Interview: Rita Golden Gelman
Travel/Children's Books Writer; Author of Tales of a Female Nomad

By Nana Chen - In 1986, at the age of 48, children’s book author Rita Golden Gelman set off for what she thought was going to be a two-week break from a tattered marriage. The two weeks turned into four weeks, then months, and now years. Traveling has become Rita’s life. She shares her journey with the world in Tales of a Female Nomad, a book that reminds us to live.

Rita Golden Gelman (Photo by Carolyn Herter)

Rita recently agreed to a phone interview. On the phone, she spoke with the same candor and intimacy as she does in her book. Her openness forces you to be likewise. We chatted for nearly two hours about travels, fears, politics, her family, and my family, our conversation often broken by laughter or pause for thought. Rita reminds us that with intelligence should also come compassion. When asked how she is able to connect so easily with people, her answer was simple: “I smile a lot.”

At the end of our conversation, I felt so close to her that I uttered, “Oh, I don’t want to hang up.” And this is exactly the feeling she brings with her to every new place she explores.

Nana: Please give us a bit of information about your upbringing. Did you travel growing up or did your parents travel much?

Rita: Not very much. My father worked all the time. One week a year we’d go on vacation. He liked to get lost… that was always the most exciting thing during these drives. We’d get lost and inevitably go knocking on someone’s farmhouse. Then we’d get invited to see the farms and the animals. We never went anywhere on a plane, but I always fantasized about going down the Amazon in a canoe, surrounded by piranhas and meeting cannibals.

Nana: What were your ideas about traveling as a young adult?

Rita: During my high school years my traveling consisted of going from Connecticut to Pennsylvania for the regional meetings of a youth group. Going out of the country was not part of my thinking. But the summer between my junior and senior years in college, I spent three months in Europe, mostly in big cities. Since becoming a nomad in 1987, I’ve grown to prefer villages and small towns… people are friendlier… especially when I’m traveling alone. 

Nana: When you started your life as a nomad, what were the reactions from your family, and, in particular, your husband? I know the reason you left for Mexico was to try a brief separation from each other. Could you tell me what his reaction was when you said you’d spend your two months in Mexico?

Rita: Surprised. I think he expected me to stay closer to home. But he had never wanted to go to Mexico so I figured this was a good chance for me to see it without him. The divorce was difficult and unexpected, but we’re both happier now. After the divorce everyone but me moved back to New York. The kids were 22 and 23. They had grown up in NYC, and they were starting their careers in journalism. New York was a logical and comfortable place for them to begin. In a way everybody was going back home.

Nana: Do you return to New York often then?

Rita: I go to New York once or twice a year. My publishers are there, and I love the City. But with e-mail, I can do most of the business of my life online. I send manuscripts through email; I buy gifts and plane tickets, rent cars, and even find home rentals online. The online world has dramatically changed my life.

Nana: At the beginning of your stay in the Zapotec Village, where people avoided you and children ran away, did you feel like packing up and going home?

Rita Golden Gelman with students from Manaia School. (Photo by Judy Piesse for the Hauraki Herald)

Rita: Yes! I thought, Oh, my God, why am I doing this? It was my first time in a different culture. But I was determined to make it work. I’d just spent four years studying anthropology. I told myself, “You’re not going to run away from this just because it’s difficult and scary. You are not going to run.”

I always feel a little fear and anxiety when I am about to do something I’ve never done before. For me, the best way to conquer fear is to step right into it. Once I do, the fear disappears. Readers often tell me they would love to do what I’m doing but they’re afraid. Most of the time, fear has nothing to do with reality. You have to get through that initial, almost… what would I call it?… non-rational thinking. The fact is that any unknown is a little scary; but if you ever want to go beyond what you know, you have to take that leap.

Nana: Speaking of fear, it wasn’t until a few weeks into your wanderings that you realized the set of dangers women travelers are vulnerable to. Do you do anything special to protect yourself?

Rita: Well, I don’t go out alone at night. I don’t go to bars. But I rarely have problems. My age protects me. When I began my nomadic journey, I was 47. I have to say that it is easier and safer for an older woman to be alone.

Nana: So I have something to look forward to then.

Rita: Yes, you do. A 20-something and a 60-something wandering the world are received differently. But, you know, I get emails all the time from women of all ages who travel by themselves, and no one has reported any serious troubles. They’re out there camping alone, going around the world alone, connecting to people all over the world.

Nana: That’s really good to hear.

Rita: I should add that in lots of cultures, especially in southeast Asian villages, the local people rarely go any where alone. If people see that you are by yourself, they often join you.

Nana: What about feeling lonely when you’re by yourself? In the first chapter of your book, after you’d just arrived in Mexico, you were terrified of eating alone. You didn’t want to be alone. What are the advantages of traveling alone? Say, for someone like me who is terribly shy and only approaches people out of desperation, what would be the advantages?

Rita: When you’re alone, you’re forced to talk to people. When I realized that staying in hostels was a good way to meet people, that’s where I’d stay. The more you do it the easier it becomes. If I were to say to you right now, “Hi, would you like to have dinner together?” what would you say?

Nana: Yes, of course.

Rita: See?

Nana: That’s how it starts.

Rita: I smile a lot and talk to strangers. But going back to age, if I smile at someone I get a different kind of response than someone your age does. If you were to smile at someone, they might think something else!

Nana: Right! That I’m looking for a companion. In Taipei, I walk down the street and nobody really smiles at me. I tried smiling at a security guard at a magazine I worked at three times and he never smiled back.

Rita: Oh, but that’s often the case in cities. In the cities you’re not supposed to look people in the eyes. Outside of cities people think you’re rude if you don’t greet them. It’s also easier to meet people if you’re alone.

Nana: Really?