Recollections of their voyages create a special category of travel writing. Poets and novelists travelling writers, but not professional travel writers are footloose wordsmiths who, as Govier describes, “promise a double treat: a person of imagination and insight pitched into a foreign environment fraught with danger, mystery and unforeseen delights.”

And if the writer on the road is a woman?

So much the better, says Govier. Freely, inquisitively, and determinedly, an unprecedented number of women are moving around the globe today. To enjoy a week of anonymity, take a break from domesticity, to make a discovery, their reasons for travel are as numerous as their destinations.

Without a Guide is a remarkable collection of seventeen nonfiction works that explores the variety and nature of contemporary women’s travel. Such internationally celebrated names as Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Clare Boylan, Robyn Davidson, Susan Musgrave, E. Annie Proulx, Bapsi Sidhwa, Carol Shields and Alice Walker share the details of their most memorable voyages. Their tales will take you to the urban chaos of Cairo; on an exhilarating 1,700 mile camel trek across the rugged Australian Outback; through the natural splendour of Darwin’s Galapagos; to the startling heights of Pakistan’s Indus River gorge and into the day-long darkness of a Northern Finland winter. Seductive, harrowing, but above all enlightening, Without A Guide is a must for lovers of literature and travel.

Without a Guide has been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Holland and Canada.