“This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it’s getting late. I don’t know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

Follow the Wandering Muse was created to inspire writers to travel, because its founders, Kristen Ringman and Lauren Winterholer, couldn’t possibly live any other way.

It’s not about travel writing, but traveling in order to write better.

It’s about getting up and walking down the street, down a forest path, and not stopping when you reach the end of the lane—it’s about wandering, seeking your muse in the most unlikely places (ideally, other countries).

We hope that you might use this blog for ideas to take your own self-directed retreats to the places you’ve always dreamed of going.

Just go.

Take as little baggage as you can.

Take a journal.

Take a camera.

Your muse is waiting.