Author Jeannette Belliveau explores the reasons so many women have plunged into the hedonistic world of sex tourism and the risks and rewards they face in their hunt for pleasure, healing and love. Though hundreds of thousands of women have indulged in holiday liaisons, their behavior remains one of the last remaining taboos.

Belliveau is uniquely qualified to finally reveal the hidden behavior of traveling women. After a painful divorce, she spent 12 years in sexual exile, with only cheerful foreign men able to provide the no-strings intimacy that was all she could handle. Yet these gallant souls, many from Caribbean islands, set her on a road to healing and accepting a black man permanently in her life -- as her second husband. "Your book reads like a love letter to Lamont," said one wise early reader.

The author blends anecdote with scholarly, exclusive findings. For the first time anywhere, Romance on the Road presents original research on the top countries that U.S. women visit to find husbands, as well as the drawbacks and advantages of the men available in most touristed regions of the world. Say traveling women, tourism scholars, and mental health professionals who counsel single urban women who have read the manuscript, Romance is "sexy, funny, a wonderful, wonderful book," "bound to be a hit" and "I wish the chapters would never end." They are holding their breath until they can hold the completed book!

The true travel stories in Romance on the Road are as molten as the finest erotica. Yet this the author balances the "hot stuff" with brilliant insights and tough detective work showing how travel flings embody a revolution in mate selection and mark ebbs and flows in feminist progress.

One word appeared over and over in reviews of Belliveau's first book, An Amateur's Guide to the Planet: "FASCINATING." Expect Romance on the Road to be hotter, more controversial, and doubly captivating!

Reviews of Romance on the Road

Chris Arvidson, Foreword magazine, Forthcoming in September 2006 issue

"Casual Sex on the Road" might be a better description of this graphically descriptive book on sex and the traveling woman. From the first page, which contains a quick index for locating the "Hall of Fame sex travelers" stories within, readers can indulge in narratives of casual encounters, purposeful adventures, and anecdotal tales of "impetuous couplings." ... The final chapter, "Sex, power, ethics and the future," may be the most helpful, and most practical, for the female traveler preparing for an adventure abroad.

For women contemplating sexual experiences overseas, Belliveau provides a frank, contextual guidebook to experiencing foreign men. As the author concludes, "Every woman who navigated her way to rambunctious satisfaction with a stranger sees men with changed eyes." Adventurous readers will no doubt find this to be true.

Pamela Barrus Author, Dream Sleeps: Castle & Palace Hotels of Europe and member of the executive board of the Travelers' Century Club

Romance on the Road is a first-of-its-kind exploration of Western women who seek steamy flings, amorous affairs, and genuine long-term and affectionate relationships in non-traditional countries. A good holiday romp in the arms of a
dark handsome stranger is often the perfect antidote to a woman fed up with the shallowness of the dating wars at home or who needs a boost to her femininity after a failed relationship.

Travel to any beach resort in the Caribbean, Mexico, Bali, and Thailand and you'll see female sex tourism in action. Women, from their twenties to their sixties, are having a go with the beach boys -- unashamedly. In more exotic locales, Western women -- often highly educated and successful -- have pursued and even married Masai warriors, Nepalese Sherpa guides, and Cameroonian chieftains. The phenomenon of a woman traveling outside her culture for either a quick sex fix or a more sustained relationship has never been examined in depth until this book.

Author Jeannette Belliveau has exhaustively researched the literature, documents, and interviews of women who have engaged in unconventional (wild, to some points of view) foreign affairs. Don't think that Romance on the Road is a dry, academic treatise. Belliveau is the first to serve herself up on a platter. In brave detail, she describes her own transformation into the travel nymphomaniac, recounting liaisons in Greece, the Caribbean, and Brazil (she is now happily remarried).

Every aspect of a woman finding romance on the road is examined -- from the psychological drive to local geographical variants. A play-by-play of female travel sex pioneers beginning in the Victorian age until present day is meticulously documented. And for those who are thinking about joining the ranks of
the estimated 600,000 women since 1980 who have had flings on foreign beaches, cruise ships, and backcountry treks, the rules of the road and its pitfalls are discussed. For the less daring, an excellent bibliography points to some intriguing reads.

Undoubtedly, in the future women will cross borders more and more to find sex, love, and affection to compensate for the growing man shortages in their own communities. Romance on the Road validates those women who are unafraid to look past social conventions and find happiness and pleasure in other parts of the world.

Diane C. Donovan Midwest Book Review / California Bookwatch

Romance on the Road offers something competitors can seldom touch: the most complete, candid assessment in print of women who travel to love foreign men. Stories by such women present worldwide journeys and encounters with local men from Italy and the Caribbean to India, Asia, Latin America and beyond.

But don't expect light travelogue literature in Romance on the Road: Traveling Women Who Love Foreign Men: it's also got quite a serious side, detailing cultural encounters, oddities, dangers, and history and economic backgrounds. 25 academics and medical doctors from five nations also contribute to a survey which includes the author's own encounters with men around the world. ... Its informa 
tion will prove priceless to any seeking a blend of scholarly insight and lively travelogue in one package.

Naomi Klouda Former editor, Tundra Drums, Bethel, Alaska

"Romance on the Road" is a rare book that discusses a topic not often voiced aloud among women -- sexual mixing with men who are not of the same culture. Women's travels grant the freedom to pursue an ardent curiosity about the world -- and the men they encounter. Yet the combination richly examined in this book has long been neglected by author travelogues.

Full of historical and literary looks at the topic, as well as first-person experiences by author Jeannette Belliveau, the book is an unflinchingly honest look at the secrets women more often than not have kept to themselves for the past two hundred years of roaming the globe. Well-written and engaging; a welcome and sometimes disquieting look at what women want when they can take it without repercussions. Why would a woman possessing financial and social freedom granted in today's Western world feel compelled to locate a deeper satisfaction in foreign vistas and its men?

The answers are profoundly relevant to modern Western women who find missing pieces of themselves with "foreign" men that eludes them in an often troubling mix with Western men.