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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You. From how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And over the past few weeks on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we have been delving into the world of

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Speaker 1: women in exploration and women adventurers who are going all

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Speaker 1: around the world doing all sorts of incredible things. And

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Speaker 1: to close out this series, partially because it's summer travel

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Speaker 1: season and partially because it just seems like the right

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Speaker 1: and natural thing to talk about, is the issue of

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Speaker 1: women traveling alone, women's wanderlust, what it is like, whether

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Speaker 1: you are a stem explorer or someone who wants to

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Speaker 1: climb the highest mountain in the world or not. Just

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Speaker 1: women leaving their homes to see something they have never

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Speaker 1: seen and doing that alone. It's it's a super big

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Speaker 1: deal to a lot of people for women to be

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Speaker 1: traveling by themselves, whether we're talking about women today, uh,

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Speaker 1: women in a golden age of expiration so like the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century, or whether we're talking about women in fourth

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Speaker 1: in the fourth century. Yeah. Susan Jacob at The New

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Speaker 1: York Times writes about how women traveling alone has always

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Speaker 1: been looked at a little suspiciously because there immediately all

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Speaker 1: of these questions raised that essentially repeat over and over again, Well,

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Speaker 1: why would a woman want to travel alone? What is

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Speaker 1: wrong with her? And she mentions how in the fourth century,

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Speaker 1: Christian pilgrims were the first quote unquote respectable women who

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Speaker 1: traveled alone, and really, for a long time, religious pilgrimages

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Speaker 1: and family emergencies were the only situations when it was

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Speaker 1: socially appropriate for a woman to set off on her

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Speaker 1: own and without any kind of chaperone or male companion. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: God forbid a woman travels without some sort of male protection,

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Speaker 1: because everybody's going to assume, whether we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: fourth century or whether we're talking about today, people are

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Speaker 1: going to make some crazy assumptions as far as like

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Speaker 1: her sexuality goes. For instance, people are gonna think like

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Speaker 1: she's a loose woman, that Uterus is floating about making

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Speaker 1: her crazy, or she's just terribly lonely. She's either she's

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Speaker 1: either hyper sexual and looking for anonymous sex, or she

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Speaker 1: is just desperate and lost in the world, or maybe both. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and Jacoby writes about these this, this trope of

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Speaker 1: the solo woman traveler and talks about how even today

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Speaker 1: we have these lingering, internalized stereotypes about what it means

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Speaker 1: for a woman to travel unencumbered and unaided by a

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Speaker 1: man or family entourage. And this is something that Sarah

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Speaker 1: Heppola over at Salon echoed. She talks about how a

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Speaker 1: woman traveling alone threatens tradition and propriety, and because women

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Speaker 1: often doubt themselves, we tend to stay towards safe harbors

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Speaker 1: and soft landings, hiding behind the needs and wants of others.

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Speaker 1: And it was really in the mid nineteenth century, which

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Speaker 1: is considered by some the golden Age of female travel,

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Speaker 1: that more and more women, particularly well healed women, started

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Speaker 1: to brave away from those safe harbors and soft landings.

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Speaker 1: And it was partially due to advancements in transportation technology.

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Speaker 1: You have steamships and railroads that made travel more feasible. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this allows women to go forth to explore, to

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Speaker 1: learn to see the unseen, and therefore gained some autonomy

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Speaker 1: break some of those gender norms that status quo. And

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Speaker 1: this is particularly true though, and we would be remiss

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Speaker 1: to skip over this. It's particularly true for white middle

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Speaker 1: class women. There's a lot of privilege at play when

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Speaker 1: you talk about exploration particularly during this area of this era,

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Speaker 1: because when you look at men, for instance, white upper

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Speaker 1: class men traveling abroad, seeing the Empire, their heroes, their heroes,

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Speaker 1: and the way they talk about the quote unquote natives

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Speaker 1: is very patronizing. It's very like racist, very racist as well.

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Speaker 1: But you know what a lot of women during that time,

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Speaker 1: especially the upper class white women who were traveling the

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Speaker 1: Empire as well. I mean, they weren't that far off either,

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Speaker 1: and they by leaving the gender norms of the modern West,

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Speaker 1: they were able to go into these you know, so

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Speaker 1: called uncivilized societies and feel as though they were at

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Speaker 1: the top of some power hierarchy. Yeah, it was interesting

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Speaker 1: that if you read a lot of the travel women's

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Speaker 1: travel writings at the time, a it is usually coming

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Speaker 1: from women who could afford to travel, and so you

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Speaker 1: have that element of privilege going on there, and then

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Speaker 1: you have the element of white privilege going on. But

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Speaker 1: you also have the subtext of them starting to question

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Speaker 1: their female status, their gender role in the West because

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Speaker 1: in these other places, due to these elements of privilege,

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Speaker 1: they are higher on the hierarchy than they are at home.

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Speaker 1: And this is something that Aziza Ahmed writing for the

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Speaker 1: post Colonial Studies Department at Emory talks about saying that

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Speaker 1: the East was seen and that's capital e east. The

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Speaker 1: East was seen as a place for women to regain

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Speaker 1: power through race, which was lost at home because of gender.

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Speaker 1: And while that is that's not that's not necessarily something

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Speaker 1: to celebrate because it's obviously like the indigenous people who

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Speaker 1: are being thrown under the bus, uh for the sake

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Speaker 1: of a woman finding herself a little bit more. But

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Speaker 1: but it's it's an interesting snapshot of the time of

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Speaker 1: how it's sort of the socio cultural element of travel

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Speaker 1: in the mid nineteenth century when these women were going

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Speaker 1: out in corsets and skirts and heavy clothes and hats

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Speaker 1: and going into these what they would call uncivilized foreign lens. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, Kristen, you mentioned so as they go to

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Speaker 1: other lands and travel and see other things, and they

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Speaker 1: they find themselves on top of this perceived hierarchy, and

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Speaker 1: how that translated into the perception of how they were

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Speaker 1: treated at home. I mean, if we talk about explorers

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Speaker 1: the way we have defined it so far in this

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Speaker 1: series explores being those people who have to go out

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Speaker 1: and they have to find answers. I mean, it's not

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Speaker 1: as if women who did and wanted to research, It's

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Speaker 1: not like they were welcomed into explorers groups. So a

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Speaker 1: lot of the time, if you were a woman who

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Speaker 1: had scientific or mathematical or anything leaning you you kind

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Speaker 1: of did have to pick up and leave and go

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Speaker 1: elsewhere to perform research. Yeah, this was a lot of

