Susan Van Allen

About Susan Van Allen

Susan Van Allen has written about Italian travel for National Public Radio, Town and Country, Tastes of Italia, and many other publications. She has also written for TV, on the staff of the Emmy Award winning sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond. When she’s not traveling off to Italy, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go – 5th Edition

“Makes me want to pack my bag and follow Van Allen’s alluring suggestions...she reveals an intimacy with Italy and a honed sense of adventure. Andiamo!” —Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun

This fully updated 5th Edition of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go is packed with new information.

Fifteen years ago, the first edition of this book introduced readers to Susan Van Allen, a fun-loving, savvy traveler who helped them create the Italian trip of their dreams. In this fifth edition she returns to lead a femme-friendly ride up and down the boot, exploring the land where Venus (Vixen Goddess of Love and Beauty) and The Madonna (Nurturing Mother of Compassion) reign side-by-side. Enjoy masterpieces of art that glorify womanly curves, join a cooking class taught by revered grandmas, shop for ceramics and jewelry, ski the Dolomites, hike the Path of the Gods or paint a Venetian mask. Whatever your mood or budget, with this fifth edition of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go, Italy opens her heart to you.

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go – 5th Edition2025-03-03T17:28:40-08:00

50 Places in Rome, Florence, and Venice Every Woman Should Go

50rome_s.gif “Makes me want to pack my bag and follow Van Allen's alluring suggestions. Andiamo!” —Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun “Van Allen warms the room with her memories and imagination...precise and true.” —The New York Times Following the critically acclaimed 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go, Susan Van Allen adds new gems to her selection of the best spots for female travelers in Italy’s most popular cities, along with enticing Golden Day itineraries to make vacation dreams come true. Like a savvy traveler girlfriend whispering in your ear, she guides readers to masterpieces where women are glorified—from Rome’s Pieta to Florence’s Birth of Venus and to best spots for wine tasting, chocolate, gelato, artisan shopping experiences to meet leather craftsmen or glass blowers, and places for adventures such as rolling pasta or rowing like a gondolier. She provides fresh, practical tips giving readers an insider’s secrets on what to pack, the best places to get their hair styled, and how to shop for bargain souvenirs.

50 Places in Rome, Florence, and Venice Every Woman Should Go2020-05-12T12:27:19-07:00

Recent Books

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 13

AVAILABLE NOW!

Includes stories by Roxane Gay, Susan Orlean, Ann Hood, Faith Adiele, Marcia DeSanctis, and Pier Nirandara

The newest collection in this award-winning series from Travelers’ Tales invites you to join twenty-seven inspiring and thoughtful writers as they traverse the planet, crisscrossing all seven continents and exploring the ways travel can illuminate, heal, inform, and transform a life. The essays probe themes as diverse as the locations, immersing us in experiences of kindness, adventure, nature, friendship, strength, marriage, motherhood, spirituality, the environment, belonging, healing, history, identity, romance, and resilience.

This beautiful and far-ranging collection helps us celebrate an appreciation for other cultures while proving that travel can be a profound gateway to connection, self-awareness, and an expanded worldview. As Lavinia Spalding writes in her introduction, “In times of turmoil and despair, it becomes more vital to pay attention to how much there is live for, and travel for, and stand up for, and the stories in this volume shine light on this.”

In The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 13, you will:

  • Embrace contradictions on the late-night tango floors of Argentina
  • Splash toward a sexual awakening in the depths of a French swimming pool
  • Hike the ups and downs of an active volcano and a marriage in Sicily
  • Learn to surf and face cultural stereotypes in Hawaii
  • Experience a different relationship with grief during Day of the Dead in Mexico
  • Uncover the nuances of hair braiding in Nigeria and Morocco
  • Explore the joys and challenges of motherhood in Qatar’s singing sand dunes
  • …and much more.

Strange Tales of World Travel, Volume 2

“What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen or experienced?”

