Touring - Safety of single woman touring across US south to north

This was posted at biketouringtips.com (link to actual entry (http://www.biketouringtips.com/showTipComments.php?tipID=1089)).


My 22-year-old daughter is a seasoned adventurer already. Last year she biked with one girlfriend from New England to Lousiana, camping and couch-surfing along the way, and had a glorious time. Not to mention that she has walked across Spain alone on the pilgrimage route, and travelled with one girlfriend through Morocco and Europe, working on farms and staying wherever each day's adventures brought them.

I'm not an overly protective parent, and I've never really worried about her before. But now she has plans to bike alone, back up from Louisiana to Rhode Island. That sounds scary to me. However, I'd like to know more before I bring up the subject with her, so that I'm not just tossing ill-informed opinions at her. I've never done any bike-touring or even very much solo traveling of any kind.

So, if any of you have experience or knowledge of women doing long bike tours alone, especially in the south and Appalachian and mid-Atlantic regions, I'd be really grateful for your input. I just want to know that women have done this before, and to have some way of not worrying! Or... if you have good reason to think it's unsafe, please let me know your experience.

Thanks!

I am neither a woman or 22 years old, so I don't have any relevant experience to add.

It doesn't appear that "iris" has posted here.

Is there anyone on these boards that can provide iris with some useful information?

If you don't want to register (for free) and respond at www.biketouringtips.com and would rather respond here, I will be happy to post a link to this thread on iris's post.

Ray

IIRC, there was a woman, Heidi, who rode a recumbent trike around a lot of North America, and posted her experiences on CGOAB. A search there might be useful, using Heidi as a keyword. Her experiences would be more relevant in terms of how recently she completed her trips -- three years ago, I think.

Read some journals on the crazyguyonabike site The search feature will turn up journals for several solo women's tours. I don't know about the specific route though. I met a young solo female rider crossing the country E-W. She found it to be a positive experience. I also read journals from a couple of others doing similar trips. I didn't hear any negative impressions from any of them.

Here is one example of a solo woman tourer from FL to MA:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/1016

Another reference, although probably already provided, and a little dated: Josie Drew. She has her own website, www.josiedew.co.uk (http://www.josiedew.co.uk), but I gather it is more for marketing her books than anything else.