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Speaker 1: kind of anthropological research happening under the guise of just

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Speaker 1: being a wealthy woman traveling. And there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of popular women travel writers at this time, which is

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Speaker 1: which is a little surprising that they were so well received,

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Speaker 1: but I guess it was because they were bringing back

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Speaker 1: news of an unknown land. And so you have people

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Speaker 1: like Isabella bird Lady, Mary Wortley Montague, and Mary Kingsley

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Speaker 1: who wrote a lot and made their names in their

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Speaker 1: travel writing, which again tended toward objectifying indigenous people and

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Speaker 1: their quote unquote savage ways. And talking about these women's

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Speaker 1: writing um a lot of the time, and I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying that this applies specifically to the women Christen decided,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of the times these women travel writers

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Speaker 1: would sort of maybe embellish a little, maybe make the

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Speaker 1: native people's seem more savage or uh, sort of outside

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Speaker 1: the norm than they really were, and so these travel

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Speaker 1: logs attracted a lot of attention, and uh Rachel Friedman

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Speaker 1: over at Bitch cites Lady Helen Defriends eighteen sixty three

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Speaker 1: satiric Listings from Low Latitudes, which basically makes fun of

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Speaker 1: this trend of women travel writers and their travel logs.

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Speaker 1: She writes about a trip made by the fictional Impulsia Gushington,

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Speaker 1: who when I first was skimming over this article, I

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Speaker 1: was like, there was a woman named Impulse. Okay, I

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Speaker 1: get it. I did the same thing. It's like that's

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Speaker 1: the worst name, but I get it. Um, But Impulse

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Speaker 1: thea sort of stood in as a figure mocking the

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Speaker 1: era's upper class female travelers in their wide eyed, sort

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Speaker 1: of naive and shocked observations about the people that they

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Speaker 1: encountered in foreign land. But it also served to sort of,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I think it kind of served as

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Speaker 1: a backlash to women having this freedom, Like how weird

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Speaker 1: are you? You're writing all of this like trite stuff

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Speaker 1: about traveling and how you're so special and how they're

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Speaker 1: so shocking, and but the thing is, dufferin A is

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Speaker 1: a woman writing this satire and b was inspired to

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Speaker 1: write about Impulsia Gushington, which I don't know. I find

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Speaker 1: out they're very funny, Dufferin, You're quite a whit, But

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Speaker 1: it was she was inspired to write this after taking

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Speaker 1: a trip down the Nile, which was a very postionateing

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Speaker 1: to do at the time with her son, so she

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Speaker 1: herself a travel writer. To me, it read as what

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Speaker 1: today would be a satire on Eat, Pray, Love, you know,

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Speaker 1: essentially saying, oh, here we have another white woman going

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Speaker 1: into a foreign land to find herself. If only we

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Speaker 1: could talk to Dufferin. Yeah, if we could get different

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, that could clear some things up for us. Right.

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Speaker 1: But there's another book that we found from eighteen sixty

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Speaker 1: five called Women Adventurers, written by Meni Muriel Downey, in

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Speaker 1: which she profiles I think it's five women travelers of

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Speaker 1: the day, and she writes those in our book followed

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Speaker 1: husbands and lovers for love, so they say how much

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Speaker 1: more might be made of their stories if only they

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Speaker 1: themselves were not the narrators. Basically, she was saying, it's

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Speaker 1: just too bad that these women were not alone traveling,

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Speaker 1: because if women are out alone traveling, then you know,

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Speaker 1: they realized so much more instead of just following men.

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Speaker 1: And that's still the refrain now. Yeah, I mean absolutely

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Speaker 1: every You know, when you read uh, travel essays by

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Speaker 1: young women on various websites, various travel magazines, etcetera, etcetera,

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Speaker 1: you know a lot of them do talk about these

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Speaker 1: personal journeys of discovery, discovery of the themselves, discovery of

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Speaker 1: new places, discovery perhaps of a future husband or temporary lover. Right,

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Speaker 1: But I bet how rich the experience was for them

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Speaker 1: to go on their own. Yeah, And for that reason,

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Speaker 1: I would say that in the early twenty first century

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Speaker 1: where we are today, that we might be in this

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Speaker 1: golden er age of female travel and travel writing, because

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Speaker 1: you have more women than ever before traveling alone. Uh

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Speaker 1: And Friedman, for instance, reported in New York Magazine a

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Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen poll of travel agents which found that

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Speaker 1: it's much more common for women to travel alone than men,

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Speaker 1: and seventy of the agents they pulled noted that more

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Speaker 1: female travelers embark on solo trips in their male counterparts,

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Speaker 1: and the average age of a solo traveler is not

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Speaker 1: the young woman fresh out of college, but a forty

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Speaker 1: seven in year old female. Yeah. And usually, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: something has happened in her life that's pushed her out

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Speaker 1: on this journey, whether it's just divorced or maybe the

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Speaker 1: death of a loved one or parent. And I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think those reasons, even if those are things specific

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Speaker 1: to a certain age group, I mean, I think that

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Speaker 1: those major life changes are what push a lot of

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Speaker 1: people out into the world on a journey of discovery.

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Speaker 1: And that reminds me of reading that Bitch article by

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Speaker 1: Rachel Friedman in which she talks to a travel expert

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Speaker 1: who started leading workshops for women travelers, and her main

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Speaker 1: demographic was women in their forties and fifties who, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had like hit some kind of dramatic point in

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Speaker 1: their life and just felt the need to flee. And

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Speaker 1: I felt that before, just like I need to get

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Speaker 1: on a plane and be in a place that looks

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Speaker 1: nothing like my home as soon as humanly possible. And

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Speaker 1: I don't want anyone I know to come with me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah no, I um I after going through a breakup,

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Speaker 1: well it was actually like a super like tripoli doubly

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Speaker 1: traumatic thing of heartbreak for so many. Anyway, I ended

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Speaker 1: up hopping in the car and just driving to Charleston,

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Speaker 1: South Carolina, by myself and just wandering around and eating

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Speaker 1: all the food and seeing all the sites because I

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Speaker 1: was like, I just don't want to I just don't

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Speaker 1: want to talk to anybody. I don't want to be

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Speaker 1: at home, you know, I want to go out and

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Speaker 1: think about things for a little while. Well, and people

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Speaker 1: might say, but Caroline, weren't you so lonely eating all

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Speaker 1: of the food by yourself? No, no, Yeah. I did

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Speaker 1: a similar thing after a friend of mine died in

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Speaker 1: a very tragic car accident, and my knee jerk reaction

