Life-Altering Vacations for Women!
Stephanie Elizondo Griest, award winning author of 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, discusses the world's best places for women to visit.
Commitment: When did you start traveling? What was your first trip?
Stephanie Elizondo Griest: My great-great Uncle Jake was a hobo who saw America from the peepholes of boxcars, so you could say that wanderlust is encoded in my DNA! My own journey began my senior year in high school when I attended a journalism conference in Washington DC that featured a keynote by a rockstar foreign correspondent for CNN. He'd covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and his stories of revolution marveled me.
(The only thing people take to the streets and shake their fists about in my South Texas hometown is football.) When he finished, I ran up to the microphone and asked how I could be a foreign correspondent just like him.
"Learn Russian," he said. So I did. In 1996, I jetted off to Moscow for six months. I haven't stopped traveling since. But while wanderlust sparked my interest in travel, activism fuels it. I¹ve stumbled upon outrageous injustices in this world, and the only way my conscience will allow me to depart is by writing about it.
Commitment: Section 1 of your book, “Powerful Women and Their Places in History,” is like a series of mini-history lessons. How much research went into writing this section?
Stephanie: Every place is glorious in its own special way, but now and then, I stumble upon somewhere sacred. It usually takes a moment to recover, and when I do, I scan the room (or wilderness) for a pair of eyes to share it with. No matter where I am - downtown Manhattan or the Mongolian steppe - it is inevitably in the eyes of another woman that I find a similar spark or sense of wonderment. Afterward, I can only describe the place as one where "every woman should go." When Travelers' Tales approached me with this project, memories of these places surged forth. I scribbled down half the list in just one sitting, then started calling my girlfriends (and a few select boy friends). Fortunately, I was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University at the time, so I had access to one of the nation¹s greatest research libraries. I spent eight months pouring over guidebooks, atlases, and travel stories to find the world's most fascinating places and the facts that make them so.
Commitment: Few travel books contain pointers such as “Try to coincide your safari with a full moon.” How did you decide which details to include?
Stephanie: If someone embarks upon one of these journeys, I want their experience to be sublime. And what is more divine than a full moon?
Commitment: 100 Places Every Woman Should Go is not a typical travel guide. You list and discuss many interesting places, but focus on their history, beauty or social significance, rather than on more practical details such as where to stay or where to eat. Can you explain how you came up with the idea to structure your book in such an interesting way?
Stephanie: Early in my travels, I read a rave review in a guidebook about a restaurant in Vietnam that was owned and run by a Deaf man and his family. When I visited it, I was dismayed to discover an entire row of restaurants claiming to be that particular one. Employees were actually standing in front of the restaurants, speaking (or rather, pretending to speak in) sign language to the throngs of puzzled tourists ¬ many of whom were clenching the very same guidebook that had reeled me in. I scurried away, and three blocks from the madness, on a quiet neighborhood street, found one of the loveliest cafés I have encountered anywhere on my travels. I have since grown wary of restaurants and hotels recommended by guidebooks, as the influx of tourists that reviews elicit invariably changes them. With 100 Places, I wanted to provide a general roadmap to the world, rather than a specific set of hotspots (which are always subject to closure, changes of management, price hikes, etc.) I chose places that will be special regardless of where you eat or sleep.
Commitment: You include a few locales which some women may be afraid to try, such as Iran, Cambodia and Rwanda. What advice would you offer these women?
Stephanie: If you are concerned about the safety of a particular place, Lonely Planet¹s Thorntree Forum (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree) is a great way to get the lowdown. Any question you post will likely be answered within 24 hours by knowledgeable travelers. Aside from that, my best advice to is to blend in as much as possible. Invest time in flipping through magazines and renting contemporary movies from your destination country and try to pack clothing similar to what locals are wearing. As a general rule, pensions, homestays, bed and breakfasts, and hostels are far more "women friendly" than hotels or motels. If that is all you can find, however, abide by the following: use only a first initial when checking in. Request a room that is not on the main floor. Always take the elevator instead of the stairs. And never leave your key where someone can see your room number.
Oh - and, when all else fails, cry. Seriously. While I hate to encourage women to rely on their perceived fragility or weakness to get by, in my experience, tears are mighty effective. There is just something about a lone woman crying that opens the doors, wallets, and hearts of the people of this planet. It is how I got all of my stolen documents replaced in Istanbul in record time, without penalty or rush fees. It is how my friend Daphne evaded costly traffic violations across Africa and literally stopped a departing airplane in Angola. Use only as a last reserve, but if you're going to do it, go all the way. If you're trying to avoid an exorbitant fine, jail sentence, or getting thrown off the Trans-Siberian train in the middle of the night for not having your papers in order, think: Oscar. Drop to your knees. Convulse. Make such a scene, passersby get involved. If the situation is truly critical, consider fainting -- but only if you've gotten enough sympathetic people involved that your oppressor can't just toss your body off the train!
Commitment: You are obviously well-traveled! What advice would you give to women who are taking their first trip?
Stephanie: Don't get caught in the waiting game! All too often, women wait until graduation to commence our big adventure. We wait until we¹ve paid off our college loans. Until we¹ve paid off our mortgage. Until our kids/pets/ferns are grown. The root of our procrastination is usually fear. We are afraid of getting lost on the open road. Of growing lonely. Of getting mugged, kidnapped, raped, killed.
Yet, the scariest part of traveling is everything you must do prior to boarding that plane: quitting your job, buying your ticket, subletting your apartment, shoving your stuff in storage. Once you have physically boarded, you¹re golden. You¹re ordering margaritas, flipping through guidebooks, drawing up plans, dreaming. And then you¹re stepping off that plane and beholding the jungle, the ocean, the mountains. The glorious people you¹ll soon befriend. Before you know it, you¹re traveling; you¹re transcendent. You¹re one with Mother Camino.
Commitment: It may be difficult, but of all the places you've visited, which one was your favorite and why?
Of the 30-plus countries I have explored, Mexico is hands-down my favorite. The landscapes are stunning, the food is fantastic, the music is hip-swiveling and fun. And the people tell the wildest stories you¹ve ever heard. I spent some time with Mayan Indians in Chiapas, and although many of them could not read, they could all recite legends originally written in codices that got destroyed by Spanish conquistadores 500 years ago. Sit with them long enough, and you¹ll start to hear cuentos about the Hurricane Woman and the Butterfly Man.
What makes Mexico especially sacred is that my ancestors are from there. I deeply encourage everyone to travel to their motherland at some point in life, to learn from the roots that grow within you. Even if you can't find a living family member, you can ask around for the local historian (or oldest living resident) to see if they know your family name. Request relevant birth, marriage, or death certificates at the equivalent of the county clerk's office; make rubbings of tombstones engraved with your family name at the local cemetery; fill a jar with earth. If nothing else, you'll leave with the satisfaction that you witnessed the same sunset as your ancestors.
That your boots collected the same dust.
Stephanie Elizondo Griest has mingled with the Russian Mafiya, polished Chinese propaganda, and belly danced with Cuban rumba queens. These adventures were the subject of her award-winning first book: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. She has written for the New York Times, Washington Post and Latina Magazine, and numerous Travelers’ Tales anthologies. An avid traveler, she has explored 25 countries. She is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University and a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute. Visit her website at www.aroundthebloc.com.
To purchase 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, click here.
