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Rachel Friedman

Rachel Friedman is the author of The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure (Bantam, 2011), a Target Breakout Book and one of Goodreads' best travel books of 2011. She also wrote And Then We Grew Up, exploring how she and her childhood friends navigated disillusionment and fulfillment. A former serious violist, she is based in New York as a freelance writer.
On LuvemBooks, we've reviewed The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost.
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Books Reviewed
Cover of The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost
The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost

4.4/5

reader rating · 503 ratings

Rachel Friedman's memoir chronicles how a self-described "good girl" — a college graduate with no post-graduation plan and a lifelong habit of playing it safe — impulsively bought a ticket to Ireland and ended up on a two-year, three-continent journey that reshaped her understanding of herself and the world. Published by Bantam in 2011, the book traces her arc from Galway to Sydney to South America alongside her free-spirited Australian friend Carly, delivering an honest account of what it costs — and yields — to abandon the perfect plan.

Reviewed Jun 23, 2026

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Authors Like Rachel Friedman
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Jennifer Baggett

Biography & Memoir
Memoir
Travel & Adventure
Jennifer Baggett's The Lost Girls shares the same focus on female friendship and open-ended travel, following three friends quitting stable careers for a journey across four continents.
1 book reviewed
The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around
S

Susanna Janssen

Biography & Memoir
Memoir
Travel & Adventure
Susanna Janssen’s Once Upon a Continent shares Friedman’s spirit of improvisational travel, personal reinvention, comic mishaps, and cultural wonder.
1 book reviewed
Once Upon a Continent
Alice Steinbach

Alice Steinbach

Memoir
Travel & Adventure
Alice Steinbach’s Without Reservations also follows a woman stepping away from her defined life for travel, offering a quieter pace focused on small moments of self-rediscovery.
1 book reviewed
Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
T

Tom Dymond

Biography & Memoir
Memoir
Travel & Adventure
Tom Dymond’s Hooked on the Horizon shares the horizon-chasing emotional core of Rachel Friedman’s travel writing while offering a distinct tonal contrast.
1 book reviewed
Hooked on the Horizon
E

Eva zu Beck

Biography & Memoir
Memoir
Travel & Adventure
Eva zu Beck's The Wilder Way shares Rachel Friedman's restless female perspective and courage to embrace uncertainty through years of adventurous, off-the-beaten-path travel.
1 book reviewed
The Wilder Way
M

Mike Nixon

Biography & Memoir
Memoir
Travel & Adventure
Mike Nixon’s Life Travel And The People In Between also chronicles global wanderings and personal transformation, broadening the journey across decades of service in the military, an NGO, and the Peace Corps.
1 book reviewed
Life Travel And The People In Between