Tuesday, March 9, 2010

All who wander are not lost

Solo: On Her Own Adventure (Seal Women's Travel) Solo: On Her Own Adventure by Susan Fox Rogers


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Never hike alone. How many times have I been admonished not to hike solo? This advice has come from people I respect and I would like to comply, but I can’t. The joy and ultimate purpose of the walks I take is to let my mind wander and to take time to allow the tape to run and make room for new impressions. This meditative state is hard to achieve when there is another consciousness crowding in on your thoughts. So, even though my father warned me against walking alone of the bear invested, misty shores of the Lynn Canal southeast Alaska when I was a teen, I still wandered away from civilization to absorb the cool breath of the forest. This is why I love these stories by other women who for some reason they can’t deny need to experience life on their own terms, testing their own limits. That is what going solo means. You have no one to blame for mishaps and only your own inner river to listen to for advice. It is the path to self-growth and understanding taken by one woman who must ski in Yellowstone in the dead of winter alone, and another who becomes the first woman to sail from San Francisco to Hawaii in the Pacific Cup(a blue water crossing I’ve dreamed of making myself) solo. There are many more adventures in this anthology that call for a much higher degree of personal fortitude and courage than I have ever mustered on any of my experiences in the wild. This is one of several collections edited by Susan Fox Rogers that stands out on travel narratives shelves as quality examples of women who are not only stretching their limits, but teaching us all how to be brave and true to ourselves.
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Lost Angel Walkabout-One Traveler's Tales -soon to be released


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