She moved to the United States in 1940 and spent five years there, publishing "I Go by Sea, I Go by Land" in 1941. At the invitation of her friend John Collier, the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Travers spent two summers living among the Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo peoples, studying their mythology and folklore. Travers moved to England in at the end of the war, where she continued writing. She returned to the US in 1965 and became writer-in-residence at Radcliffe College from 1965 to 1966 and at Smith College in 1966 and lecturing at Scripps College in 1970. She published various works and edited "" from 1976 to her death.