List of female explorers and travelers

English writer Gertrude Bell in Iraq, 1909.

Belgian Berthe Cabra.

Japanese climber Junko Tabei.

Hungarian geographer Béláné Mocsáry

Canadian-born Aloha Wanderwell

This is a list of women who explored or travelled the world in a pioneering way. The list may include women naturalists, sailors, mountain climbers, dog sledders, swimmers, pilots, and underwater explorers. Astronauts are not included here but in the list of female astronauts. The list is presented in alphabetical order of surname, but can be sorted to other orders (nationality, dates) by using the arrow-heads in the column headers.

Name  | Nationality | Born | Died | Achievement/s

|
|
|
|

Harriet Chalmers Adams | American | 1875 | 1937 | Explored and photographed South America, Asia, South Pacific
Tania Aebi | American | 1966 |  | Held the record as the youngest person and first American woman to sail solo around the world (with stops and assistance).
Alexis Alford | American  | 1998  |  | Youngest person to travel to every country in the world.
Felicity Aston | British | 1977 |  | First person to ski alone across the Antarctic land-mass using only personal muscle power, as well as the first woman to cross the Antarctic land-mass alone
Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey | American | 1863 | 1948 | American ornithologist and nature writer, who conducted extensive field work in the American West
Dominick Arduin | French | 1960 | 2004 | Disappeared on her attempt to become the first woman to ski alone to the North Pole
Ann Bancroft | American | 1955 |  | First woman to travel over the ice cap to the North and South Poles
Jeanne Baré | French | 1740 | 1807 | First woman (disguised as a man) to circumnavigate the world
Jean Batten | New Zealander | 1909 | 1982 | First person to fly between England and New Zealand solo - broke other records
Carol Beckwith | American  | 1945  |  | Photographer, author, and filmmaker known for documenting the tribal cultures of Africa, most notably in partnership with Australian photographer Angela Fisher.
Gertrude Bell | British | 1868 | 1926 | Explored and mapped Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Arabia
Gertrude Benham | British | 1867 | 1938 | Explorer, hiker and mountaineer. Truda Peaks of Mount Rogers is named after her.
Mabel Bent | Anglo-Irish | 1847 | 1929 | Explored and excavated with her husband James Theodore Bent in the Eastern Mediterranean, South Africa and Southern Arabia
Laura Bingham | British | 1992 |  | Executed expedition to cross continent of South America with no money.
Isabella Bird | British | 1831 | 1904 | Explorer, writer and naturalist who travelled by herself through

North America, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Persia, Kurdistan, Turkey, and Morocco.

