle East. On a trip to
war-torn Somalia in 2008, she was abducted and held captive for 460
days. Her gripping memoir documents her conversion to Islam, a
dramatic escape and how her travel memories lifted her spirits
during her darkest moments.
What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding
by Kristin Newman
Consider this the single woman’s travel manifesto. While
everyone around her shacks up and spawns, Newman embarks on
international escapades and masters the art of the “vacationship”.
The author is a sitcom writer, and this book is a good laugh.
No Hurry to Get Home
by Emily Hahn
Hahn was ahead of her time. Born in 1905, she majored in mining
engineering, walked across Africa, lived alone in the Belgian Congo
aged 25, became the concubine of a Chinese poet and bore a child
with the head of the British Secret Service. First published in The
New Yorker, these vivid essays document the people and places she
encountered.
A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe
Edited by Faith Conlon, Ingrid Emerick and Christina Henry de Tessan
Gathering the voices of women who have ventured solo across the
world, this anthology is at once relatable, inspiring and great for
short bursts of armchair escapism. Our favourite entry is that of
Faith Adiele, a black Buddhist nun who enters a deserted train
station at 3AM in a Thai village controlled by armed bandits.
Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora
by Emily Raboteau
Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback
by Robyn Davidson
“I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you
have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there’s no
going back,” begins Davidson, who travelled across Australia’s Red
Centre to the Indian Ocean with four camels and a dog. Her journey
is one of love and grit, as she falls for the landscape that so
challenges her mind, body and spirit.
My Journey to Lhasa
by Alexandra David-Néel
Whisking readers to Tibet of the 20s, David-Néel was a French
explorer, spiritualist and anarchist who became the first western
woman to enter the forbidden city of Lhasa – using a disguise of
yak hair extensions. Expect hikes through chest-deep snow, lots of
butter tea and a scene in which she becomes so hungry that she eats
her leather boots.
Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
by Lauren Elkin
Tracing the footsteps of notable women such as artist Sophie
Calle and filmmaker Agnès Varda, Elkin walks across the world’s
most bustling metropolises. Musing on the idea of the “flâneuse”,
she spotlights cities’ creative potential and the liberating power
of a good ramble.
All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes
by Maya Angelou
The fifth volume in Angelou’s autobiography, All God’s Children
sees her emigrate to Ghana, where she exposes the myth of “mother
Africa”. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry,” she writes. “But
by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die,
it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other,
we may even become friends.”
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle
by Dervla Murphy
Ride with the inimitable Murphy and her bicycle, Roz, across an
icy Europe, through
Afghanistan and over the Himalayas to
India. Donnish yet dauntless – she uses “unprintable tactics”
to escape an attempted rape – this is a rallying cry to travel for
the love of travel.
Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found
by Cheryl Strayed
“I am a free spirit who never had the balls to be free,” writes
Strayed in this cult retelling of her 1,100-mile hike along the
Pacific Crest Trail. A cocktail of drugs, death and divorce had
previously led her to rock bottom; step by step, she heals.
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan
by Isabella Lucy Bird
A pioneer of solo female travel (and a bestselling writer), this
Victorian adventurer was the first woman to be elected fellow of
the Royal Geographical Society. In this tome, she travels from
Yokohama to Hokkaido where she lives among the indigenous Ainu
tribe. Like this? Try her Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, in
which she immerses herself in Hawaiian culture.
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
by Rebecca Solnit
This isn’t so much a travelogue as a philosophical meditation on
wandering – not the easiest read, but one that’s well worth the
effort. Reflecting on the past while scouring the soul, Solnit
explores the idea of transformation, asking what it means to be
lost and found.
The Valleys of the Assassins: and Other Persian Travels
by Freya Stark
The OG female vagabond, Stark explored the destinations that few
would dare to venture in the 30s, or perhaps even today. A trained
cartographer, she renders an intimate portrait of the Middle East.
Stark writes: “How widely scattered in the world are goodness and
courtesy and the love of immaterial things, fair blossoms found in
every climate, on every soil.”
