Or how to travel during the Pandemic. Or wanderlust by women.

The pandemic has rendered us strangely land-locked and confined, luggage covered in cobwebs, with passports gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. Wishing to be anywhere but here with nowhere out. If you are like me, you will have itchy feet and suffer from cabin fever routinely.

For the bibliophile ( like me), there exists a secret doorway to the world: curl up in a quiet corner with a good book.  Reading has never been this escapist. Stories of women at large, abroad, discovering themselves, make for fascinating journeys, more so tales of their complex lives and loves. Some women hunger for more, not just on their plate but in life. An insatiable appetite for foreign lands and alien foods has driven many ladies to to explore the world, discovering new cultures and more long before Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about food, prayer and love. ( her book changed my life, and her treatise on Rome made me fall in love with a city I had never been to).

Here are my favourite picks by women who write and wander. They have lust in the heart, in their bellies and for words- my kind of women!

Thailand: there and back again

As autobiographies go, Kay Plunkett-Hogge’s “Adventures of a Terribly Greedy Girl” documents her life in Thailand and later in the West with tongue-in-cheek hilarity. Describing herself as a Thai soul born in a white-skinned, rosy cheeked body, Plunkett-Hogge is a now a food writer with a cooking school in Chiang Rai. Her stories, deliciously wicked and funny will leave you wanting to savour every book she has written.  Her tales of Bangkok growing up and her many careers before the kitchen are witty, with her very English sense of humour shining through ( the accidental caterer). Casting an elephant for a movie? That too.

The Many adventures of an Englishwoman in China

Acclaimed cookbook writer Fuchsia Dunlop was a journalist in Hong Kong when she discovered and fell in love with Mainland China. She moved to Chengdu University on a scholarship and trained as a Chinese chef alongside, in Chinese, before 2008!  Her memoir, “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China” is a thrilling account of her trips to China and exploring all things Sichuan, with special focus on its’s cuisine. In her pursuit for tasting China, she has travelled paths unknown in search of culinary delights and horrors including bear’s paw, grasshoppers and her beloved Sichuan peppers.   Her chinese cookbooks are brilliant too!

Cambodia on a plate

Natacha du Pont de Bie, predating social media, backpacked across remote Laos for a year searching for historical recipes in a culture only just re-opened to visitors after decades of post-colonial isolation.  Having found the only existing copy of a royal Cambodian chef’s recipes penned before the rebellion, Natacha was determined to track down and compile a real Cambodian cookbook, something that did not exist until then. Her travelogue, “Ant Egg Soup” is filled with her adventures and many tasty recipes, as she backpacked her way across the remote countryside making friends and learning to cook their cuisine.

Paris, je t’aime!

Eloise Lane is a bestselling American romance novelist who moved her family to Paris for an year. Her tryst with the most romantic city in the world inspired her to write a year-long love letter to the city. Her memoir, “Paris in Love” is poignantly written and deeply personal. She speaks of the people and little things she discovers as she walks her children to school each day, dropping a trail of tantalizing breadcrumbs for one to follow and explore the city oneself (post pandemic, unfortunately).  You will long to nibble on a freshly baked pain au chocolat while you yearn for the streets of the Marais, as the rain gently falls over the City of Love.

Italia, amore mio!

One fine day, renowned author Jhumpa Lahiri decided she had to learn Italian fluently enough to be able to write books in it. Following her epiphany and obsession, she moved her family to Rome and began to study, read, write and think in Italiano.  “In Other Words”( translation)  is her first attempt at writing in her new tongues, giving us a glimpse into her world. Her latest, “Whereabouts” also translated from the Italian, a compilation of vignettes about Italy, is part fiction but wholly magical and evocative of the land she cherishes. If you love postcards and Italy, this book is your favourite holiday in words.

Iran- for tadig and true love

 Jennifer Klinec’s  “The Temporary Bride”, is about her real-life romance in an extremely  orthodox nation. In search of lessons in authentic Iranian cuisine, Jennifer inveigles her way into her host family’s kitchen, meeting their son Vahid whom she falls desperately, passionately in love with. What follows is a tale of forbidden love and cultural divides before true love manages to escape to freedom in the West. Now married and having survived the challenges of their taboo relationship, the couple are settled in the U.K. Read this to have a deeper understanding of Iranian culture, customs and food, if not for the sheer grit and determination that brought this unlikely couple together.  

Wandering the world

The doyenne of the Italian travelogue, Frances Mayes wrote her most lyrical, vivid book, “A Year in the World” traversing some of the most stunning parts of Spain, France, Portugal and Italy. Wandering historic cities, fabled gardens, tiny villages and old markets, this book should be revered as the most evocative travel journal ever written.  

Her latest, “See You in the Piazza” is the stuff of la dolce vita road trips: driving around Italy with no fixed agenda, eating at little enotecas, staying in a locanda, and discovering towns off the tourist map. This is the book to use as a map of you want to drive around Italy with your amore in a Fiat500, licking gelato as you pass hillsides of swaying red poppies where the roman army once marched.

Driving the dream

While driving abroad may seem intimidating to many, Layne Mosler left North America to explore the world becoming the cult blogger, Taxi Gourmet. Mosler started out asking  local taxi drivers for their favourite places to eat in Argentina and Berlin, and ended up becoming one herself in New York City. Her memoir, “Driving Hungry” will leave you with an appetite for tango, steak and romance. How many driving tests in different countries did she take and pass?!!

What a wonderful world!

“Phenomenal”, by Leigh Ann Henion, documents her search for natural phenomenon. Reeling from childbirth, Henion is on a spiritual quest to rekindle her sense of wonder, a trip that takes her to far flung destinations across the globe. Henion experiences the Northern Lights, the great migration, bioluminescence, and more on her journey to self-discovery. Honestly, I know plenty of new mums who would kill to be able to leave the bawling baby behind and go gaze at Nature’s splendour at the other end of the planet.

Desi girl pardesi

Closer home, Indian digital nomad and social media superstar Shivya Nath’s definitive travel memoir of a young woman abroad with no fixed address, “The Shooting Star: A Girl, Her Backpack and the World” is a revelation. This young woman is a pioneer and adventurer in the truest sense, discovering not just the world, but the very essence of her being. Her memoir is a must- read, an inspiration to us all, highly recommended for millennials with itchy feet.

“Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.” – Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies