Need a great summer read? I’ve got a great anytime read for you, dear wanderers. Girls Who Travel, a novel by Nicole Trilivas, landed in my hands last week. Let me tell you from experience: don’t start reading this book at 11pm. Because pretty soon it’ll be the early hours of the morning, and birds will be chirping, and coffee never looked so good, but you’ll be imagining drinking it in London, not stumbling to in your kitchen. But the good news is that your reading wanderlust will be supremely satisfied.

Girls Who Travel is the perfect read for, well, girls who love travel. It’s the story of travel, and mind-numbing work, and how we make our own choices, and crossing cultures, and how ALL of that is so important to life. Throw in a cute British guy, and the quintessential summer city, London, and you’ve got a book you can’t put down. Imagine Bridget Jones' Diary, but TRAVEL, and crossing cultures, and an immense sense of place. Yes. We read so many travel guides, but great travel fiction is few and far between.

What did I love about this book? Many things, including a strong main character, excellent writing, real life situations, and a love for traveling. It is this – the love for travel – that is the basis for the book – and, of course, our own lives. And, it is what makes it a particularly compelling read – for we love those women who, like us, love to travel. Trilivas captures this perfectly, and her characters are interesting people we’d love to befriend (or not, depending). She’s also a fantastic writer, for I could not put this book down. If you’re looking for the perfect summer read, one you’ll pass along to your girlfriends, and that gets girls who love travel, this is it. Highly recommended.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Nicole, and ask her about the book, inspiration, details, crossing cultures, and more. Here’s what she had to say…

Please tell us about your new book, Girls Who Travel...
Girls Who Travel is all about a free-spirited serial backpacker named Kika, who is a bit lost—but that’s okay because she’s lost in the right direction.

Ever since she returned from her last trip, she’s been stuck in corporate America and steeped in misery, so when she’s offered a nannying job in London, she’s thrilled at the prospect. But as Kika’s about to discover, exhilarating adventures can happen when you stay in one place…

What inspired you to write this book?
As someone who’s obsessed with travel, using the subject as a backdrop to a novel came natural to me. I chose to write about destinations that I knew well—like the UK, India, and Italy—because I want you to feel like you’re going on your journey when you read it.

To get a little more specific about Girls Who Travel, when I graduated university, I had a friend who ended up becoming an international au pair, and whenever I saw her photos on social media, it made me think, that would be a great premise for a book. (And it also made me violently jealous!)

I love the details in this book, from the $4 a night beach hut in Asia to the communal garden in London. As a writer, what do you look to convey about the importance of place, in your novel?
Thank you! Sense of place was really important to me because as a reader, I will read a book just because of where it’s set—and I didn’t want to disappoint the other readers who did the same thing. I wrote a lot of the London scenes when I was in my hometown of New York, waiting for my UK visa to come through, and because of that, I think this book became a bit of a love letter to my adoptive London home. 

In order to convey the sense of place, I tried to get very specific with words and details. If Kika was walking past shops, I wrote which shops specifically. And I picked my words carefully and made sure every word conveyed the mood of the area. A place can be as important as a character.

You describe crossing cultures so well - what sort of research or life experience do you bring to this story?
Like Kika, I am an American expat living in London. As an exchange student in university, I lived in South Kensington for about four glorious months! (But that’s basically where the similarities between Kika and I end. I never lived next door to a hot billionaire—at least not one I ever met!) 

What might people be surprised to learn, about writing Girls who travel?
That I wrote it in only a few months (of course revising it and getting it published took waaaaay longer)!  

What's up next for you?
Writing more travel-themed fiction! I love books about travel, but so many of the great ones tend to be nonfiction and memoirs, which is great, but I wanted to try and add the romantic lens of fiction to my favorite topic of travel. My next book is going to set in the snowy alps—but that’s all I’m going to reveal (mainly because it still has a ways to go! Yikes!)

Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Umm…that I think any girl who goes out there and travels is a rockstar. Happy travels, ladies!

Learn more:
Website: www.NicoleTrilivas.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Who-Travel-Nicole-Trilivas/dp/0425281442
Twitter: @NicoleTrilivas
Instagram: NicoleTrilivas
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Girls-Who-Travel-a-novel-196652804034074/

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