Pink Pangea: A Community for the Female Traveler

Jaclyn Mishal
Jaclyn Mishal, one of the founders of Pink Pangea, a travel site for women.

A Travel Website Aimed at Empowering Women Travelers

If you are a female traveler, you know that traveling as a woman comes with uncertainties and precautions that men don’t have to worry about.

Pink Pangea founders, Jaclyn and Rachel
Pink Pangea founders, Jaclyn and Rachel

By Stephanie DiCarlo

Avid and adventurous travelers Rachel Sales and Jaclyn Mishal both faced frustration at the lack of information available for women travelers on the web.

As Ravel pointed out, “Guidebooks usually had just one paragraph with information for women travelers, which included generic tips.”

Being told not to walk down a dark alley is not a revolutionary piece of advice for a woman. What the female traveler needed, Rachel and Jaclyn quickly realized, was a place to expand on such generic advice- by women themselves.

“We believe that other women travelers are the experts themselves, and we decided to create a community where women can share their travel experiences and help to inspire and educate each other,” said Rachel.

This community turned into Pink Pangea, an all-women’s travel website that is exactly as they described above–a great place for the female traveler to get tips and advice she might not find elsewhere.

A Space for Women Travelers

“We chose to focus on women travelers because we wanted to create a space for women to share their travel experiences—something that we felt was previously lacking. Women face specific challenges in their travels, and on Pink Pangea, women can share their experiences and help make the world a more accessible place for each other.”

As a woman traveler myself, I can say that I certainly wish I had known about Pink Pangea when I studied abroad in Leeds, England a year ago. There were times when I had to be by myself at night in the city, coming home from a trip or going home from a club meeting at the university.

I remember turning to Google for safety tips, but like guide books, it was all very generic and non-specific to my situations. It doesn’t surprise me at all that other women have run into similar problems.

Rachel in Morocco, wearing a jallabiya.
Rachel in Morocco, wearing a jallabiya.

Rachel said, “During college, I continued traveling either by myself or with friends. When I traveled, I often found that I had a lot of questions as a woman traveler, but I didn’t know where to find answers.

Once, while in Kiev, Ukraine, I wanted to take the overnight train to Odessa, but wasn’t sure if it was safe for women—and there was no place to find this information.

So in the end, I played it safe and stayed in Kiev. While in Fez, Morocco, I thought I came prepared with jeans and long-sleeve shirts, but I still felt uncomfortable because people were staring at me—even though I was with my brother.

In the end, I bought a jallabiya to cover up a little more. If I had known that I might have felt this way in advance, it would’ve saved me a few days of discomfort.”

Pink Pangea has attracted women writers who have lived in and traveled to countries all over the world. Pink Pangea creates a female community through the stories of individuals.

Women’s travel isn’t at all simply about safety tips- it’s about embracing the world, taking charge, and seeing what foreign places will reveal about yourself. For me, travel was self-empowering.

The world has so much to offer, and traveling showed me just what I could do with the world! It made me eager and energized and unwilling to let life pass me by.

Jaclyn in Italy
Jaclyn in Italy

Rachel and Jaclyn spent a lot of time traveling to places all over the world; including countries in the Middle East, Europe, and Central America.

Rachel grew up traveling all over with her family, a passion that still burns strong. She says, “I feel hungry to see the world. I love getting lost, being outside of my comfort zone, and seeing how other people live. It’s a humbling experience to see how diverse and big the world is.”

Pink Pangea is a community of women just as eager to see the world, to experience culture, meet people, and eat delicious food.

Rachel’s favorite part of running Pink Pangea is “reading the inspiring experiences of women travelers every day. These women are incredible–quitting their jobs to travel, taking gap years, going on impromptu vacations, volunteering around the world to support what they believe in.

Their curiosity and desire to make a difference never cease to amaze me.”

Rachel in Israel.
Rachel in Israel.

Pink Pangea shows what a woman can do when she takes control of what the world has to offer: what she can do for herself and for others.

The women of Pink Pangea share the unique experience of what it is to be female in places in which women are seen as second-class citizens, how femininity is embraced in different cultures, and what it’s like to travel alone or with  company.

“We’ve been thrilled to receive so much support from women travelers all over the world.

“We have Foreign Correspondents, who write throughout their journeys, Regional Experts, who collect health and safety information from international women travelers, one-time writers who share reflections from their travels, famous women travelers who share their expertise, and readers everywhere in the world.

Pink Pangea has become a place where women share the things they wish they knew before they traveled. It’s a community where they express their fascination and shock with the world. It’s a community that supports women as they find their voices and process their travel experiences.”

Jaclyn in Seville, Spain.
Jaclyn in Seville, Spain.

Pink Pangea is certainly something I wish I knew about before I traveled. It’s a fascinating website full of fascinating women, and the community doesn’t simply embrace stories of travel, but the art of writing it.

“For Jaclyn, her favorite part is working with new writers— seeing women have the courage to express themselves, and then feeling proud of themselves after they have done it.”

A lot of times, it’s when you sit down and write about an experience that you realize exactly what you got out of it. Words coming together on the page can be akin to spilling the heart of your experiences out for everyone to read.

It can be daunting, and Pink Pangea works to welcome these writers and what they’re willing to share through their writing.

A Pink Pangea travel writing workshop.
A Pink Pangea travel writing workshop.

In the past year, Pink Pangea has been host to many international travel writing workshops. These workshops are “where women can explore their urge to write in a supportive environment, and share their travel experiences.”

They lead workshops on college campuses and have retreats in places such as Costa Rica, Italy, and Switzerland.

Rachel and Jaclyn’s experiences abroad led to the creation of a community of women that has certainly come far and will continue to thrive.

To learn more or contact Rachel and Jaclyn, go to the Pink Pangea Website. me

Stephanie DiCarlo is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and has a Bachelor’s degree in English and History, as well as a specialization in creative writing. She also writes for the young adult literature magazine Ultimate YA and she likes to travel and eat good food. You can follow her on Twitter at @ccioSteph

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