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Speaker 1: was to go to l A. I'd never been there before,

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Speaker 1: and I went for my birthday. I also prefer to

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Speaker 1: spend my birthdays in places I have never been before

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Speaker 1: because it just makes planning so much easier. And and

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Speaker 1: like you, I just wanted to be alone. I didn't

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Speaker 1: want to be around anyone. I wanted to observe and

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Speaker 1: sort of just be alone with my thoughts. And it

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Speaker 1: felt and it was lonely at times when you're surrounded

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Speaker 1: by a lot of people, especially I think if you're

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Speaker 1: in morabituristy area. But it was a good kind of loneliness. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's that's the thing. I you know, I um,

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Speaker 1: I took a trip. I did study abroad the semester

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Speaker 1: after I graduated college, which is weird, but that summer

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Speaker 1: I went to England, and then after everybody else went

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Speaker 1: back to school, I stayed over there by myself for

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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, just traveling and seeing the sites.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, you get these like pangs, especially around meal time,

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Speaker 1: like I wish somebody was sitting across the table for me.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's so nice. Also, it's it's it's a

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Speaker 1: good feeling. It's like pressing on a sore muscle almost

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Speaker 1: that You're like, I'm doing something for myself. I'm focusing inward.

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Speaker 1: I don't know not to sound too eat Pray Love

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Speaker 1: about it, but speaking though of Eat Pray Love, one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons why we're seeing more women travel memoirs

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Speaker 1: than ever before it's become this hugely popular genre is

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Speaker 1: largely due to two thousand sevens Eat Pray Love by

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Gilbert. And I read Eat Pray Love. It might

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Speaker 1: have been because I was also going through a breakup,

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Speaker 1: so reading the book was perfectly timed. But I enjoyed it.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know, it gets a lot of flak,

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Speaker 1: but I loved it and I cried. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: I think it gets a lot of flak from people

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Speaker 1: who don't want who want to distance themselves from anything

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Speaker 1: that even looks or smells like chick lit. But Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: Gilbert is a very respectable writer, and while there are

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Speaker 1: more high minded books out there, I mean, I enjoyed it.

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Speaker 1: I've never seen the movie. I heard it was, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I I've seen parts of an on TV and it's

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Speaker 1: it's not great. But yeah, I think, Um, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I think people need to not to get off on

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Speaker 1: a tangent. I think people need to lighten up about

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Speaker 1: the book. It's her journey, it's her story. You can

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Speaker 1: tell yours too if you want. Yeah, I will say

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Speaker 1: that I enjoyed Sheryl Strade's Wild more than Eat, Pray Love.

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Speaker 1: They're often held up as like the two women travel memoirs,

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Speaker 1: but they're such they're also so different yea, and written

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Speaker 1: from like very different times and places. And Sheryl Strad

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Speaker 1: goes out and hikes the Pacific Crest Trail, which is

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Speaker 1: far different than eating lots of pasta in Italy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I mean people forget that women don't all have

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Speaker 1: one voice, although a lot of times, if you are

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Speaker 1: a woman travel writer, you're expected to have the voice

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Speaker 1: of other women travel writers. And so often women who

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Speaker 1: write these books or these essays are expected to write

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Speaker 1: about their transformation, the personal journey, that the emotion, and

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Speaker 1: not that that's bad, not that they shouldn't, but it

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Speaker 1: is interesting to see the contrast between what women do

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Speaker 1: right and are expected to write versus what men are

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Speaker 1: expected to write and what they end up publishing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I feel like women's travel memoirs are also expected to

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Speaker 1: spring from a place of extreme heartache and despair, whereas

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Speaker 1: we can jump right in with a man on a

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Speaker 1: road in the middle of his travels. At least that's

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Speaker 1: what Lavinius Spaulding, who was the editor of the two

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Speaker 1: thousand eleven Best Women's Travel Writing Anthology, reported. She said,

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Speaker 1: a lot of travel writing by men is focused on

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Speaker 1: what I saw, did eight where I went, what goal

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Speaker 1: I accomplished, whereas with women, it's who I met, what

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Speaker 1: I learned, how I felt, how I changed. And that

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Speaker 1: might be due to men and women maybe traveling different,

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Speaker 1: maybe traveling for different reasons. Um but it also might

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Speaker 1: be due to editors and publishers sort of pushing women

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Speaker 1: travel writers in that type of way. Well, this this

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Speaker 1: got me thinking about the travel shows, what types of

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Speaker 1: travel shows I enjoy watching, and like, I will watch

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Speaker 1: for thirty hours at a time Anthony Bourdaine, but um,

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Speaker 1: I cannot stomach Samantha Brown. And I started thinking about

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, my a woman hater and myself hater.

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Speaker 1: What's going on? Oh no? And then I thought no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: because I would watch a women, a women's travel show

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Speaker 1: too if it were led by a woman who was

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Speaker 1: also like Anthony Bourdine, like maybe led by too feminist

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Speaker 1: minded young podcasters, but like if you put Janine Garoffalo

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Speaker 1: on an airplane and center overseas, I would totally watch that.

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Speaker 1: I'm not as interested in what Samantha Brown is selling,

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Speaker 1: you know, but then she is it because she has

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Speaker 1: more of a like a gender stereotypical approach. Is that

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Speaker 1: what it is? I don't know what it is. Maybe

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Speaker 1: she's more touristy and more like, hey, guys, like pack

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Speaker 1: your Fannie pack or whatever, whereas Anthony Bourdaine is very

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Speaker 1: much like gonna go into this back alley squid shop,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to eat a bunch of squid and

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Speaker 1: then I'm going to go to a bar with the

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Speaker 1: squid shop owner. You know. It's it's very much more

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Speaker 1: of like a more of it off the beaten path

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Speaker 1: type thing. Well, and that's such a good distinction to

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Speaker 1: bring up between the traveler and the tourist, because the

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Speaker 1: tourist is what you never want to be. But the

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Speaker 1: traveler is the person that we you know, that that

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Speaker 1: you want to sit next to them at a dinner

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Speaker 1: party and hear all of their tales. Whereas a tourist

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Speaker 1: you're going to be like, oh no, well, so, I

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Speaker 1: I think because we still even today, there is the

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Speaker 1: danger of falling into that trap of still looking at

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Speaker 1: people in the country you visit as like an exotic other,

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Speaker 1: you know, And so there is that danger of falling

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Speaker 1: into that trap. And I I feel like it maybe

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Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but a tourist is more likely to fall

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Speaker 1: into that trap versus someone who is a traveler who

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Speaker 1: is more willing to more willing and desirous of jumping

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Speaker 1: into that culture learning all that they can, not looking

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Speaker 1: at it from like a patriarchal You're this exotic other

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Speaker 1: I have to to encapsulate somehow and put into a box.