Gina and Scott Gaille have traveled to more than 100 countries, including many off-the-beaten-path places in Africa, South America, and Asia. Wherever they go, they ask this question. Everyone has a story, and some are truly extraordinary.

Strange Tales of World Travel, Volume 2 is the follow-up to the Gailles’ award-winning first volume. Their sequel entertains readers with 50 more thrilling, hilarious, heartbreaking encounters, including:

  • Mr. Centenarian, the 111-year-old who attributes his longevity to drinking and bathing in a magical river
  • Mr. Serengeti, who picked the wrong bush to relieve himself in while on safari
  • The Refugee, who witnessed his friend get shot for begging a soldier to protect his family from approaching rebels
  • Mr. Lucky to Live, who was scalped by an angry baboon

…and many more.

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go – 5th Edition

“Makes me want to pack my bag and follow Van Allen’s alluring suggestions…she reveals an intimacy with Italy and a honed sense of adventure. Andiamo!” —Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun

This fully updated 5th Edition of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go is packed with new information.

Fifteen years ago, the first edition of this book introduced readers to Susan Van Allen, a fun-loving, savvy traveler who helped them create the Italian trip of their dreams. In this fifth edition she returns to lead a femme-friendly ride up and down the boot, exploring the land where Venus (Vixen Goddess of Love and Beauty) and The Madonna (Nurturing Mother of Compassion) reign side-by-side. Enjoy masterpieces of art that glorify womanly curves, join a cooking class taught by revered grandmas, shop for ceramics and jewelry, ski the Dolomites, hike the Path of the Gods or paint a Venetian mask. Whatever your mood or budget, with this fifth edition of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go, Italy opens her heart to you.

Paris Lost and Found

Paris Lost and FoundFollowing his hilarious introduction to Paris in French Like Moi, Midwesterner Scott Dominic Carpenter returns to the scene of the crime with more tales of intrigue.

This time, though, the story starts with sorrow as Carpenter’s wife struggles with dementia. Humor may be the best medicine, but even the antics of a vandal in their building can’t cement the tiles of her memory for long. Before he expects it, the author finds himself alone in a capital that is also blighted by the pandemic.

It’s against this backdrop that the city comes roaring back to life. From bizarre encounters on the Metro to comical clashes with authority figures, and even a quixotic battle against a flock of migrant parrots, Paris Lost and Found unveils sides of the great city that are as quirky as they are authentic. With his unique blend of wit, insight, and wistfulness, Carpenter charts a path through his new labyrinth of solitude—only to emerge on the other side, squinting into the bright light of hope and new beginnings.

A Hard Place to Leave

A Hard Place to Leave
Winner of the 2023 Lowell Thomas Award!

Vogue‘s Best Books of 2022

“Intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer…a harmonious collage of worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived.” —Melissa Febos, The New York Times

Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.

Starting in a dreary Moscow hotel room in 1983, weaving back and forth to rural New England, and ending on a West Texas trail in 2020, Marcia DeSanctis tells stories that span the globe and half a lifetime. With intimacy and depth, over quicksand in France, insomnia in Cambodia, up a volcano in Rwanda, spinning through the eye of a snowstorm in Bismarck, and atop a dumpster in her own backyard, this New York Times bestselling author, award-winning essayist and journalist for Vogue and Travel + Leisure immerses us in places waiting to be experienced and some that may be more than we’re up for. She encounters spies, angels, leopards, shoes, the odd rattlesnake, a random head of state, and many times over, the ghosts of her past. Each subsequent voyage leads to revelations about her search for solitude, a capacity for adventure, and always, a longing for home.

The Temporary European

“Vivid, funny, perceptive, intimate, and charged with a love of travel and a deep sense of humanity.” —Rick Steves, from the Foreword


20+ Years as Rick Steves’ Right-Hand Man


A candid account of how the sausage gets made in the travel business—told with affection, warts-and-all honesty, and a sense of humor.


