An “Eat, Pray, Love” Reading List
When I began dreaming about this blog and brainstorming its creation, one component that would excite me most was welcoming travel friends as guest bloggers. The day has finally come, and I’m so excited to have Dawn Pick Benson share some thoughts on traveling and reading!
I first met Dawn in the summer of 1997, when I was a recent high school graduate working at a conservative Christian family summer camp. We connected instantly despite our age difference - only 5 years - but for an 18-year-old, that seemed like an age away! Dawn graduated from the same conservative evangelical liberal arts school I would be attending in the fall, and she seemed so sophisticated, trendy, and of course - well traveled.
At the time, Dawn was dating her future husband, whom also worked at the camp, and despite the patriarchal brand of Christianity the camp espoused - Dawn was an outlier. I was drawn to her confidence, independence, and dedication to her career as a writer. In the environment where I grew up - these attributes in a single female were rare. Dawn was one of the few women I got to know as a teenager, whom I felt I would want to be like after graduation.
We stayed in touch since that summer, and of course, went on several trips and journeyed together through life. Our shared love of travel helped us celebrate and weather life’s storms.
For several years, Dawn would share how she would like to help other women travel as a way to process significant life events. Whether career changes, divorce, loss of a loved one, or other life experiences - Dawn has been coaching women to take a trip to help recenter and redefine their life.
For better or worse, Elizabeth Gilbert inspired countless women to take their “Eat, Pray, Love” trips - yet for many women, these trips remain an elusive dream. Dawn enables women who were previously paralyzed in fulfilling their travel dreams to not only take their trip, but also discover forgotten or unknown parts of their being that they can celebrate and make a part of their life after their trip. You can check out more about her work by visiting her website: Click Here
So for my first guest blog contributor, I asked Dawn to put together a list of books that can empower women to fulfill their travel dreams. I love this list, and confess - that I have not read any of them! So here’s to an ever-growing TBR pile (To Be Read).
To Shake the Sleeping Self
by Jedidiah Jenkins
When Jedidiah devises a plan to ride his bicycle all the way from Oregon to Patagonia, he not only embarks on an external journey but also an internal one. For anyone deconstructing or reconstructing their long-held faith or belief systems, this will be an interesting and profound story for you.
Dakota
by Kathleen Norris
This book is an exploration of spirituality, community, and faith as the writer leaves the cacophony of city living in New York and arrives in the quiet town of Lemmon, South Dakota. Kathleen beautifully writes about the joys and trials of small town life and the way a place can shape our attitudes, beliefs and myths. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Tales of a Female Nomad
by Rita Golden Gelman
A classic from the OG of female global nomads. I read this book years ago, and it undoubtedly opened a world of possibilities for many other readers wondering the same thing as Rita: There has to be more than one way to do life. At 48 and on the verge of divorce, she decides to see the world. This is a beautiful story of an ordinary woman deciding to do life differently. She goes on to give herself permission to create a spectacular life, meeting interesting people, experiencing new cultures, telling of her adventures along the way.
A House in Fez
by Suzanna Clarke
For those, like me, who are fascinated by culture and the nuances learned via one's successes and foibles living in a foreign land. Suzanna and her husband tell the story of finding, purchasing, and meticulously restoring a centuries old riad in Fez’s Medina. Dealing with 1,000-year old sewer systems, local customs and unfamiliar ways of communication, Suzanna offers a detailed and often hilarious window into the lives and culture of those living in this Moroccan city.
Traveling with Pomegranates
by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
This might be one of my all-time favorite travel memoirs. Told in alternative chapters by both Sue and her daughter, Ann, we follow them on their parallel quests to redefine and rediscover one another while traveling in Greece, Turkey, and France. Sue, nearing the age of 50, and Ann, in her 20’s and pondering what to do with her life, together tell a beautiful story of women discovering again, and for the first time, who they really are. Particularly poignant is Sue's chronicling of her own spiritual awakening and introduction to the Divine Feminine, which eventually inspires her to write her first novel and NY Times Bestseller, The Secret Life of Bees.
A Year by the Sea
by Joan Anderson
Joan is a wife and mother who wakes up one day and realizes her sons are grown and her marriage is stagnant. When her husband is offered a new job that requires them to relocate, she decides not to go. Instead, she spends a year at their beach house. Over this time, she realizes she’s unconsciously replaced her own dreams with the needs of others, and this is her journey of nurturing herself and re-discovering new possibilities for her future.
