Got Wanderlust? This New Anthology Celebrates Travel at Its Queerest

“How and why do queer people travel?” Alden Jones asks in the prelude to Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing. The anthology’s editor answers herself: “To escape the places and people who reject us. Because somewhere, on a faraway beach, a party is being planned. Because we are being displaced by violence or war. For the thrill of something new. To pursue an education. For love. To heal a broken heart. Because of some mysterious instinct to move and move and move.”

Edge of the World is a stunner from beginning to end. Through sixteen essays by prominent LGBTQ+ authors, including Jones’s prelude, the anthology explores the essential queerness of travel: the aforementioned instinct to “move and move and move” as it relates to a queer identity, the navigation of new environments whose response to queerness varies widely, the significant changes travel can inspire, and maybe most interesting, the truth of the age-old cliché, “wherever you go, there you are.” 

What happens when you’re overseas while still engaged in a custody battle with your former wife, and your tour guide-turned-fling might not be so cool with the word “gay”? What exactly is the history of Key West—known haunt of the extremely straight Ernest Hemingway—as a destination for queer writers? And what do you do when you don’t have a passport and therefore can’t fully explore the fringe spaces in St. Petersburg with your partner? Edge of the World explores all of this and more through a host of perspectives ranging in age, sexuality, and gender. At its heart, the anthology is a love letter to queer travel in its beautiful complexity, from new perspectives on childhood hometowns to eye-opening pilgrimages with new lovers and soon-to-be exes alike.

Related: Surprise! GO’s Pre-Pride Spring Issue Is Hot Off The Press!

“A single book cannot tell the whole story of what it means to be queer and moving through the world, but I wanted my reader to experience the highs and the lows, the struggles and the joys, the restrictions and the freedoms common to LGBTQ travelers,” says Jones, an award-winning author, long-time travel educator, and Emerson College professor who has traveled to over 40 countries. “I focused on arranging [the essays] with the reader’s emotional experience in mind.”

In “A Journey Through Motherhood and the Motherland,” Nicole Shawan Junior takes the reader on a journey to writing residencies in Portland and Seattle, courtrooms in Philadelphia, and a car traveling through Senegal. Nicole is queer and nonbinary, battling their wife stateside for the right to coparent the couple’s infant son, and spiritually drawn to Senegal–and now, physically attracted to their driver, the Tupac-loving Babacar. Nicole and Babacar have an emotional connection as well, one that leaves Nicole frantically scrutinizing their Instagram for anything and everything remotely rainbow-hued, dreading the repercussions of existing in a conservative land far from home.

The complex politics of home is the center of “La Cubana,” in which New Jersey native Daisy Hernández takes her new partner Frankie to the town where she spent summers and her parents live: Hialeah, Florida, where most everyone votes for Trump, the most delicious pan Cubano can be found at Wal-Mart, and a woman at the bakery might be a lesbian—or she might just have short hair. “Inside the supermarket, I know that people will assume I am married to a cisgender man and that I am the mother of at least two children,” she writes. The essay is a vivid reflection about the milestones of queer versus straight adulthood, as well as surprise weddings, Spanglish accents, and how to explain your partner’s pronouns to your 80-year-old father.

Edge of the World closes with a vibrant Pride south of the border. In “The Proudest Texan in Mérida,” KB Brookins travels with their partner Gaby to a landlocked Mexican city and encounters a joyful, and completely cop-free, Pride celebration. Amid rap battles, sapphic parties, and a uniquely intergenerational parade, trans Texas native Brookins experiences the true meaning of “safe space”:

“And I don’t mean safe space in the ‘we’ve taken trainings and know all the right lingo’ way. I mean that I was free—of people’s judgment, of want to be anywhere else; I felt safe in my want to kiss, to dance sloppily under the sweltering Mérida humidity, to be the queer that I am, that I haven’t unleashed since . . . well . . . ever.”

Related: Queer Books By BIPOC Authors You Need To Read

What exactly is the edge of the world? Is it the end of a relationship in scenic Spain, a court-mandated tree-planting summer in South Carolina, or an all-night rave in Berlin? Or is the answer closer to home? 

“We are the edge of the world,” Alden concludes in her prelude to fifteen more fabulous essays. And it’s true: traveling as a queer person can have its own specific challenges, but it also carries with it a sparkle that remains long after the jet lag dissipates and clothes are put back in drawers. Edge of the World is perfect reading for queers with wanderlust; it can easily be tossed in a carryon bag or pulled up on your Kindle app for a plane read that’s both fast and illuminating, or cracked open in the backyard when a summer trip is but a daydream.

“I’ve spent many years monitoring the expansion of ‘travel writing’ as a category, and I think this anthology showcases the possibilities of travel writing as a literary genre and travel as a queer pursuit,” says Jones. “I hope it reminds queer readers that even in troubled times (like right now), there is beauty in exploration, and community in unexpected places.”

Edge of the World is available May 6 in print and digital, wherever books are sold.