Women’s Travel E-Mail Roundtable, Part Six: Wanna See My AK-47?

Speaker's Corner: All this week, four accomplished travelers -- Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Liz Sinclair, Terry Ward and Catherine Watson -- talk about the rewards and perils of hitting the road alone as a woman.

10.10.07 | 7:09 AM ET

imageMore e-mails: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

From: Stephanie Elizondo Griest
To: Liz Sinclair, Terry Ward and Catherine Watson
Subject: Wanna See My AK-47?

I am struck by Liz’s suggestion that women travel writers might have an easier time breaking through to their subjects than men. From what I’ve observed, men seem to be taken more seriously when they introduce themselves as journalists/writers, but I do think people let their guard down more easily with women. I spent much of 2005 traveling throughout Mexico researching my next book, and nearly everyone I encountered from indigenous resistance fighters to politicians to paramilitary thugs was willing to talk to me, even when it was not in their best interest to do so. Some told me stories as a way of flirting with me (“Wanna see my AK-47?”); others as a way of trying to manipulate me. Still others seemed to sense my empathies and trusted me. When I traveled alone to Oaxaca to investigate its fomenting populist rebellion, I was immediately adopted by protesters who worried about my personal safety. Being perceived as helpless can be helpful sometimes.

As for Terry’s lovely birthday musings, I couldn’t relate more. Traveling teaches you the inherent value of a day and the possibility each new one holds within. Writing enables you to share the stories of the people whose paths you cross along the way. Partnering the two is utter bliss.

And therein lay the travel writer’s dilemma: you become so aware of how exciting/adventurous/fulfilling life can be, it kills your soul to do anything else! Unfortunately, my particular genre of travel writing (memoirs with a social-activist slant) doesn’t pay terribly well, so I’ve had to make sacrifices to stay in the field. Lots of sacrifices. Health insurance was the first to go. Then my Brooklyn apartment, followed by three-fourths of my belongings (well, they went into storage). In order to promote my latest book and write my third, I became a full-fledged nomad in August 2006, and in the thirteen months since have traveled to more than 40 cities and (briefly) resided in five. While I revel in this lifestyle, I worry sometimes about its sustainability. Relationships are a logistical nightmare, and there is no way I could raise a child (or even a ferret) with my schedule. And every time I think about pension plans or retirement funds, I break into a cold sweat.

Yet, there is no question that I am doing what I was put on this planet to do. Somehow, that justifies the sacrifices. And being nomadic has its perks. I’m becoming such a self-sustained, self-contained unit, I’m expecting to self-pollinate any day now.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t use the Couple Card now and then! Like Catherine, I’ve found it quite potent even without a stand-by mate. Nothing scares off sketchy suitors like: “My husband is due here any minute. He’s a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps/Jujutsu instructor/sniper for the LAPD.”; I have also dropped the old “But that’s all the money my husband will give” me line, in order to seal a bargain at the market.

And I deeply relate to Catherine’s sentiment about not enjoying “plain old private travel” as much anymore. Traveling has become a form of activism—a way of engaging with the world that either creates or records something profound. My next overseas venture is to Mozambique to document a friend who works with AIDS orphans and flood evacuees.

It recently occurred to me, however, that in all my Mexico travels, I never once saw a beach. Or climbed a mountain. (Unless a Zapatista enclave happened to live upon it.) As a writer, I sometimes feel trapped in perpetual work mode. And I’m finding it increasingly difficult not to look at every travel experience—or life experience—as “material”; How do you all separate the two?


World Hum contributing editor Terry Ward writes for The Washington Post, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Orlando Sentinel and AOL. A story she wrote about a women-run guesthouse in Rajasthan, India was selected as notable travel writing for the 2006 edition of the "Best American Travel Writing" series. She is based in Florida.

Catherine Watson is the former travel editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and the author of two collections of travel essays, the new Home on the Road -- Further Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth, and Roads Less Traveled -- Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth. She recently wrote the World Hum story Where the Roads Diverged.

Stephanie Elizondo Griest has mingled with the Russian Mafiya, polished Chinese propaganda and belly danced with Cuban rumba queens. She is the author of Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana, as well as Not Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines, and the guidebook 100 Places Every Woman Should Go

Australia-based Liz Sinclair is living in Bali, learning Indonesian, volunteering as a grant writer for a maternal and child health center for the poor and writing about Australia and Asia, with an emphasis on Indonesia and interfaith issues. She wrote Why I am Still Going to Bali for World Hum, and has written for The Melbourne Age, The Big Issue, Australia, The Brunei Times, The Evening Standard and Islands magazine.


2 Comments for Women’s Travel E-Mail Roundtable, Part Six: Wanna See My AK-47?

Julia Ross 10.10.07 | 12:52 PM ET

I took a 2-day cruise on Vietnam’s Halong Bay over the summer and was the only sole female traveler in a group of about 20 foreigners. When our Vietnamese tour guide, a freshly minted college graduate, joined me on deck for a pre-dinner cocktail, I braced for a flurry of personal questions, vaguely alluding to a boyfriend but offering no specifics. Then the conversation took an unexpected turn: He asked if I had ever heard of Arthur Conan Doyle. Sure, I said, I had read a few Sherlock Holmes stories. He parried: Did you know he once wrote a story called “The Woman Who Travels Alone”? As he spoke the title, his voice dropped to a stage whisper, he arched one eyebrow and gave me a sidelong glance, as if to say, there must be a dark secret you’re running from.

I got a good laugh out of it, and decided I’d cultivate the “woman with a mysterious past” thing on my next trip. I’m at an age where it could work, and just might cut the “Why no husband?” queries off at the pass.

Thanks for an interesting discussion, all.

MargoWolf 01.04.08 | 8:08 AM ET

Dear Stephanie, Most of my paid background has been in photography and I got so if I had a camera with me I felt like I was working. There were times the cameras were left behind so I could interact like a person not a job. That sometimes meant missing a great picture. And that sucks. It is hard. Even if I am not writing for pay, I writedaily. If there is something there it will come out. It is part of who I am and I am not a professional at this time as I have not earned my way with words and photos for a long time. And I want to again. Will I cut it as the old lady traveling
alone? I do wonder. But I will still do
it. When I was in Ireland I told very few people I was a writer/photogrpher. I told people I had been caring for my elderly mother for three years and had just sold my Airstream (regret) and I had asked my boyfriend to stay with my mother while I ran away. All true. People still did not understand me. When
the wind and rain kept me in my tent I relished the extra time to writeabout
what was happening to me and inside me.
Descriptions of wind and rain on my tent
are as varied as the storms that swept over me curled up in candlelight. We are who we are. We are fortunate and blessed
to see what we do and have amazing moments in incredible places. Sharing all this with others is compulsory. Yet our own friends and family think we are strange at best. So to writeit down and take the pictures we try to share with
strangers what we experienced with mostly strangers. If there are travel and adventure articles you love then someone will likely love your work, too.
My oldest girlfriend will probably never read anything I publish although I sent her photos for years.MargoWolf

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.