How did you get started traveling solo?

Looking back at my first solo travel, I realized that the template for these trips was set in place in 1978, when I was 24 years old. I had the great opportunity to work as an ornithologist in Australia, for Charles Sibley, from Yale University. My colleague and I worked in the Australian bush, camping for weeks at a time,  collecting blood samples for DNA hybridization studies, and making study skins, skeletons and pickles for the Peabody Museum at Yale. When this work was finished, I headed north to the Whitsunday Islands, to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef, and then North again to Papua New Guinea, to see the birds of paradise and to witness the Highland Dances in Mt Hagen and the mudmen of Goroka. (My mother was quite frightened and kept telling me that a Rockefeller had been eaten by cannibals, but I’m afraid it fell on deaf ears!) I then traveled over to Madang, and northwest into the Sepik River. Then on through Irian Jaya, to Sulawesi, and into Tanah Toraja land, where I was incredibly lucky to witness a wedding. Later, hopping aboard a 4 day Chinese junk sailing across to Java, I landed in Surabaya; visiting Borobudur, climbing Mt Bromo, and studying batik in Bali, with side trips to Flores and Komodo were the highlights. Continuing on through Java to Sumatra to Lake Medan and the longhouses, then on to Singapore, Hong Kong, and home.

A Second Inspiration to Travel Solo

This time, after my children had grown, I left home at age 56, to travel solo in South America for 7 months. I had a keen desire to film dance and nature, so my travels took me to very remote locations in order to try to capture the early authentic dances and their interconnection with nature, wildlife and the natural world. I originally thought I would circumnavigate the globe, but I found that I fell in love with South America, and there was no looking back. After seven months on the road, I came home to teach summer art camp, but I knew something in me had been reawakened, and I knew I would go again.

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