Lead Review (A Trip of one’s own)
- Book: A Trip of One’s Own: Hope, heartbreak and why travelling solo could change your life
- Location: World
- Author: Kate Wills
4.5*
‘A study from Cornell University found that money spent on experiences brings more lasting happiness than possessions’
I was thus delighted to find this engaging memoir – A Trip Of One’s Own – inspired by female travellers across the centuries. The first ‘known’ adventurer was Egeria, a nun, perhaps, who arrived somewhere in the Levant around AD 381/384. The author decides to loosely follow in her footsteps and heads off for Israel and Palestine. She then highlights more female travellers, and it is a joy to read about their adventures and admire their resilience in the face of huge impediments. She follows Emily Hahn to China, explores Jeanne Baret’s travels, dressed as she was in the guise of a man, and goes on to detail the life of the wonderful Nellie Bly (whom I got to know through Louisa Treger’s excellent novel in Madwoman) – “the ‘intrepid petticoated traveller’ set a new world record to go around the world and no doubt made travel, especially solo travel for women, feel more accessible”.
Inspired, no doubt by Nellie Bly’s trip, we could not possibly pass over the amazing Annie Cohen Kopchovsky (aka Annie Londonderry), who at age 23, with 3 small children at home, simply took her bike (never having ridden one before) and set off around the world. She is probably the first female athlete to get sporting sponsorship, as she allowed various companies to advertise on parts of her body. Have you heard of Aloha Wanderwell? No? And as for Juanita Harrison, a plucky world traveller in the early 20th Century, who was largely illiterate, but her memoirs are entertainingly readable – she says of herself ‘I am auful foxy’, she was adept at giving admirers the slip, and rounding off her memoirs in Hawaii she states: “I’ll get a serfe board and Take a few Hula lessons”. There are so many notable female solo travellers in this book, it is a joy to read about the diverse and determined women.
Melded with the stories of incredible women are the author’s own travel experiences, as she circumnavigates the globe as a travel writer. After she splits from her husband, she has no choice but to travel solo and she describes her encounters and experiences in such an easy-to-read style, with humour and acuity. This is the story of a period of the author’s personal and travelling life, informed by those who went before. Nothing can daunt her, she reminds herself, as she survived 3 months in India, where travelling as a lone female can be extremely hazardous.
The upbeat and encouraging tone of the book feels wonderfully inspirational and at the end of chapters she offers some wise tips. Find out where she suggests eating (and specifically the best bite in London), or the merit of carrying Earl Grey Teabags on every trip; and advocating the merits of audiobooks (‘Listening to stories and podcasts can feel lie you’re travelling with a friend in your ears’ – how true!). She also advocates the reading of books to experience place, which of course warms the cockles of my heart!
The author rounds off with Virginia Woolf and her stated benefits of walking, wherever you are. And who knew that Ffyona Campbell, in 1994, was the first woman to walk round the world. Finally advocating getting lost is when the adventure really starts.
Solo travel: ‘The more you push yourself out of your comfort zone, the more your confidence in yourself and what you’re capable of swells’.
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