WebGrrrl's Point of View  

WebGrrl is slipping into her travelling hi-heels and surfing the web to find help in putting together an out-of-town reprieve for women. And she found it at Journeywoman, the Online Travel Magazine for Women Who Love To Travel (http://www.journeywoman.com) and Adventure Divas (http://www.adventuredivas.com). 

Now there are some important considerations for women to reflect on when planning to travel - safety and gal-friendly destinations or accommodations. Sure - there is always the lure of venturing out to the unexpected with a wing and a prayer. WebGrrl knows. In my college days, I spent a year in England. During the summer, I through the bare essentials in an ugly military-style knapsack covered with mod and punk patches, bought a Eurail pass and rode the rails for a month - solo - from France to Greece to Denmark. Yes, I was more naive than savvy, but really you're never alone for long when traveling solo. I ran with several herds of fellow Americans at different ports of call - coming together then parting then regrouping hundreds of miles away by accident. Heady times. 

These days - at my more conservative age - I would prefer to abide by the hints and tips gleaned from these two cool sites. First…Journeywoman.com: 

Journywoman is a great-looking site and easy to navigate with a well-organized layout. For this, they are winners of the Apex Award of Excellence for 1995, 1996 & 1998. (Apex gives online awards to deserving websites to recognize exceptional quality.) 

Journeywoman's mandate is simply to inspire females everywhere to travel safely and well. They believe that there is strength in numbers. Along with a fabulously informative site, they offer free membership to their quarterly Journeywoman Online, the e-mail newsletter written especially for women who love to travel. The newsletter will bring you additional information not necessarily found in the website, like

· The best gal-friendly travel websites

· Travelling waist-watcher tips

· Mini reviews of moderate female-friendly hotels

· Go-alone restaurants 'round the world

· Safety tips

· Free travel stuff

· Shopping, shopping, shopping ideas

You can also post personal travel ads FREE on the Journeywoman Cyberboard.  

What kind of travel tips did WebGrrl think were too cool? 

1. Travelling solo and staying at bed and breakfasts? Pack your simplest casserole recipe and offer to cook dinner for your host and some of her friends. They'll appreciate the meal, you'll get the opportunity to shop at the local grocers/markets and, best of all, you'll have totally new company for dinner!  

2. Cute Dutch men… In the heart of Amsterdam, Journeywoman will tell you exactly where to sit at a café near the stock exchange building. On the glassed-in terrace you can watch the delicious "dutch business suits" (i.e. great looking Dutch men) passing by and one of the liveliest streets of Amsterdam. 

As every good website should be, Journeywoman is very interactive. For instance, email your two cents to "Go Alone Travel Tips". Journeywoman will give a neat t-shirt to every 50th woman who emails her tips. And it is a spiffy shirt! 

Journeywoman also encourages submissions from those traveling women who have tales and adventures. Go to Love Stories to read whatt some women around the world have written, i.e. "She Reports On Italian Men". Hmmm…. 

How about Safety? Are there scams women should be alerted to? 

WebGrrl really liked this safety tip:

Before setting out on your journey, scan and save copies of your important travel documents on computer. Then, should all your important papers be lost or stolen, you can contact a friend at home and have the documents e-mailed or faxed to you anywhere in the world. I sure could have used that when I had my passport stolen in Paris, couldn't get back to school in Britain and had to wait three days for the American Embassy to open and process a new passport. On the other hand, did they even have scanners back in 1980? 

A great scam alert WebGrrl read about on Journeywoman is referred to as "Beware of Women Carrying Babies in Italy" While travelling in certain areas of Italy such as Pisa or Rome, beware of women who are lingering by souvenir stands holding babies. Their babies are not real babies; they're dolls, which the women will throw to you. You, of course, will want to stop the (fake) baby from falling and as you reach out to catch it, the dishonest female can snatch your purse. 

Journeywoman will spark your imagination of destinations. Visit EcoAdventures and explore canoeing in Canada or biking in Ireland. Read their advice on Five Best London Tube Stops and Dressing Smart in Iran. 

 Another girlie adventure travel destination on the web is the Seattle girl-driven media empire Adventure Divas. Holly Morris has created a gathering spot for women producers, directors, media technicians, writers, camerawomen and other adventurous females for a new brand of pilgrimage. 

Adventure Divas is also a television documentary series in development that unites adventure travel and modern-day heroines to create fresh new media.  

So now get ready…set….launch! Launch yourself into adventure - at your computer or abroad, wet or sunny…it doesn't matter as long as you attempt something new and scary every day. 

…WebGrrl.