Nancy Bird-Walton | Australian | 1915 | 2009 | Australian aviation pioneer
Nellie Bly | American | 1864 | 1922 | Pioneering journalist who travelled around the world in 72 days, the first person to do so.
Alessandra Boarelli | Italian | 1838 | 1908 | Italian mountaineer and the first woman to summit Monviso in the Alps in 1864.
Laurence Bougault | French | 1970 | 2018 | French poet and long-distance horseback adventurer in Africa, Middle East and Europe.
Louise Bourbonnaud | French | 1847 | 1915 | French philanthropist, explorer and writer who traveled alone through North and South America and the Far East.
Louise Arner Boyd | American | 1887 | 1972 | Explored Greenland and the Arctic
Beatrix Bulstrode | British  | 1869  | 1951  | Journalist and writer who traveled through China and Mongolia in 1911-1913.
Susan Butcher | American | 1954 | 2006 | Dog musher in Alaska
Berthe Cabra | Belgian | 1864 | 1947 | Belgian traveller, first European woman to travel across central Africa from East to West.
Charlotte Cameron | American | 1872 or 1873 | 1946 | American traveller and author.
Calamity Jane | American | 1852 | 1903 | American frontierswoman and professional scout, known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok and for fighting Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Renata Chlumska | Czech and Swedish | 1973 |  | Climbed Mount Everest, kayaked and bicycled around lower 48 states of USA
Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz | Polish | 1936 | 2021 | First woman to sail solo around the world
Kay Cottee | Australian | 1954 |  | First woman to sail solo, non-stop around the world
Octavie Coudreau | French | c.1870 | c.1910 | Early explorer and geographer of the Amazon region in Brazil and French Guiana
Aimée Crocker | American | 1864 | 1941 | Heiress, writer spent a decade exploring the Far East in the 1890s. Toured the interior of Java and Borneo.
Sophia Danenberg | American | 1972 |  | First black woman to reach summit of Mount Everest
Alexandra David-Néel | French | 1868 | 1969 | Travelled to Tibet while closed to foreigners
Robyn Davidson | Australian | 1950 |  | 2,700 km (1,700 mi) camel trek from Alice Springs to the west coast of Australia
Cassandra De Pecol | American | 1989  |  | Traveled to all sovereign nations on a trip from July 24, 2015, to February 2, 2017; she thus obtained the Guinness World Record for "Fastest Person (Female) to Travel to All Sovereign Nations" and is the first documented woman, fastest American, and youngest American to do such a trip.[1]
Laura Dekker | Dutch, German, and New Zealander | 1995 |  | Youngest person to sail around world solo
Eva Dickson | Swedish | 1905 | 1938 | Swedish explorer, aviator, travel writer and rally driver. The first woman to have crossed the Sahara by car.
Lady Hay Drummond-Hay | British | 1895 | 1946 | First woman to circumnavigate the world by air (by Zeppelin)
Edith Durham | British | 1863 | 1944 | Explored Albania and the Balkans
Amelia Earhart | American | 1897 | 1937 | First woman to fly solo across Atlantic
Isabelle Eberhardt | Swiss | 1877 | 1904 | Swiss explorer and writer in Algeria, who converted to Islam and traveled freely dressed as a man.
Gertrude Ederle | American | 1905 | 2003 | First woman to swim English Channel
Enid Gordon-Gallien | British | c. 1887 | 1931 | Explored and mapped Kalambo Falls
Barbara Hillary | American | 1931 | 2019 | First African American woman to reach North Pole
Amy Johnson | British | 1903 | 1941 | Pioneering aviator who set long-distance flying records
Osa Johnson | American | 1894 | 1953 | Made films of and wrote books about travels in Africa, South Pacific, Borneo
Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner | Austrian  | 1970 |  | First woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousander mountains without supplementary oxygen
Alma Maximiliana Karlin | Slovene  | 1889 | 1950 | World traveler, writer, poet, polyglot and theosophist, who was the second European woman to circle the world solo. In an eight-year travel, she explored North and South America, Oceania, Australia, East Asia, and India.
Mary Kingsley | British  | 1862 | 1900 | Ethnographer and explorer of West Africa
Belinda Kirk | British  | (unknown)  |  | Founder of Explorers Connect. Kirk has travelled across Africa, Nicaragua, and the Chinese Taklamakan Desert. She captained the first all-female rowing team to circumnavigate Britain non-stop.
Lyuba Kutincheva | Bulgarian  | 1910  | 1998  | Bulgarian traveler and polyglot who traveled for almost a decade (1929–1938) through the Middle East, Far East, northern Africa and Europe.
Gertrude Sanford Legendre | American  | 1902  | 2000  | American socialite who was a noted explorer and big-game hunter. She contributed rare specimens from Africa, Iran, Southeast Asia, Canada, and Alaska to natural history museums.
Annie Londonderry | Latvian American  | 1870 | 1947 | First woman to bicycle around the world
Charlotte Mansfield | British  | 1881 | 1936 | Wrote Via Rhodesia (1911) about her travels in Southern Africa
Beryl Markham | British  | 1902 | 1986 | British-born Kenyan aviator (one of the first bush pilots), adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.
