Includes stories by Roxane Gay, Susan Orlean, Ann Hood, and Pier Nirandara The newest collection in this award-winning series from Travelers' Tales invites you to join twenty-seven inspiring and thoughtful writers as they traverse the planet, crisscrossing all seven continents and exploring the ways travel can illuminate, heal, inform, and transform a life.  The essays probe themes as diverse as the locations, immersing us in experiences of kindness, adventure, nature, friendship, strength, marriage, motherhood, spirituality, the environment, belonging, healing, history, identity, romance, and resilience.  This beautiful and far-ranging collection helps us celebrate an appreciation for other cultures while proving that travel can be a profound gateway to connection, self-awareness, and an expanded worldview.  As Lavinia Spalding writes in her introduction, “In times of turmoil and despair, it becomes more vital to pay attention to how much there is live for, and travel for, and stand up for, and the stories in this volume shine light on this.”   In The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 13 , you will: Embrace contradictions on the late-night tango floors of Argentina - Splash toward a sexual awakening in the depths of a French swimming pool  - Hike the ups and downs of an active volcano and a marriage in Sicily - Learn to surf and face cultural stereotypes in Hawaii  - Experience a different relationship with grief during Day of the Dead in Mexico - Uncover the nuances of hair braiding in Nigeria and Morocco - Explore the joys and challenges of motherhood in Qatar’s singing sand dunes - ...and much more. Praise for The Best Women's Travel Writing series: “In story after story, the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world." — The New York Times Book Review “The mix of tones and topics—sorrowful and joyful, the positive side of travel and the negative—reflects the “duality” many travelers face.” —AFAR “In this, its twelfth edition, The Best Women's Travel Writing proves again that it has found a formula that works.” —Perceptive Travel “The authors here know how to spin a tale.” — Body+Soul “A contemplative break from daily life…a wise and affectionate collection.” — Clarion Reviews Lavinia Spalding has edited six previous volumes of The Best Women's Travel Writing . She is also the author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler and With a Measure of Grace, the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant , and she introduced the reissued e-book edition of Edith Wharton's classic travelogue, A Motor-Flight Through France . Her writing appears in numerous print and online publications, including Sunset, Yoga Journal, San Francisco magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Tin House, and The Best Travel Writing . She lives in New Orleans. Playing the World by Ear By Abbie Kozolchyk Sometimes a bauble is just a bauble. But not often. No sooner had I boarded the Dakar-bound ferry than I was down on my hands and knees. “Tell her she’s not going to find what she’s looking for,” said a nearby woman to my guide, Yoyo, who translated for me from their native Wolof. Amidst the swimsuit- and tank top-clad beachgoers on board, the stranger looked a tad monastic with her neatly pressed blouse buttoned up to the collar, but still, I wondered: By what oracular powers could she possibly make such pronouncements? The mystery was short-lived: “Your friend got on the ferry with only one earring,” she explained to Yoyo, his customary equanimity showing some strain once he accepted that my search was truly for naught. As soon as I’d come aboard, the woman had clocked my lone naked lobe—along with my dawning realization that something was missing. One of the cobalt hoops I’d just bought on Isle de Gorée—the hauntingly beautiful island off the coast of Senegal’s capital—had fallen out, probably on the dock that was fast receding in the distance alongside the weathered ochre beachfront buildings. I hadn’t even intended to shop, as there had barely been enough time to complete my official mission: researching one of the island’s seafood restaurants for an article about Baaba Maal’s favorite places around Dakar. But what the singer-songwriter and national hero never mentioned was the profusion of earrings for sale by the Gorée dock, nor the persuasiveness of the local vendors. When one of these women stopped me, appraised my features, pulled some bright blue baubles from her inventory, inserted the wires herself, and thrust a mirror into my hand, who was I to disagree as she nodded approvingly? The prim-looking passenger on the ferry was no less decisive. Clearly not O.K. with my newly naked lobe, she began fishing around in h