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Speaker 1: But I want to join you, yeah, or I need

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Speaker 1: to come and change your problematic gender norms that that

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Speaker 1: that I feel are like hyper repressive. Instead, a traveler

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Speaker 1: would go in and say, oh, no, actually, I am

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Speaker 1: going to go hang out with the women and see

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Speaker 1: how they live their lives and not try to insert

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Speaker 1: myself into, uh, into their way of life, but rather

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Speaker 1: absorb it and learn about it. But getting back though

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Speaker 1: to these differences in at least how travel writing by

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Speaker 1: men and women is marketed. Straight herself has talked about

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Speaker 1: how male travel stories are often seen as universal, perhaps

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Speaker 1: because of the thing of how they tend to focus

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Speaker 1: on you know what I did saw eight, whereas women's

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Speaker 1: and this goes for writing by women in general often

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Speaker 1: is pigeonholed as being very particular and only for women. Um,

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Speaker 1: and that's one reason why when she was writing Wild,

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Speaker 1: she pushed for a gender neutral cover. So if you, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you have a copy of Wild, you'll

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Speaker 1: see that there's a boot on the front. She was like,

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Speaker 1: I wanted I didn't want men on the subway to

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Speaker 1: be embarrassed having my book out reading it. Yeah, a

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Speaker 1: lot of women authors out there. Travel writers talk about

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Speaker 1: how everybody wants everybody goes to pink first. They're like,

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Speaker 1: let's make a pink cover. One author talks about how

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Speaker 1: well I finally succeeded by getting a yellow cover. Another writer,

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Speaker 1: a woman of color, talks about how her travel book

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Speaker 1: was was not even given the broad audience of women.

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Speaker 1: Hers was pigeonholed as African American studies. And she's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not some anthropological like study you'r you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: a woman travel writer, Like what are you talking about?

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Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure. The title of her book is

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Speaker 1: The Black girl S Guide to Traveling, which clearly is

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Speaker 1: a travel book, not an African American studies book. But

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Speaker 1: that also touches on our conversations about, you know, women

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Speaker 1: in literature and marketing and all of that. But um,

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Speaker 1: it also leads us to these two major themes that

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Speaker 1: come up with women's solo traveling, where it has to

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Speaker 1: be both transformational and also terrifying. And so that first

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Speaker 1: theme of transformation is one that we've heard a lot about.

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Speaker 1: We've already talked a lot about it that often a

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Speaker 1: woman's journey that ends up being whether it's published or

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Speaker 1: whether it's just you know, a woman who's not a

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Speaker 1: writer going off and traveling. It's often sparked by some

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Speaker 1: emotional moment in her life or something something like heartache

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Speaker 1: or trauma that sets her off on this journey of

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Speaker 1: self discovery. And a lot of times I feel like

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Speaker 1: any women's travel essay that you read, the resounding message

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Speaker 1: is to do it because it will transform you, and

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Speaker 1: especially if you do it alone. You have Sarah Heppola

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Speaker 1: at Salon, who we sited earlier, who talks about how

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Speaker 1: she essentially just got in her car and drove around

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Speaker 1: the United States for months alone. And you have Jill

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Speaker 1: philip Povic at The Guardian writing about how I think

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Speaker 1: it was post breakup she went to Europe and Freedman,

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Speaker 1: who we site all the time on the podcast. She's

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Speaker 1: essentially the patron saint of Cementthi at this point. But

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Speaker 1: she similarly talks about how when she was in her

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Speaker 1: early twenties she went traveling alone and she was nervous

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Speaker 1: at first but so quickly relieved to be by herself.

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Speaker 1: And so there's that recurring theme over and over and

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Speaker 1: over again. Of travel fourth young woman, for it will

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Speaker 1: be transformative and also feminist. Absolutely. Even Toby Israel at

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Speaker 1: Salon talks about female hitchhiking about how you, as a woman,

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Speaker 1: you know, are much more likely to be hit by

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Speaker 1: a car than you are to be killed and raped

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Speaker 1: a hitchhiking, And so she talks about how that was

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Speaker 1: a major she she overcame a major hurdle of fear

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Speaker 1: and trepidation when she decided to accept that for that

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Speaker 1: first hitchhiking offer, and how even though there were some

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Speaker 1: bumps along the way, that she was so glad she

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Speaker 1: did it. Yeah, and she ended up traveling more than

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Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand miles hitchhiking through Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany,

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Speaker 1: which I cannot fathom. I don't know if my bravery

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Speaker 1: extends to the point of hitchhiking, because whether you're a

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Speaker 1: male or female, you know, how many times have we

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Speaker 1: been told since we were we children to never accept

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Speaker 1: her hide from strangers. Yeah, yeah, I I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. She she does point out, like we've

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Speaker 1: already said, she does point out that she had this

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Speaker 1: double pronged privilege of being female, so she was not

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Speaker 1: threatening to people who might stop and pick her up. Also,

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Speaker 1: people like couples and grandparents would stop because they felt

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Speaker 1: protective of this young white woman out on the side

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Speaker 1: of the road. But also that whole white thing where

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Speaker 1: she enjoys the privilege of being a white female. And

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Speaker 1: so you know, other drivers don't, you know, feel threatened

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Speaker 1: or whatever. So she she points that out that there,

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Speaker 1: it's not the same for everyone, right, um, But what

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Speaker 1: does seem to be the same for a lot of

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Speaker 1: solo female travelers, at least according to a two thousand

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Speaker 1: to study out of the University of Florida, is that, Yes, indeed,

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Speaker 1: setting out on your own is empowering. These researchers talked

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Speaker 1: to a number of women who had traveled on their own,

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Speaker 1: and they found that the women described the experiences is liberating,

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Speaker 1: not terrifying. Even though we are often warned over and

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Speaker 1: over again that oh, if you are a woman traveling alone,

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Speaker 1: you had better watch out. You better put on a ring,

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Speaker 1: better get a ripe whistle, get too, and keep it

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Speaker 1: in your mouth at all. Yeah, get some bare repellent

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Speaker 1: because it is a grizzly world out there. I mean,

429
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's funny that they even

430
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: studied this. Well yeah, I mean, and they found too

431
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 1: that after traveling alone, these women still prefer traveling alone

432
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 1: because it gave them more opportunities to make new friends.

433
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: Because when I went, for instance, I went on study

434
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 1: abroad in college with one of my best friends still

435
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: one of my best friends, and we had so much

436
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: fun together and we made lots of memories. But there

437
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 1: were also times that I know and like recognized as

438
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: it was happening that we were kind of so caught

439
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: up in like our own friendship with like doing things together,

440
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: that we weren't making really friends outside of ourselves, which

441
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: could have been cool there. I mean, we ended up

442
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: doing that more once we had been there for a

443
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,239
Speaker 1: little bit. Um, but I think there there can be

444
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: some missed opportunities. Yeah, Like I, um, when I was

445
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 1: by myself over and England and Ireland, I lost my leg.

446
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: I didn't lose the luggage, the airline lost the luggage.

447
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: And so I get to Ireland after being awake for

448
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: thirty six hours, and I'm feeling a little down in

449
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: the dumps because I don't have any underwear, you know,

450
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: Like I have nothing and I'm by myself and it's

451
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: raining because it's Ireland, and I'm just like, oh God.

452
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm walking up to Trinity College in Dublin,

453
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 1: and who should I see but this girl that I

454
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 1: did study abroad with. And I was like, oh, oh,

455
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: you stayed too, Hello. Can we be best friends for

456
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: the next couple of hours? And so she and I

457
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 1: um went all over the city. We saw a bunch

458
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: of things together, we ate together, We talked to a

459
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: bunch of like the local restaurant owners, and gotten to

460
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: a bunch of great conversations. We eventually went our separate ways,

461
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: but it was great to have that experience of kind

462
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: of enjoying a foreign country and a new city with

463
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: someone so you could rely on that that extra presence,

464
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: but then taking your own way and then diving deeper

465
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: into all of these things you want to learn more about. Yeah,

466
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: I've never traveled abroad by myself. I've gone places in

467
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: the US, but usually I have some point of contact,

468
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: whether I'm staying with a friend or you know, somebody

469
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: to call someone to meet up with, because there comes

470
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 1: that point of the free time, the after the sun

471
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 1: sets and is it safe to go out, where do

472
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: you go and eat alone? It can be I mean,

473
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: it can be kind of nerve racking. Yeah, And I

474
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: mean that leads us into the next major theme of

475
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: anyone discussing women traveling alone, which is danger. Danger. You've

476
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: got to wear all those rate whistles, don't go out

477
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: after dark, certainly, don't go to clubs like watch your back,

478
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: don't stay on the first floor of a hotel. And

479
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: while there is merit to a lot of the travel advice,

480
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, don't be stupid, but you don't want

481
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: to do stupid things at home either. Yeah. I mean,

482
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: when you look at the statistics of how dangerous travel

483
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: for women actually is compared to how much we hear

484
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: about how what a terrible idea, essentially it is because

485
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: we're just like putting ourselves at risk for the worst

486
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: possible things to happen to us. Apparently there's such a

487
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: vast gulf between the reality of traveling alone and what

488
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: we are warned about traveling alone. And that's one reason

489
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: that women are likelier to plan, like to overplan excuse me,

490
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: their itinerary, because we're so nervous about that free time,

491
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: because everyone's been telling us that we're going to be

492
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: murdered and or raped. Well, I don't know. I mean,

493
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: I think, I mean not to totally go off on

494
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: a tangent, but I think that having that free time

495
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: is so awesome, that unplanned free time is so awesome,

496
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: just as long as you are smart about it and

497
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: you're paying attention to your surroundings. Well, and I have

498
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: a feeling too that you know, yes, be smart about it, um,

499
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: But I also feel like they're there's this undercurrent of

500
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: victim blaming in regard to the worst case scenario of

501
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: being murdered and or raped, which has happened. And I'm

502
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: not trying to make light of that, um, But whenever

503
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario happens, the blame is immediately focused

504
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 1: on the solo female traveler of well, why was she

505
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: out there alone to begin with? Right an Alice Driver

506
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: at the Feminist Wire says that basically, by repeating these

507
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: stories over and over again and telling women not to

508
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: go out by themselves, we are limiting their movement. And

509
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: I would say that by then limiting women's movement, making

510
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: them too afraid to go out in the dark by themselves. Ever,

511
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: we're also not allowing that to become normalized. We're not

512
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: allowing the inch of a woman at a cafe at night,

513
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: or at a club or wherever she is at night

514
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: by herself. We're not allowing that to become normalized. Well.

515
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: And then there's also this deeper level too, as The

516
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: New York Times talked about of how, if, and when

517
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: a white female traveler, in particular, if something happens to her,

518
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: it's often amplified by the media, which makes individual incidents

519
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: seem like part of a larger pattern. Um and Christina Finch,

520
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: who's the director of Amnesty Internationals Women's Human Rights Program,

521
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: told The New York Times on average, attacks against white

522
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: women worldwide receive more coverage than attacks against women of color.

523
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, you also have um

524
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: the response to violence against Western tourists being met with

525
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: a much faster response than violence against local women. Right.

526
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: And then that leads us, of course to the story

527
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 1: of Sarrise Era, who in was murdered while traveling alone

528
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: in Turkey. And so there's a lot of handwringing around this,

529
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: I mean admittedly horrific story about like why was she

530
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: even alone in the first place, what was she possibly thinking?

531
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: When in reality, like and and it got a very

532
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: fast and strong police response in Turkey. But this was

533
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: a guy. This was like a crazy homeless man who

534
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: tried to kiss her and she fought back, and then

535
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: she threw a rock at him, and he bashed her

536
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: head in with a rock basically, and so, I mean,

537
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: this is something that could have happened to any woman,

538
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: but it happened to take place as violence against an

539
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: American woman traveling by herself. And people seemed so outraged,

540
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: particularly at her for traveling because she not only was

541
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: a woman traveling alone, but she was also married, and

542
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: people some people were like, well, why wasn't your husband

543
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: with you? Why weren't you Are you one of those

544
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: going back to that early trope at mistrust of the

545
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: woman traveling alone. She must have just been out trying

546
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: to cheat on her husband. Why was she even talking

547
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: to a man in the first place. It's so victim blaming,

548
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: but more level headed responses to that admittedly horrific incident.