Sarah Marquis | Swiss  | 1972 |  | Swiss adventurer and explorer who walked 16,000 km (10,000 mi) across Asia, Siberia and Australia
Elizabeth Sarah Mazuchelli | British  | 1832 | 1914 | Reportedly first western woman to see Mount Everest; wrote The Indian Alps and How We Crossed Them
Ella Maillart | Swiss  | 1903 | 1997 | Explorer and travel writer in Asia from the late 1920s through to World War II; wrote Forbidden Journey – From Peking to Kashmir
Annette Meakin | British  | 1867 | 1959 | First Englishwoman[citation needed] to cross the Trans-Siberian Railway. Wrote about this in "The Ribbon of Iron". Travelled in Russian Turkestan and other parts of Russia.
Ynes Mexia | Mexican-American  | 1870 | 1938 | Mexican botanist and explorer who started her career at age 55. Discovered one new genus (Mexianthus) and many new species of plants.
Béláné Mocsáry | Hungarian  | 1845 | 1917 | Hungarian geographer and travel writer who journeyed solo to four continents in the early 1900s.
Dervla Murphy | Irish  | 1931 |  | Irish travel writer known for cycling alone through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to India
Marianne North | British  | 1830 | 1890 | Prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist
Vanessa O'Brien | American and British  | 1964 |  | First Woman to reach Earth’s Highest (Mt. Everest 8,848m) and Lowest points (Challenger Deep 10,925m)
Ida Pfeiffer | Austrian  | 1797 | 1858 | Travelled alone around the world in 1847, published books of her numerous travels
Dorothy Pine | American  | 1920 | 2011 | Possibly first woman to visit all 193 UN-recognised countries
Anésia Pinheiro Machado | Brazilian  | 1904 | 1999 | Second Brazilian licensed female pilot in Brazil
Odette du Puigaudeau | French  | 1894 | 1991 | made three trips to northern Africa to conduct field research among the nomads of the western Sahara region and eventually moved to Morocco.
Kate Rice | Canadian  | 1882 | 1963 | First woman prospector in Northern Canada, writer, and trapper well known for her dog sled abilities
Wanda Rutkiewicz | Polish  | 1943 | 1992 | Polish mountain climber, the first woman to successfully summit K2
Vefa de Saint-Pierre | French  | 1872 | 1967 | Global voyager and hunter traveling across North and South America and Australia, writing about her adventures
Kira Salak | American  | 1971 |  | Travelled in Mali and Papua New Guinea
Annemarie Schwarzenbach | Swiss  | 1908 | 1942 | Journalist and photographer, travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, Africa
Beryl Smeeton | British  | 1905 | 1979 | Mountaineer, cruising sailor, overland traveller
Annie Smith Peck | American  | 1850 | 1935 | First person to climb Mount Nevado Huascarán in the Andes
Hester Stanhope | British  | 1776 | 1839 | Conducted first modern archaeology in Holy Land; travelled dressed as a man (unveiled)
Stephanie Solomonides | Cypriot  | 1982 |  | First Cypriot person to reach North and South Poles
Freya Stark | British and Italian (French born)  | 1893 | 1993 | Travelled within and wrote about the Middle East, including the Arabian deserts, Afghanistan
Matilda Coxe Stevenson | American  | 1849 | 1915 | Ethnologist and geologist who explored the Rocky Mountain region and the Southwest U.S.
Clärenore Stinnes | German  | 1901 | 1990 | First woman to circumnavigate the world by automobile.
Rosie Swale-Pope | Swiss, Irish, and British  | 1946 |  | Has run, walked and sailed around the world
Junko Tabei | Japanese  | 1939 | 2016 | First woman to reach summit of Mount Everest
Annie Edson Taylor | American  | 1838 | 1921 | First person to survive a trip over the Niagara Falls in a barrel
Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir | Icelandic  | 980 | 1019 | With her husband, led an expedition to North America
Alexine Tinne | Dutch  | 1835 | 1869 | Dutch explorer in Africa and the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara
Adeline Van Buren | American  | 1889 | 1949 | Along with her sister Augusta Van Buren, they were the first women to ride solo motorcycles across the continental US.
Augusta Van Buren | American  | 1884 | 1959 | Along with her sister Adeline Van Buren, they were the first women to ride solo motorcycles across the continental US.
Gabrielle Maud Vassal | British  | 1880 | 1959 | Naturalist in Vietnam, Congo, Gabon
Jessica Watson | Australian and New Zealander  | 1993 |  | Youngest person to sail non-stop and unassisted around the world (but did not fulfil WSSRC criteria)
Aloha Wanderwell | American  | 1906 | 1996 | First woman to drive around the world
Fanny Bullock Workman | American  | 1859 | 1925 | American cartographer, explored glaciers in Himalayas

## See also[edit]

* Age of Discovery
* Exploration
* List of Antarctic women
* List of explorations
* List of explorers
* List of female astronauts
* List of lost expeditions
* List of travelers
* Women in space

## References[edit]

1. ^ McNulty, Rose. "How Cassandra De Pecol became the first woman to travel every country on the planet—and stayed insanely fit". Mensfitness.com. Retrieved 2017-02-14.