Vela is an online magazine that publishes nonfiction inspired by travel, written by women. This stellar collection features select work from the magazine, covering terrain as far-flung as Afghanistan, El Salvador, the Philippines, and the former Soviet Union, as well as a college campus, a city bus, and a prison. In keeping with Vela's belief that there are no "women's subjects" and that women should be free to write with the same intellectual and creative freedom as men, these stories explore subjects including war, motherhood, AIDS, human rights, natural disaster, grief, gangs, addiction, home, and illness.

Since 2011, Vela Magazine has published creative nonfiction inspired by travel, written by women. In this first print collection, go dirtbagging in the Yukon, attend a Khmer wedding, ride horses in Navajo Nation, keep up with the boys across Europe, examine the relics of past travels, and fall in love during Oaxaca's revolution.