Until the present century, few people thought of travel as a female pursuit: men traveled; women stayed at home. But women have always journeyed, for many reasons, as this groundbreaking book demonstrates. The contributors to Women and the Journey focus on the female travel experience from a variety of perspectives, taking into account how such issues as race, class, and traditions of narrative change when the traveler is a woman rather than a man. The authors, all from Washington State University and the University of Idaho, come from many disciplinary backgrounds - literature, history, foreign languages, fine arts, women's studies. Over several years they worked on this project as a team, sharing research, reading one another's work, uniting in the process of creating the book together.