If you are a reader who wants more information on Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals, click on the following link:

www.wendydale.com
"Deeply funny."
– Vogue Magazine

"Wry, funny."
– Outside Magazine

"Dale has an amazing ability not only to find intrigue and drama and hardship but to meet them all with an undampened sense of humor and a roving eye for the absurd. And by getting entangled in other people’s lives, as opposed to hiking through rain forests, she enjoys glimpses into worlds forever closed to the average tourist. A few years ago, Janet Malcolm, writing in the New Yorker, complained that she ‘always found travel writing a little boring’ because ‘travel itself is a low-key emotional experience, a pallid affair in comparison with ordinary life’ … which is absolutely true, unless you travel like Wendy Dale."
– Thomas Swick, travel editor of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"This is a wonderful book – not a subversive treatise on rule-breaking as the title might suggest, but a witty, insightful memoir of a young woman from an offbeat, though well-traveled family."
– Bookpage

"This is a very smart, very funny book. Wendy Dale is an extremely talented writer who can make even the scariest vacation sound like a good time. I’m off to buy a new suitcase and a few extra passports right now."
– Paul Feig, author of Kick Me

"With grace, charm and abundant humor, Dale narrates her meandering story of a childhood regained, ‘a chance to make rash decisions, to take wild risks, to lose everything knowing I’d still have plenty of time to earn it all back.’"
– Time Out New York

"Funny, impulsive, and alluringly naïve, Wendy Dale is repeatedly swept into adventure and trouble and love, mostly when she’s looking the other way. I had a great time going along on her wacky journey. I read the book in one sitting, reluctantly getting up midway to make a sandwich, placing the open book on the counter so I didn’t have to stop reading."
– Rita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad

"Mix David Sedaris, Lucille Ball, and a fifth of tequila in a blender [and] you get Wendy Dale, who is quite possibly the funniest travel writer since Homer. But strain off the foamy giggles and you’re left with a raw, smart, and passionate woman in search of herself and awestruck at the beauty of even the ugliest corners
of the earth."
– Deborah C. Kogan, author of Shutterbabe

ACHIEVING YOUR DREAMS, BOLIVIAN STYLE


A yatiri (a Bolivian shaman) performing the ritual of the k'oa.
I've been living in Bolivia for a total of five years now, and the place never stops astounding me. On this page, I've included some images of good luck charms that are burned the first Friday of every month in a traditional ceremony (called a koa), a tribute to Pachamama, the Andean Mother Earth goddess.

Each small charm contains different images — you chose the one with the picture of the thing you most desire. There are houses and computers and voyages. My personal favorite? The one that contains the bottles of alcohol. No kidding.

So if life isn't giving you what you want, maybe you need to do like the Bolivians: redirect your prayers to Pachamama.

This is for those hoping for upcoming travel. I am told that taking the llama along is optional.

Awww, here´s the love charm. I suppose it´s cheaper than getting your potential mate liquored up.

This is for those hoping for a good harvest this fall. Why the explicit pic of the farmer´s butt is beyond me. Pachamama moves in mysterious ways.

Need a new 18-wheeler? This is the charm for you!

I´m told that Pachamama doesn´t discriminate when it comes to Mac users.

This is for people wishing for a mountain. Actually, the witch who sold this to me told me it was a tribute to Pachamama.

My personal favorite! This is for those who believe that witchcraft should be used wisely and fairly in the pursuit of greater and everreaching quantities of alcohol.

It´s a butterfly. A very pretty Bolivian butterfly.