Go Girl 2: The Black Woman's Book of Travel and Adventure (The expanded, revised, and updated edition).
Go Girl 2 weaves a remarkable collection of fifty-four travel tales, poems, and photos designed to inspire, educate, and entertain black women globetrotters, as well as provide vicarious thrills for the avid armchair traveler. Dive into stories by a new generation of travel writers, including luminaries Lola Akinmade Åkerström, Lebawit Lily Girma, Martinque Lewis, Rue Mapp, and Noo Saro-Wiwa, on spicy adventures in the frozen Arctic to sun-drenched blue Caribbean, to the discovery of cultural treasures in Africa, Australia, the Americas, and Asia.
Compelling stories by Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Jill Nelson, Linda Villarosa, Faith Adiele, and Evelyn White, along with other crowd favorites, have been republished from the original Go Girl. The book also includes a handy resource section and planning guide.
Go Girl 2 explores the issue of black women dealing with racism while traveling, overcoming fears, and claiming entitlement. Sprinkled throughout is useful sister-to-sister advice on everything from packing, traveling inexpensively, staying safe and healthy on the road, choosing a destination, to traveling solo, making Go Girl 2 the go-to guide for sisters on the go in the 21st century.
Part 1: "Back to Africa," features stories of travel to the motherland. Visiting Africa is a travel experience like no other for us, the children of the diaspora. Many of us do not know how deep our African roots are until we return "home" and witness the many commonalities of food, culture, dress, sensibility, and temperament. It is often said (and I agree), "It is when you go to Africa that you get part of your soul back that you didn't even know was missing."
Part 2: "Sistren Travel the Diaspora," gathers stories of travel to the places our ancestors were taken as slaves in the Western Hemisphere. The first part covers the Caribbean, South America, and Central America, and the second part covers traveling in the United States.
Part 3: "Trippin' All over the World," showcases stories of black women traveling the world over, from India to Indonesia to Italy, to name a few. These traveling sisters testify to the myriad destinations, styles of travel, and opportunities for adventure available to us as black women.
Part 4: "The Genesis of My Traveling Spirit," includes stories in which the sistren share their motivation for travel, their philosophy of travel, as well as travel strategies. It also includes a story about how to create and sustain a solo trip around the world (yes, you can do it!).
Part 5: The resource section lists afrocentric books, travel clubs, professional organizations, and other useful travel information.
Stories range from "Belonging" a vivid exploration of the experience of visiting a majority black country for the first time, "Going to Ghana," the story of a mother and daughter who travel to Africa to participate in sacred rites in a Ghanaian village; and "A Homegirl Hits Beijing," a jaunty account of studying Mandarin and learning about oneself.
Maya Angelou tells the story of arriving in Africa a stranger but leaving claimed as a member of the Bambara tribe. Evelyn C. White writes about finding new pride in being black after visiting Egypt. Alice Walker offers a quite meditation on how the beauty of the country stirred her imagination. Opal Palmer Adisa evokes the sights, sound, and aromas of urban Ghana where she traveled to meet her lifelong pen pal.