The figure of the woman traveler has long occupied a distinctive place in the cultural imagination. At once celebrated and contested, she has been represented as explorer, observer, adventurer, ethnographer, journalist, tourist, and pilgrim—but nearly always an antidote to feminine domesticity.

We are currently seeking contributors from across the disciplines for a proposed collection of essays on “the woman traveler.” This volume will explore the enduring and evolving cultural figure across genres and media—from travel writing and photography to film, blogs, Instagram, and TikTok.

The central questions are: How have changing technologies, geopolitical realities, and cultural expectations shaped women’s mobility, self-representation, and authority? How do they continue to do so and where do we see women’s travel narratives heading now and in the future?

You might consider particular figures such as Isabella Bird, Mary Kingsley, Nellie Bly, Freya Stark, Alexandra David-Néel, Ella Maillart, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Rebecca West, Jamaica Kincaid, Cheryl Strayed, Chantal Akerman, or Dervla Murphy among others, many of whom do not fit easily into a genre or category. Also, contemporary travel bloggers, Instagram travel writers, TikTok travel creators whose mobility is shaped by passports, race, class, safety, and platform algorithms.

You might also consider multiple figures within thematic frameworks, such as:

• Mobility and authority: Who has been permitted to travel, and under what conditions? When and how have women travelers been recognized as credible observers, writers, journalists, ethnographers, or experts?
• Domesticity and freedom: How has travel been imagined as an escape from domestic roles, and to what extent does travel disrupt or reproduce those roles?
• Technology and self-representation: How have cameras, film, blogs, smartphones, Instagram, TikTok, and other technologies transformed women's authority in documenting their travels? How do others document women’s travels?
• Empire and postcoloniality: How have women travelers participated in, challenged, disrupted, or reproduced colonial ways of seeing?
• Migration and displacement: How have women represented identity and mobility as migrants, refugees, exiles, expatriates, or displaced persons?
• Tourism and consumption: How does the contemporary woman traveler negotiate the relationship between travel, privilege, consumption, authenticity, and the tourism industry?
• Travel and the body: How have women's bodies shaped their experiences of mobility, vulnerability, freedom, risk, and surveillance?
• Risk and adventure: How have ideas about danger, vulnerability, independence, and adventure shaped cultural representations of women who travel alone?
• Genre and form: How have women used travel diaries, letters, memoirs, novels, poetry, photography, film, television, blogs, podcasts, social media, or other forms to narrate movement and place?
• Alternative histories: Whose journeys have been overlooked, erased, or marginalized in conventional histories of travel? What archives, oral histories, or alternative media might allow us to recover them?
• The imagined traveler: How has literature, film, television, advertising, or popular culture constructed the woman traveler even when she does not travel herself?
• The future of travel: How might climate change, political instability, virtual travel, surveillance technologies, and changing ideas about borders and mobility transform the figure of the woman traveler in the twenty-first century?

We welcome essays that are historical, literary, cultural, visual, ethnographic, or interdisciplinary in approach. We are particularly interested in contributions that place seemingly disparate forms of women's travel in conversation with one another and that consider how the figure of the woman traveler has changed—and what remains remarkably persistent—across time.

Please send a 250–500 word abstract and a brief biographical statement by November 1, 2026 to womenwhowanderproposedvolume@gmail.com

Completed essays will be approximately 5,000 - 7,000 words. Please feel free to contact us at the above email address with any questions or to discuss a potential topic before submitting an abstract.