549
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: It's the fact that when you look at things like

550
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: domestic violence rates, murder rates, and sexual assault rates in

551
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: the US, a lot of times there is a statistically

552
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: greater chance of the worst case scenario happening at home

553
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: rather than abroad. So in Sierra's case, for instance, according

554
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: to data collected by the U. S. State Department, which

555
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: keeps tabs on violence against American tourists, it found that

556
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: there had been three murders of US tourists in Turkey,

557
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: and I think it was either five or ten year

558
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: long period, And Sierra was a New Yorker, which meant

559
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: that in two thousand eleven alone there were five hundred

560
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: and two murders. So statistically speaking, in a way, she

561
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: was actually safer in Turkey than she was in New

562
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: York City, right, And when we look over to Dysan McClain,

563
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: who's the former New York Times Frugal Traveler columnist, she

564
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: talks about how she has actually felt safest in countries

565
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: that tend to have a more patriarchal or repressive society,

566
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: because those cultures tend to have lower crime rates, and

567
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 1: the local women tend to be more protective of traveling women,

568
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: particularly those women that they see traveling by themselves. Now,

569
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: obviously in those kinds of societies, women travelers need to

570
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: pay attention to the clothes that they're wearing. They need

571
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: to be respectful of the local customs and not just

572
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,399
Speaker 1: try to bulldoze in and say free the nipples. I'm

573
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: just gonna come in here and change everything. Um. And

574
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: when you are being a respectful traveler, tourists, whatever you

575
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: wanna call it, Yeah, a lot of women travelers talk

576
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: about how local women reach out to them and you know,

577
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,439
Speaker 1: try to kind of give them help along the way.

578
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 1: And this is not to say thumbs up to super

579
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 1: repressive patriarchal societies, but rather to re examine, Okay, how

580
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 1: realistic is this overwhelming fear of women traveling alone? Is

581
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: this rooted in reality or rooted in our fears about

582
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: women traveling alone, Because I think one of the biggest

583
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: fears um, and I've felt this spear before as well

584
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: of traveling alone is the risk of sexual assault. We

585
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,919
Speaker 1: made a joke about rape whistles, but I think that

586
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: you know, putting yourself out in the world, in a

587
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: in an unknown place does can make you feel very vulnerable.

588
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: But again, when you look at the statistics, leaving your

589
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: home doesn't necessarily make you less safe or more at

590
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: risk for sexual assault. So, for instance, um, there isn't

591
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: hard data on all sexual assaults reported by female travelers,

592
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: but The New York Times reports that from two thousand

593
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 1: twelve to two thousand thirteen, three British travelers requested consular

594
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: assistance after alleged sexual attacks. For comparison, the Rape Crisis

595
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: England and Whales Center estimates that thousand women are raped

596
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 1: in those countries every year. So yet, again, what are

597
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: we so afraid of? Is it reality or is it

598
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: just our concerns about the general vulnerability of women being

599
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: out on their own? Yeah, I mean, I do think

600
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: it says a lot about how society or societies view

601
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: women and how they move through those societies. Well, and

602
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: it could because it's that fear and the warning that

603
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: we shouldn't do that, and then if something happens, we

604
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 1: are the ones to blame. It's a bit rape culturally

605
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,359
Speaker 1: when you think about it, and you know, we've we've

606
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: already said that. There are situations where, whether you're at

607
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: home or abroad, honestly, you know, you just want to

608
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: be smart and be aware, and so there are some

609
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: tips to keep in mind when you are traveling by yourself. Um.

610
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: One that Jody Edinburgh at Legal Nomad brings up is

611
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: that it's a balance that you have to strike between

612
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: thinking smart and trying to stay safe and also not

613
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 1: succumbing to the fear. She recommends carrying a rubber doorstop

614
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: to use in your hotel room, a safety whistle, staying

615
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: in well lit areas, watching your drink, which is just

616
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:41,840
Speaker 1: good advice for life. Dress conservatively. This is a common

617
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: refrain that we hear in a lot of travel tip blogs.

618
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: Don't give away details about what you're staying to strangers,

619
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: Be careful with your eye contact, and maybe option wearing sunglasses.

620
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: There's the example that one blog gave of being in

621
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: like northern Europe versus Southern Europe, and if you're in Italy,

622
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: there's the whole thing about eye contact and a smile

623
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: being considered an invitation to engage, and that maybe if

624
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: you're not looking to engage in conversation, put on some

625
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: some big old sunglasses. Should you wear your sunglasses at night?

626
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: Like the song goes totally? And going back to that

627
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 1: University of Florida study that we talked about earlier, some

628
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,879
Speaker 1: of the tips from the veteran women travelers who were

629
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: involved with that talked about how important it was to

630
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: really know where you're going in the sense of knowing

631
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: the country, knowing the culture, and on top of that,

632
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: and this is stressed over and over and over again,

633
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 1: particularly for women traveling alone. To select accommodations in safer

634
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: parts of town, you might want to spend more money

635
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 1: on going to, say, a name brand hotel, rather than

636
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: staying at a hostile off the beaten path that might

637
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: not have twenty four hour security. Um and I think

638
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: those are one of the things where it's not so

639
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: much fearmongering, but that's a basic safety measure. But I

640
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 1: hate it. I hate it. I hate it because, like

641
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: what I mean, I was a college student who didn't

642
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: have the money to stay in a hotel. I mean,

643
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: you know, so I I picked hostiles instead, stayed with strangers,

644
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: slept in a room in on the west coast of

645
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: Ireland with like twenty other people, one of whom was

646
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 1: a ginormous man on the bunk below me who snored

647
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: all night. But when you're like like a terrible level

648
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 1: of tired, you can sleep through at I shure you.

649
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: But um no, But I hate that advice that you

650
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: need to stay in a nicer hotel because that is

651
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: incredibly limiting. Well, that's one thing that this came up

652
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: actually in the New York Times Frugal Traveler column, which

653
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: is written right now by a guy, and he gets

654
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: a lot of responses from people saying, we really need

655
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:50,879
Speaker 1: to hear from women. There have been I think two

656
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: or three women before him who were at the helm

657
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,240
Speaker 1: of the column, and you know, he hears from people

658
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: saying like, well, sure you can go and live on

659
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: a don because you're a guy and you can travel anywhere.

660
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: And that might be more of a challenge for a

661
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: woman who really wants to be as take as many precautions.

662
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: I should say as possible. I don't want to say

663
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: as safe as possible, because I feel like that also

664
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: still feeds into this whole like, you know, threatening message

665
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: that women get who want to travel on their own.

