When travel journalist and author Elaine Lee took her first trip out of the country, she had just started law school at Howard University. “I flew from Washington, D.C. to see the Howard University basketball team play in The Bahamas,” says the Berkeley, California, resident.
But while trying to relax on the beach in Nassau, she was being inappropriately approached by men and people trying to sell her things. So, a local Bahamian suggested she try a quieter island.
“He said his aunt was leaving for her home on the island of Exuma in the morning and that I could go with her. And I just said, ‘OK,’” Lee laughs. Though these Bahamians were strangers to her, somehow Lee just felt safe going with them.
“When I met the guy’s aunt, I liked her and she liked me,” Lee remembers. “And I stayed with her and her husband for about two weeks and it was just wonderful because it was a true cultural immersion!”
She baked bread every day with the woman, played dominos with her husband and his friends and they even set Lee up to speak to the local elementary school students about becoming a lawyer.
“So that was the beginning of me learning what it meant to be a traveler and not a tourist,” says Lee, who first got her love of travel as a kid through road trips with her mother. “And I realized this is the way I’d like to maneuver in the world.”
Finding Herself in Paris
That maneuvering took her on a solo trip to Paris. “I was a workaholic civil rights lawyer when I first visited Paris,” Lee admits. In fact, Lee had started a nonprofit that was the world’s first law center for battered women.
“It was very rewarding but all-consuming,” she laments. But a colleague told her she was overworked and needed to take a break. She told Lee that she and her husband were going to Paris for his six-month sabbatical and that Lee was welcome to stay with them with her own room, plenty of food and not have to pay a penny. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Lee laughs.
