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 (Random House/Bantam Books). It was chosen as a Target Breakout Book and selected by Goodreads' readers as one of the best travel books of 2011. She's written for The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, New York, BUST, Bitch, Creative Nonfiction, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bon Appetit, Vela, Every Day with Rachael Ray, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Gadling, Guernica, Al Jazeera America, The Hairpin, and Nerve, among others.
She's a contributor to The McSweeney's Book of Politics and Musicals (Vintage, 2012), The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 9 (Travelers' Tales, 2013), and The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 10 (Travelers' Tales, 2014), as well as the winner of Creative Nonfiction's 2012 Australia Essay Contest. Her essay "Discovery" is listed as a notable piece in The Best American Travel Writing 2013.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (BA, MA) and the creative nonfiction program at Rutgers-Newark (MFA), she has taught literature, journalism, and writing at Columbia University, New York University, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.