52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 20

A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe is a compilation of short stories written by women traveling the world alone. Edited by Christina Henry De Tessan, Faith Conlon and Ingrid Emerick, these stories take us to remote deserts, lush islands and a variety of exotic locals.

To me, the thrill of adventure is always alluring and I appreciate reading travel stories from a woman's perspective. However I experienced an underlying loneliness while reading these tales... This is probably just my personal reaction to traveling alone in foreign countries. I keep thinking about the summer I spent in Europe while in college. How I traveled with companions the entire summer until the day I boarded a train from Rome to Paris. Alone. It was one of the hardest things I have done. Adventure will always drive me. But I want to share it. I want to have people that understand my stories and experiences after the fact...

Some excerpts from the book:

Travel intensifies the elements of a person's nature - both fine and toxic - making them stand out more starkly than they ever do in the safe, regulated environment of home.

But travel was about letting go, and there was no other way to experience it. I knew it was only when you let go that the best things happened. That was why I traveled, and why I found it so hard some times. 

Traveling alone, as invisible as a ghost, was also a method of self discovery. What in fact, did I do when no one was watching?

We cannot predict who will change our lives, nor whose lives we will change.

For me sisterhood is the relationship with the purest motives, the least baggage. The thousands of hours spent playing in the same yard and eating the same cooking, the passing on of secrets... the layers of understanding conveyed by our own language of words and gestures - all make the bond of sisterhood a fundamental part of who I am.

A sister will never leave me. Our connection outweighs our differences.