Beth Whitman’s Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo is essentially a guidebook of travel resources, and in today’s information age that can prove to be invaluable. Whitman has collected lessons learned from her first solo trip on a motorcycle from Seattle to Central America through her present running of www.WanderlustAndLipstick.com, a site devoted to issues specific to female travel, and organized them into straightforward advice designed to quell any questions or concern. Consider this expert advice from forty-five of your closest well-traveled friends.
The tone of this book is as encouraging as it is informative. Although many of the tips and advice could be applied to groups or families, there is constant cheerleading of any experience that pushes boundaries. The book makes a point of shooting down most of the standard excuses holding solo travelers back early on, addressing fears, priorities and budgets directly and asking readers to start small but dream big. With a little thought and energy, travel doesn’t just have to be something you would do if you won the lottery.
From there, Whitman walks the reader step-by-step through every step of the trip planning process, from housing to transportation, safety alerts to the importance of insurance always including links to websites for more detailed information. Each chapter is sprinkled with stories from a peanut gallery of fellow travelers sharing anecdotes to support the advice being given. Like any good guidebook, there may be some omissions or out of date advice by the time it gets published (e.g. for free housing this guidebook includes www.GlobalFreeloaders.com but not the popular www.Couchsurfing.org), but it also provides many less popular resources that may not pop up in the top of your Google search.
Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo would make a great gift for a graduating senior, professional woman, stay-at-home mom, or even grandmother. By including words of wisdom for travelers of all ages in a light-hearted yet matter-of-fact voice this book could add insight to even the most seasoned business traveler. If nothing else, it will get the reader thinking about that dream vacation, which is the first step in actually getting there.
