Hi there, I'm Lalei Arakoglu.

This is the third installment of our slow travel stories.

I'm with writer Laura Coffey, and on today's women who travel,

we're sailing to islands that resemble the fictional locations in the adventures of The Odyssey.

The book is about following parts of Odysseus' journey and finding these little mystical Mediterranean islands that various different scholars through time have said with the inspiration

for the fantastical lands of the Odyssey. And there's lots of different theories about which

islands around the Mediterranean could have corresponded to which lands in the Odyssey. And they're all

based basically on kind of whimsy or things like a particular cave or the arrangement of the stars on a specific

island. I grew up learning about the Greek myths. I feel like lots of children do. I had a children's

book about them that really captivated my imagination. I think, you know, the Odyssey obviously is one of

the most famous. Actually,

when I try to think of the story, I can't really remember it. What is the story beyond it being

an epic trip? It's basically this guy Odysseus, who, I think in modern terms, we call a narcissistic,

polyamorous guy who's a bit of a dick and he has just finished

fighting in the Trojan war and he was the guy who came up with the idea of the Trojan horse

that helped them win the war. So it's really clever, he's quite sneaky, he's very wily,

but he's also, he's quite arrogant, he's pissed off the gods,

and they are preventing him from getting home to his island of Ithaca, that's his home island.

And he's basically doing island hopping, except he doesn't get to choose the route,

and it's been going on for 10 years when we meet him in the story.

It was a challenge to trace Odysseus' journey. Where, for instance, is the island of the

lotus eaters, or Calypso's island and the island of Helios? There's all of these crazy bonkers theories surrounding the geography of the Odyssey.

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