Interview: Rita Golden Gelman

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 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...

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