An Introduction

At the very center of a compass is a diagram representing the four major winds and the 32 points where those winds cross paths. The diagram is over 700 years old, created by some of the world’s first cartographers who named the diagram “the compass rose.” The name, the diagram and the human desire to find our place in the crosswinds and paths haven’t changed. We still see the compass rose at the heart of modern compasses, even if the tools themselves have become more tricked-out.

I admittedly operate on a more internal compass. I tend to think maps make nice wall hangings but I don’t carry them around. I read them to inspire adventure, like I hope this column might function for you, and then I leave them behind. I’ve done this while hitchhiking across Alaska, camping on beaches in Cuba, riding cargo boats with a shaman up the Rio Amazonas and trying to explore any major city.

Throughout these adventures, I noticed that a lot of the travel narratives I was reading, that were aimed toward women, by women, or about women, didn’t speak to what I was experiencing. Many of those stories were written in reaction to a woman’s loss, helplessness or heartbreak. Not all women take off because they’re looking for the “Eat, Pray, Love” cure.

I meet women on cross-continental bike tours; women who hitch roads and marine highways; women who work on fishing boats as carpenters; women who climb mountains; women who report from revolutions and war-zones. They set out alone, with girlfriends, boyfriends, as teachers and leaders – but their stories don’t receive the space that top-ten lists or reviews give.

I will not be reviewing or writing top-ten lists in this column. You might catch me throwing out flippant “how-tos,” but I have to preface it all now with the truth: No one can truly tell you “how-to” travel. How could someone tell you “how-to” experience anything? Just as today there is no absolute standard for drafting a compass rose, I hope that wherever you go, you develop your own sense of direction there.

I will be incorporating personal stories and the stories of other adventuring women I’ve met in order to lift up the narrative that is true to our experience: Women are traveling and the world is not so dangerous as to detour our exploration. It is possible to go out and do it. I travel with my 60-liter backpack and an arsenal of notebooks and pens. I write about a place as its defined by the people, the land and the history. I write about travel from the ground up, not from a beach chair.

The name of this column is a nod to a symbol of exploration as well as a nod to another cultural symbol that defined changing winds: the Rosie of the early 1940s who symbolized strength, boldness and defying stereotypes. The Rosies; The Riveter; The Compass Rose – we all find inspiration or camaraderie in that symbolism.

I hope this column defies stereotypes of adventure travel, exploration, who is doing it and what they come up against. I hope it can allow us all to re-evaluate how far-fetched this type of travel seems, because if I learned anything from that shaman on the Rio Amazonas, it’s that nothing is too far-fetched.

Alex Baumhardt is a freelance writer currently based out of Minneapolis and a journalist at the Land Stewardship Project. Her writing has appeared on lostgirlsworld.com, the Matador Network, Global Journalist and German-based Retomag and has been recognized by the Missouri Press Association and her grandma. Because Minnesota winters aren’t cruel enough, Alex will be moving to Iceland to begin writing at The Reykjavik Grapevine in September. Follow her adventures @AlexBaumhardt.