Lonely Girl Travels

The inky arms of this blog have stretched out, past the confines of this page and onto other travel sites.

Voureen Taylor over at The Travel Nerd asked me a couple weeks ago if I’d like to be the first interviewee in her new weekly series profiling budding travel writers. Seeing as though I was the girl who, at 12, was convinced she’d be interviewed on Oprah by 16 for writing the great American novel—um, yes, I’d love to be interviewed.

The questions really made me realize how far I’ve come in a short period of time, and just how much I love both writing and traveling. Plus, I got called a prodigy—who doesn’t like that? You can check out the full interview here.

Matador Abroad editor and kick-ass writer Sarah Menkedick asked if I’d be into having an edited-down version of my recent post “The French Won’t Save You” published on Matador. I was especially stoked because Sarah and her man Jorge’s blog is one of my favorites. The slimmed-down version went up today, and I was happily surprised to see so much of the original post remained: my Oakland references, my back-handed throw-down to Futurism, even some profanity survived the editorial process. I’m super interested to see what kind of discussion the post generates.

And finally, Girl’s Getaway republished the post I did on my emotionally brutalizing day in Marrakesh. “Marrakesh, You Broke Me Down” appears in full, even with some of my own photos (though the girl pictured in the header is most definitely not me). It’s been rather life-affirming to read the other ladies’ comments. And you know how they say that writing is the ultimate revenge? Well, sometimes it is.

I was surprised when the editor at Girl’s Getaway approached me about the Marrakesh post, since it seems like a bit of a deviation from the other articles on the site. But it was encouraging to see, in both republished articles, that there’s a place for some of my less servicey pieces.

My next narrative piece for Girl’s Getaway will be a lighter, more cheerful one: when Melissa, Georgina, Alicia and I, sick of the incessant street harassment of Puerto Vallarta, snuck into a cheesy package resort and spent the day amid the overweight middle-management dudes and their budget trophy wives at the swim-up bar. Just in case you need a sneak preview…

This should be a good one… one more written appendage reaching out, grasping at the invisible sparks of web pages and wireless signals, submission guidelines and editors’ emails—and finding something to grab on to.