May 31, 2006
It's official: Romance on the Road is out!
Well today is June 1, the official publication date of (fanfare, trumpets) 
Romance on the Road: Traveling Women Who Love Foreign Men, which I've been working on for six years (I think ... it's been awhile, anyway)!
Anyway, to mark the occasion, I'll be giving an interview on Around the World radio in Santa Barbara today. You can listen live at this link at around 1:10 p.m. our time (East Coast). Click on the microphone on the upper right of the link. I'll try to record and post the show on my Web site.
Also, I've been asked by Beth to submit something for her forthcoming book, For Women Traveling Solo. This is what I'll be sending her.
Solo women travelers will be approached by foreign men -- there is no doubt about that. The pursuit can be overwhelming in the Mediterranean and Near East, and sometimes in Latin America, too.Many guidebooks deal with this matter with a section entitled "For Women Travelers" and assume a sort of scolding tone -- advising a woman to dress modestly and wear a wedding ring to deter harassment.
Or conversely, women may be blithely told that they should pack condoms to be prepared for temptation.
While such advice is valid, the reality of road romances is more complex, and it's best for solo women travelers to think ahead and be truly prepared. Ideally, you should give some thought to how to politely put off annoying men and politely engage with intriguing guys -- just as you would at home.
And maybe you should even be open to the idea of losing your head completely with a handsome stranger. Wild travel flings live in the memory forever as being one of life's most vivid experiences. They often provide a paradoxical path back to having a man in your life permanently.
Two facets of human nature as it exists outside the walls of Western workplaces will confront the solo female traveler. First, most of the men of the world outside the reach of corporate anti-harassment statutes assume that men and women belong together. You being female and not accompanied by a husband means (in the minds of foreign men in many exotic places) that, according to all the rules of the universe, you are looking for their company. So it's best not to get too irate with guys who are hard-wired to be macho.
Second, women also need to be honest with themselves about their reasons for solo travel. Six out of every seven women who travel and engage in flings lack a mate at home. And so many solo traveling females engage in either flings or serious relationships while on the road, that they virtually confirm what foreign men think -- that every solitary human, deep down, is seeking a partner.
When I see women on travel forums ask about "traveling safely on their own in the Caribbean," for example, I conclude that somewhere, unacknowledged in their decision to travel unescorted in perhaps the world's most overtly sexy climate, is a subconscious yearning for companionship and physical release.
So, what do you need to know about love, romance, sex and travel before you go? Seven points to think about:
1. You are most likely to have a fling with a fellow traveler. One woman I know spent a romantic time with a Parisian photographer she encountered in Bangkok.
2. You are more likely than you think to encounter out-of-nowhere propositions from appealing foreign men. One in six first-time, female visitors to the Dominican Republic, for example, enters an affair with a local guy.
3. A foreign lover can be your ticket to seeing everyday life in a foreign culture. In places with tourist ghettos -- think resort areas of the Caribbean -- a local boyfriend can be one avenue, and perhaps the easiest way, to getting to really know a place.
4. One of the best things about road romances: An exotic boyfriend in a tropical setting can offer a road to healing for the divorced female traveler, or one who feels discarded or unappreciated.
5. One of the worse things about road romances: There are resort areas (in Kenya, West Africa, Thailand, parts of the Dominican Republic and Brazil) where HIV rates are so high, and men are so skilled at rapid seduction, that a broken condom (or the rush to have sex without one) may be extremely risky. So it pays to study the U.N. statistics on HIV / AIDS, and to realize that rates may be higher than what the U.N. reports in resorts with gigolos, prostitutes and many tourists. One experienced traveler who wrote a book mentioning her casual affairs in Africa years ago, for example, told me she would never experiment there today. And female travelers have contacted AIDS from men in places such as Cyprus, not thought of as a disease epicenter.
6. Ethics and etiquette for the female romance traveler often boil down to the same rules you really should be following at home. Try to avoid temptation if you are happily married. Treat your lover as a flesh-and-blood man, without condescending to him if he is younger and poorer, or leading him on if this is just a fling for you. Surprising as it may seem, often the man is the one who can get hurt, especially if he lives in Oceania or the Middle East, where sincere men may lose their hearts to a female traveler they have no means to ever see again.
7. Let coffee or tea be your drink of seduction, not alcohol. You need to have your radar fully operating to detect whether danger -- or merely mutually satisfactory amusement -- are on a foreign guy's' mind.
- posted by jbelliveau at 4:27 PM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
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