Artists, writers, computer scientists, sportswomen, photographers, musicians, sailors, scientists, circus performers… These women who accomplish their goals on the road inspire me deeply. In VIAJERAS, I want to give voice to women travelers of different nationalities, social backgrounds and generations to present a wide variety of situations united by the desire to explore and overcome personal limits. We don’t want to restrict the notion of travel to young, pretty girls from affluent backgrounds – or vice versa – but rather to show that the spirit of adventure can be enjoyed by everyone, at any age, and goes beyond commonly accepted representations. I’m talking to future women travelers; to those who have already hit the road; to anyone who feels adventurous at heart; to anyone who wants to understand the “madness” of solo travel; to those who think a woman shouldn’t go off on her own; to macho types; to all those who encourage others to discover the world. The intention behind the creation of the documentary series VIAJERAS is to take you on the road to meet these modern-day adventurers.

       The first thing that comes to mind when I think of travel is the trigger that pushes me to make the decision to go. There’s the before, the after, and that tumultuous in-between moment I’d call the impulse. This is one of the themes I’ll systematically broach in my interviews with female travelers. Why are more and more women leaving behind their careers, families and relationships to travel? What motivates them to set off alone into the unknown?

       Choosing to travel alone means constantly rethinking our conditioning as women. With each new country, we’re confronted with a new set of stereotypes related to the feminine gender stuck like a bar code on our foreheads. We may dress in long baggy pants, covering T-shirts, or wear no make-up at all; from the moment we are women, we are subject to preconceived ideas about the safety and morals attributed to our gender. These prejudices cross borders and materialize in the form of remarks that are sometime intended to be benevolent but contribute to marginalizing women travelers:

“Why don’t you travel with your boyfriend?”; “What about your family?”; “I’d never let my daughter travel like that!”; “Aren’t you scared?”;  »Female solo travelers are girls who travel to sleep around and get free accommodation.”; “You’ll end up getting raped if you put yourself in situations like that…”

I hear these remarks – all too frequently – when I talk about traveling alone, from people who cross my path, give me a lift, host me, from other travelers or even from relatives on my return. People who talk to me like this are often unaware of the limiting nature of their words. It may be because in many societies, adventure, action, freedom and risk-taking are masculine domains, while passivity, prudence, family and the stability of the home belong to the feminine. It’s the same old story: Penelope waits patiently at home for Ulysses, while he lives out his Odyssey. It is essential – for the well-being and fulfilment of the female half of humanity and the progress of everyone – to deconstruct these stereotypes by showing women travelers in their reality, without societal or moral embellishments and outside the male gaze. In the VIAJERAS series, we put preconceived ideas about female travelers under the destructive roller of experience. This is why the question of women’s emancipation from social diktats is one of the paths that will be explored throughout the series. Themes of safety and self-defence will also be debated during exchanges with the travelers. Do they encounter safety issues along the way? How do they handle it? Does the danger come from traveling or simply from being a woman? How do they feel, as unusual women adventurers in societies that seek to objectify them, set them in competition with each other, and convince them that they are vulnerable, paradoxically to make them feel guilty about other people’s harms to their integrity?

       One of the central themes of the VIAJERAS series is personal development during the journey, in particular the building of a self-sufficiency that goes beyond what can be felt in a society-driven life, as well as greater openness to others and their differences. It’s a subject intrinsically linked to nomadic lifestyles. How does travel change our relationship with ourselves and the world around us? Why is travelling so rich in learning? Through the travelers’ stories, we’ll explore the different spaces of experimentation offered by leaving the comfort zone. When we travel, knowing nothing and planning nothing takes us back to an almost childlike state of mind. As we venture into unfamiliar places, the daily surprise makes us live again with boldness, pleasure and mischief. Sometimes there are hard times, loneliness or unpleasant twists and turns, the traveler also learns a lot from the difficulties encountered along the way. However, on the whole, I find nomadic life very enjoyable and positive, in the sense that I follow nothing but my desires and my intuition, which is developing exponentially, as are my skills in communicating and adapting to new environments. As I leave behind the social mask, all those expectations of others hanging over my shoulders; as I abandon the idea of being able to control everything in favor of accepting the unexpected; as I learn to glide along in the flow of life to discover who I really am, outside any kind of obligation; I feel that I’m finally taking a form of control over my life. And I’m not the only one: thousands of other travelers will recognize themselves in these words. Throughout the series, I hope to convey the sense of freedom, open-mindedness and personal enrichment experienced by so many other women on the road.

       Boat, train, plane, walk, bike… How do women travel? VIAJERAS is also the desire to follow unique journeys, to talk about the practical issues behind the dream. How do you travel if you don’t have many savings? How can you avoid taking a plane? Do you have to go far to get a change of scenery? How fast should you travel? There are so many questions to consider when it comes to taking to the road, and there are as many answers as there are travelers. In this documentary series, I’d like to highlight singular paths of life, challenge and adventure, whether on the other side of the world or close to home.  Demonstrate that, before being a destination or a list of things to visit and boxes to tick, travel is first and foremost about the state of mind of the person living it.