Solo and Secure: The First-Time Woman's Guide to Fearless Trip Planning

Mario Cantu is a travel writer and safety educator based in San Antonio, Texas. He spent more than fifteen years working in travel risk management, advising organizations on how to keep their people safe in unfamiliar places, before turning his attention to the questions he heard travelers asking every day: How do I do this alone? How do I do this safely? How do I stop being afraid?

His essays on travel, safety, and the journeys women take on their own terms have appeared in national and international travel publications, and his travel safety workshops have been taught to thousands of first-time travelers. For *Solo and Secure*, he interviewed more than two hundred women travelers across four continents about their first trips—their fears, their failures, and the moments that made them feel unstoppable.

Cantu wrote this book because the women closest to him—his mother, his sisters, and generations of friends—kept waiting for the right time, the right companion, or permission they didn't actually need. He believes that the open road belongs to everyone, and that a well-made plan is the quietest form of courage. When he isn't writing, he is usually walking unfamiliar city streets, testing his own advice, and taking notes for the next book.