666
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 1: But if you want to take as many precautions as possible,

667
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: staying at the nicer spot in a well lit area

668
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 1: is a big one. Yeah, just prepare yourself some hustles

669
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: like have dance parties all night. I'm just gonna warn

670
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: you about that. And on top of that, there is

671
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 1: an even more depressingly common piece of advice, which is

672
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: to where a wedding ring real or fake and even

673
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 1: as a travel expert, Rick Steve's suggested carry a picture

674
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,839
Speaker 1: of a real or fake husband, And I feel so

675
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: conflicted about this one, particularly going to the the extent

676
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: of carrying a photo of a husband, because it's yet

677
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:09,359
Speaker 1: another example of whether you are abroad or if you

678
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:13,280
Speaker 1: are at a bar down the street, where if someone

679
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: is giving you unwanted sexual attention, the quickest way to

680
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: stop it is to not say no, thanks, not interested,

681
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: but to rather say I have a boyfriend. I have

682
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: a husband. Even if you were to say, and it

683
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: is the truth, oh I have a girlfriend, won't stop it.

684
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: You gotta say I have a boyfriend. You need to

685
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 1: show the presence of another male in your life. And

686
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: I want to hear from listeners on that one, because,

687
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 1: like I like, the feminist inside of me wants to

688
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: fight that one so much. But I mean, like we

689
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 1: said earlier, we can't go into other societies, other cultures,

690
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: you know, determined to change the way things are, because

691
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: we're just not. Yeah, it's not our job to go

692
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:01,799
Speaker 1: and fight the patriarchy, right, and so it stinks. But

693
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 1: if you want to avoid hassle, you got to wear

694
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: your sunglasses and maybe you got to wear a wedding

695
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: ring well, and I could see, Okay, I could see

696
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: if I was traveling alone, and particularly if I wanted

697
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: to go out at night, then putting on the wedding ring,

698
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: because I feel like that's when it, you know, the

699
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: fear probably creeps in the most. Um. So if you

700
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:28,879
Speaker 1: wanted to go have a nice dinner, have a drink

701
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 1: at a bar, maybe it would just kind of you know,

702
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: it serves like it put a radar shield around you. Um.

703
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think too, that just depends on

704
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,439
Speaker 1: what country you're traveling in, what type of culture you're

705
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: traveling in. When I was traveling, I had zip zero

706
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: problems with people harassing me. The only time I was

707
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,399
Speaker 1: harassed is when I had been up for thirty six

708
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: hours or so in Dublin and some guys were hassling

709
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:54,839
Speaker 1: me about taking up an entire booth in a pub

710
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: by myself. Like, listen, I'm sorry that I'm not really

711
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: caring about etiquette right now. As far as where I said,

712
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm just so tired. But no, they weren't. There was

713
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,399
Speaker 1: no sexual advances there, so that's good. Yeah, because look,

714
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: you are yet another one of the women who have

715
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 1: traveled alone and come back to tell the tale that

716
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: it is okay out there in the world. It's awesome,

717
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,359
Speaker 1: it's Hi. I enjoyed. I super enjoyed traveling by myself well.

718
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:25,280
Speaker 1: And they're also advantages of being a solo female traveler.

719
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of times the conversation stops

720
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: at the fear factor, but there are plenty of advantages,

721
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: such as, first and foremost, being able to see the

722
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: world on your own terms and your own schedule. You

723
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: could sit in that booth at the pub in Ireland

724
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 1: as long as you wanted, Caroline, well until those guys

725
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: so they until they were complaining too gladly. Um. And

726
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,319
Speaker 1: then there's the whole thing about women tending to get

727
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: invited to people's homes more often and maybe being more

728
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: protected by locals. Hi, this is absolutely something that I

729
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: experienced when I was on the West coast of Ireland.

730
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,240
Speaker 1: I wandered into this pub and I didn't have any cash,

731
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: but they had a twenty five euro credit card minimum, Like,

732
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: just kill me right, So I was like, okay, give

733
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 1: me all the fish and chips and as much guinness

734
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 1: as I can swallow. So I'm sitting there and I'm

735
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: like stuffed to the gills and I'm drunk because I've

736
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 1: been drinking all this guinness. And I walk up to

737
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: the bar and I'm like, have I reached the minimum yet?

738
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: And this couple next to me, here's my accent, and

739
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: they start talking to me and they it turns out

740
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: they are a couple from New Jersey who quit the

741
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: rat race. Their kids were done with school, they quit

742
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 1: the rat race, moved to the west coast of Ireland

743
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: in this tiny town of Duelin, opened to stained glass

744
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: shop and lived above it. And they were so sad

745
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: to hear my story about losing my luggage and that

746
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: all I wanted to do was take a hot shower

747
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: after a day of traveling, and they were like, well

748
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 1: wait here, and the wife ran back to the house

749
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: and got me a towel so that I could shower

750
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 1: that night, and we just sat there at the bar

751
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: and talked. Turns out their son, I don't know if

752
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: he still is, but was a police officer from around

753
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: where I am from, in Georgia. So small world, very

754
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: small world. But I think there is something to be

755
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: said for being a woman traveling by yourself, being open

756
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: to those experiences I think it's important to not shut

757
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,760
Speaker 1: yourself off, but to look and feel open to talking

758
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 1: to strangers absolutely, because you never know that you're going

759
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: to meet in a good way. In a good way. Yeah. Um.

760
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,800
Speaker 1: One tip that was brought up by traveler Emily Baron

761
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: talking to the New York Times Frugal Traveler was that

762
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: one other advantage you might not think about of being

763
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,360
Speaker 1: a woman traveling alone is that you are likelier to

764
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 1: have a tampon on you. And she talks about how

765
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: tampons can serve as the you know, build the bridge

766
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: between you and local women, because I mean, we've all

767
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 1: been there. If you are in a situation where your

768
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: period came, you don't have a tampon, and the woman

769
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: who had as one and hands it to you, it's

770
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 1: almost as if you can hear the angels saying like that, Oh,

771
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,919
Speaker 1: and you're bonded immediately. And also if you break your nose,

772
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: you can shove one up your nose too. Yeah, they're

773
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: all sorts of survival uses for tampons. If you don't

774
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: believe me, google it. It's true. So I mean, guys,

775
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: obviously you can carry tampons too. It's just you know

776
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: it might be if a guy hands out a woman

777
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 1: a tampon, a local woman a tampon. I don't know

778
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,839
Speaker 1: if it would necessarily be a bridge builder in the

779
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: same way as if you or I were to hand

780
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: her one that might halt the conversation. Yeah, yeah, I

781
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: could a little bit um. And then on top of

782
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 1: all of it, the advantages, obviously are just the confidence building,

783
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 1: the personal transformation that we hear about so often. You

784
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,720
Speaker 1: can go, you can eat, you can pray, you can love,

785
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,399
Speaker 1: if that's what you so desire. That was my mom

786
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 1: telling me about that. Yeah, I absolutely, I absolutely encourage

787
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: people to do it, and there's plenty of resources out

788
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 1: there for you to learn about traveling, whether you're traveling

789
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:07,759
Speaker 1: solo or a friend. Whoever, if you want to go

790
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 1: do this as a lady explorer. Yeah, there are so

791
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: many women focus travel sites and travel magazines. Caroline, didn't

792
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: we read that women traveling is so hot right now? Yeah?

