- Go Girl! The Black Woman's Book of Travel and Adventure, edited by Elaine Lee. The title is fairly indicative. This book combines basic travel advice---how to plan your very own trip, whether it's around the world, or just to the next city over---with essays written by, you guessed it, black women who have travelled. It was inspiring. It was exciting. It made me want to leave home immediately!
A Journey of One's Own, edited by Thalia Zepatos. This is similar in nature to Go Girl!, but also an excellent book in its own right. The part that I return to, again and again, is the individual narratives. After a while, the specific things you can get and do in any one location become redundant, but there's never too much you can read about other people's experiences!
- Femme d'Adventure: Travel Tales from Inner Montana to Outer Mongolia by Jessica Maxwell. I love these stories, even though I have about zero intention of doing any adventure travel of my own. What I really like about the book is that the author picture shows a quite femmy woman kissing a humongous fish. The other thing I like is that I'm willing to incorporate her spirit of adventure into my own travels, which will be far more focused on finding good pastries than on fishing!
In terms of guidebooks, I'd say: pick your own. To this, I add this cheap person's advice: go to the library. Read bunches of different books. Ideally, read some books about where you live, or about places you've already visited. See how the books present those places, which is something of an indication for how they'll present places you haven't been. For myself, I actually go to used bookstores, and get travel books that are a bit out of date. I find they're essentially the same, and I can supplement this by reading books at the library for more up to date information.
As for magazines, my favorite is "Frommer's Budget Travel" magazine. I like the fact that they actually present places I could concievably afford. But check out magazines (certainly, they're cheaper than books!) and get any you happen to like. I buy travel magazines as a "treat" when I haven't thrown any temper tantrums while shopping. I behave much better with a reward....
These are, of course, not the only books you can read. I happily skim travel books when I'm in bookstores, and I check them out of the library. And never limit yourself to what the books tell you about. Treat them as you'd treat the TV Guide--they offer suggestions, but you neither have to do everything they tell you about, nor do you have to only watch the shows that are broadcast. There's a lot out there on video, and your TV watching can fit your own needs better if you access it!