What is it like to write guidebooks, make travel television, and lead bus tours for a living? Find out with Cameron as he samples spleen sandwiches at a Palermo street market, stews in Budapest’s thermal baths, survives driving in Sicily without going insane, and much more. Along the way, he shares many lessons learned from his favorite Europeans. You’ll also get a reality check for what seems to be a traveler’s dream job—working with Rick Steves and his merry band of travelers. Not just for Rick Steves fans but for anyone who loves Europe, The Temporary European is inspiring, insightful, and fun.

La Dolce Vita University – 2nd Edition

Come travel with La Dolce Vita University (L◆D◆V◆U) to the heart of Italian culture in the seductive spirit of la dolce vita. L◆D◆V◆U is the perfect sampler to indulge anyone curious about—or already in amore with—Italy and its remarkably rich trove of cultural treasures. In dozens of entertaining yet authoritative mini-essays, including 60 new stories and 40 new illustrations in this fully updated 2nd edition, L◆D◆V◆U lets you explore, at your leisure, fascinating aspects of Italy’s cuisine, history, art, traditions, style, legendary personalities, and so much more.

The book is organized alphabetically, but nothing is ever quite that straightforward when it comes to Italy. Even if you choose to read these mini-essays sequentially, you may very well feel as though you’re wandering the mysterious alleys of a medieval town, the hidden vicoli of a larger city, or even along the serpentine canals of La Serenissima.

The End of the World Notwithstanding

“Every word the right word, this book is a genuine keeper.” —Kirkus Reviews***Starred Review***

Rife with misadventure, brushes with death, and moments of existential insight, The End of the World Notwithstanding is a hilarious and reflective look at the emotional experiences that make everyday life exciting—and the physical ones that remind us we’re lucky to be alive. These nail-biting stories, all true, fill the reader with wonder, as in, “How do any of us survive?”

Encounters with wildfire, hideous insects, psychotic house pets, bad weather, gravity, predators, bullies, and the most potent force of all—fear—unfold in remote landscapes of the American West; on neon-splashed Hollywood sidewalks; in a Catskills summer camp for actors; in the Boston apartment of a famous senator; on a cliff high above the Mediterranean; beneath the streets of Paris. Goodwin looks for and finds meaning, if not security, in a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the human condition—and in the saving grace of laughter.

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 12

As Andrew McCarthy wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “For more than 20 years, Travelers’ Tales has been publishing books that might best be described as the literary equivalent of a group of travelers sitting around a dim café, sipping pints or prosecco and trading their best stories.”

Now comes The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 12: True Stories from Around the World—the latest collection in the best-selling, award-winning series that invites you to ride shotgun alongside intrepid female nomads as they wander the globe discovering new places, faces, and facets of themselves.

“In story after story,” McCarthy wrote about the previous volume of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, “the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world.”

The essays in this volume are as diverse as the destinations, exploring themes of kindness, transformation, nature, friendship, family, strength, and resilience.

French Like Moi

“I laughed until my sides hurt at Carpenter’s lighthearted and self-deprecating take on living in l’Hexagone.” —Kimberley Lovato, author of Walnut Wine & Truffle Groves

When Scott Carpenter moves from Minnesota to Paris, little does he suspect the dramas that await: scheming neighbors, police denunciations, surly demonstrators, cooking disasters, medical mishaps—not to mention all those lectures about cheese! It turns out that nothing in the City of Light can be taken for granted, where even trips to the grocery store lead to adventure.

Everything is grist for Carpenter’s mill. In eighteen tales, he lifts the curtain on what passes for normal in Europe’s most glorious capital: neighbors who plot to murder one another, hiccups in transportation, bizarre store exchange policies, operatic dramas in the condo association, healthcare à la française, underground labyrinths, and even terrorism. In the company of a cast of recurring characters, he leads us through the merry labyrinth of the everyday, one hilarious faux pas after another. Through it all, Carpenter, winner of Mark Twain House Royal Nonesuch Prize for humor, keeps his eye on the central mystery of what makes the French French (and Midwesterners Midwestern).

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