793
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: Consumer Affairs quoted. Uh, someone is saying that it's the

794
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:28,919
Speaker 1: new trend in travel, to which I said, wrong. But yeah,

795
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 1: it's good to see that that more people are actually

796
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 1: paying attention to this this section of the population. Apparently

797
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 1: that woman had never heard of Impulsia Gushington. That's right,

798
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: you don't know, but yeah, they're all sorts of websites

799
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: out there for women's specific travel tips, such as Women's

800
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 1: Adventure Magazine. There's Wanderlust and Lipstick, which I know the

801
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,399
Speaker 1: name might sound a little hokey, but it's actually really

802
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 1: good resource. There's Black Girl Travel. There's also You Go Girl,

803
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,280
Speaker 1: which is from the author of the Black Woman's Book

804
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: of Travel and Adventure, and Women on the Road, etcetera, etcetera.

805
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: I mean, really, it's all just a Google search away.

806
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 1: And what's so encouraging I think about it is that

807
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 1: when you google like these types of resources for women,

808
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: there's so many different kinds. There is stuff that's on

809
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: the girl group side, so you're going with a lot

810
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: of women. It's a journey of self discovery all the

811
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: way to like the rustic strikeout on your own to

812
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: climb that mountain. So there's there's just everything in between.

813
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: And I like how people, whether you're a woman entrepreneur

814
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: starting a group like this or whatever, I like that

815
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:37,479
Speaker 1: the fact that women are different is being recognized. Yeah, yeah,

816
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: we want different things and we enjoy different things, and

817
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: that's fantastic, and I just love though. I've honestly really

818
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: enjoyed just sitting here listening to your travel stories that

819
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:51,840
Speaker 1: I've never heard before. And I love hearing and reading

820
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 1: other women's travel stories as well, because not just sound cheesy,

821
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 1: but they're very inspiring, you know, because it can be

822
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: I've been fearful before about hopping on a plane and

823
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: going to the other side of the world, probably why

824
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: I've never done it alone before. But I tell you what, Caroline,

825
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: after this podcast, I am ready to go somewhere do it.

826
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: My boyfriend might be like, hey, where are you going?

827
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: You and I should just go and then we'll just

828
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:21,799
Speaker 1: split off and come back together at the end of it. Yeah, yeah,

829
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: and then swap our swap our stories. But now we

830
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 1: want to hear your stories and not just women, any

831
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 1: solo traveling adventures and photos we would love to read

832
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:35,919
Speaker 1: and to see, so please send us all of them.

833
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our

834
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: email address. You can also tweet us places you've been

835
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 1: pictures at mom Stuff Podcasts. You can also message es

836
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:46,759
Speaker 1: on Facebook and we have a couple of messages to

837
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 1: share about our episode on World War two and Rosie

838
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 1: the riveters right now, So Caroline, I have one here

839
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: from Megan, who writes My maternal and pa dropped out

840
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: of high school in nineteen forty two and fibbed about

841
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: his age to enlist in the Marines. While on leave

842
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: in late forty four or early forty five, he married

843
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: my grandmother, who was sixteen at the time and not

844
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: working due to her age. She did take part in

845
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 1: scrap metal drives and gardened extensively. She became pregnant pretty

846
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 1: much right away and didn't work until the early nineteen fifties. However,

847
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: her older sister, my great aunt, did work. My family

848
00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: is from East Tennessee, and my aunt Vernell, worked on

849
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:33,840
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project. WHOA, that's so cool. Workers in Oakridge

850
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 1: were not permitted to tell friends and family that they

851
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,280
Speaker 1: worked for what they were doing. Maryville, where my family lives.

852
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:41,920
Speaker 1: In oak Ridge are some thirty miles apart, and it's

853
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 1: possible my family wasn't aware that the secret city existed.

854
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 1: My aunt has told me that none of the workers,

855
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: including her, had any idea they were building bombs. Each

856
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: line of production was subdivided and kept hidden from the

857
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,399
Speaker 1: other lines, and when the war ended, she married her

858
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 1: soldier boyfriend, had a couple of kids, worked as a

859
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 1: hospital nurse and collects at pension from the government for

860
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: her help in aiding the war effort. Their oldest sister

861
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: was a war nurse and has unfortunately passed away. I

862
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: know I've heard some of her stories, but at the

863
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: time I was too young to realize the significance of

864
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:17,240
Speaker 1: what I was hearing. Yeah, so thanks so much Megan

865
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 1: for sharing those stories. And Vernell, Well, I have one

866
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: here from Laura. She says, my great aunt who I

867
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,399
Speaker 1: used to love to visit work during World War Two

868
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: in a more unusual setting. She was in the Air

869
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 1: Force and stationed for at least part of the time

870
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, where she drew maps of enemy territory from

871
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: descriptions given to her by pilots. She was quote unquote older,

872
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: being in her mid twenties at the time, so I

873
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 1: got the impression that she had a higher rank than

874
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: the young men she was stationed with. I believe it

875
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 1: was during this time she interacted with some of the

876
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: higher up people, including Winston Churchill, as they needed to

877
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: view her work. Also, from what I understand, you can

878
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:02,479
Speaker 1: see some of her work today at Smithsonian. Her name

879
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 1: is Mary Taylor. Heis that's h. I s E. So

880
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:09,399
Speaker 1: thank you, Laura. I am so blown away by our

881
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: cool listeners and they're really cool grandmothers and great aunt,

882
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,279
Speaker 1: great aunts and well, if you have cool stories about

883
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: your Rose of the Riveter grandmother, great aunt, or travel stories,

884
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 1: you want to hear all of them. Mom stuff at

885
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:25,720
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is where you can email

886
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 1: us and for links to all of our social media's

887
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, podcasts, and videos

888
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 1: to perhaps keep you entertained on your travels and beyond.

889
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:38,239
Speaker 1: There's one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never

890
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 1: Told You dot com. For more on this and thousands

891
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:54,800
Speaker 1: of other topics, does it how stuff works dot com