Journey Woman - Female Travel Writers Share Their Best Tips

Journey Woman

Learn about the Caribbean's Culture, History, and Resorts

Women Writers Worldwide Share Travel Secrets 2006

Evelyn Hannon

Publishing this yearly travel tip article is one of my most enjoyable assignments. It provides me with the lovely opportunity to reconnect with female journalists internationally -- the women I've chatted with by phone, by email, and face to face. These are the friends who, over the years, have kindly chosen to interview me and who've helped to spread the word about journeywoman.com to their readers worldwide. Most importantly they are my community -- the women I go to to learn about the latest travel trends and to exchange bits of advice that help to make us all better travel writers. The following is an excerpt from a request letter that I sent to these journalists at the beginning of the year. All the tips you'll read in this article are as a direct result of that note. I'm extremely grateful to all these writers for their women-centered wisdom and their generosity of spirit. Enjoy everybody!

Hello from Journeywoman.com

I'm writing to you because I know and admire your work. It's for this reason that I invite you to be part of our 2006 edition of "Best Travel Tips by Female Travel Writers/Editor Around the World." I hope that you will join us.

Each year we invite select female travel journalists to submit two short travel tips that will help women worldwide to travel safely and well. These female-friendly pieces of advice can be of your own choosing -- perhaps a favorite hotel, bed and breakfast, hostel or restaurant, a favorite book or bookshop, an obscure woman-friendly place you've discovered, an excellent guide somewhere in the world, advice on how to improve one's personal travel skills, family travel, how to meet people along the way, culturally correct advice especially for females, safety tricks that work for you, etc, etc, etc.

Journeywoman.com exists and thrives simply because savvy women world-wide are kind enough to share their travel expertise with us. I do hope you join us with your unique point of view. Thank you so very much in advance.

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This, then is the response I received...

Germ Warfare...
Look, I know this is cheating, but you know when you are flying and the big guy sitting next to you thinks it is his genetic right to colonize the arm rest? Well, if you want it without the trouble of direct confrontation, fake a few loud, wet coughs and sneezes. When he moves away to get out of the contamination zone, make sure he sees you rest the hand you just coughed into on the arm rest. That should sort that out nicely.

Cleo Paskal is a Travel Columnist, Toronto Star. Website: http://www.cleopaskal.com.

Woman-friendly inn in Guatemala City...
For a warm, friendly, and safe place to stay in Guatemala City, try Posada Belen. Owners Rene and Francesca are women-traveler oriented. They had a car and driver wating for me at the Aurora airport. Guests get a free 5-minute call to the U.S. or Canada per day, and Internet access is $1 per half hour. The 1873 inn is an old colonial home with a tiny, plant-packed patio, complete with 6 live woods turtles. Best of all, it is a 'museum hotel,' with hundreds of Mayan artifacts on display, all tagged and inventoried. The food is superb. Room prices are $36 a night(3/06), not the $107 in the sterile Zone 10, hi-rise hotels. Website: http://www.posadabelen.com.

Floridian Sandy Huff is an internationally published travel and outdoor writer, with over 1100 published articles in 120+ publications. Her book "Paddler's Guide to the Sunshine State" covers 236 waterways around Florida, with tips on how to survive and thrive despite wind, sunburn, cross currents, and even alligators.

Historic Sleep on Hawaii’s Big Island...

With a longstanding addiction to sleeping with history, I unerringly head for Shipman House in Hilo whenever I visit Hawaii’s Big Island. Rescued in the early 1990s from sad decline of both house and estate garden by the great granddaughter of the original Shipmans, this turreted mansion combines traditional 1899 Victorian elegance with a distinctly Hawaiian signature. Reflecting the host, Barbara Ann’s passion for historical accuracy and her own playful nature, the five guest rooms and public areas are each unique with family stories lovingly researched and antiques galore, including a full-size grand piano played by the deposed last Queen of Hawaii during her regular Shipman visits. Breakfasts are always gourmet, often featuring family recipes, and one evening a week there are genuine Hawaiian hula lessons with live music on the wrap-around porch.(http://www.hilo-hawaii.com).

Alison Gardner is a Canadian travel journalist, editor of Travel with a Challenge. Website: www.travelwithachallenge.com and author of 'Travel Unlimited: Uncommon Adventures for the Mature Traveler'.

Take your baby travelling...

Being a new mother doesn't mean you have to stop travelling. In fact you'll have an easier time, in some ways, travelling while the child is less than two years old than with an older one. Why? They fly to most places for free (or for a steep discount); and you don't have to worry yet about planning a vacation that will interest them. So pack those diapers and hit the road.

Pauline Frommer is an America travel journalist. She appears weekly on CNN's Headline News discussing travel trends. Watch out for her new series -- The Pauline Frommer guidebooks which will be in bookstores July 2006. Website: http://www.Frommers.com

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