Women Explorers

Nellie Bly was an American industrialist, journalist, inventor, and charity worker. She is remembered for her circumnavigation of the world in 72 days. She is also known for pioneering a new kind of investigative journalism as she worked undercover from within a mental institution to report on the institution. Nellie Bly’s life and work have inspired several works of art.

Aloha Wanderwell was a Canadian-American explorer, aviator, author, and filmmaker. In 1927, she became the first woman to travel around the world in a Ford 1918 Model T, at the age of 21. When she was 16, she undertook a journey, in which she traveled across 80 countries. Wanderwell is also remembered for making films like My Hawaii. 

New Zealand-born Dutch sailor Laura Dekker was 14 when she began her path-breaking solo journey around the world aboard a ketch named Guppy. At 16, she reached the Caribbean and thus became the youngest person to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world. She later published a book on her experiences.

Alexandra David-Néel was a Belgian–French explorer, anarchist, spiritualist, Buddhist, writer, and opera singer. She is best remembered for traveling to important spiritual centers, including Lhasa, Tibet in 1924, when foreigners were forbidden from entering Lhasa. Alexandra David-Néel wrote more than 30 books and her teachings influenced people like Allen Ginsberg, Benjamin Crème, Jack Kerouac, Ram Dass, and Alan Watts.   

Freya Stark was an Anglo-Italian travel writer and explorer. One of the first non-Arabs to explore the southern Arabian Desert, Stark penned down over 24 books on her travels in Afghanistan and the Middle East. She also wrote many essays and autobiographical works. In 1968, Freya Stark embarked on her last expedition to Afghanistan at the age of 75.

Ann Bancroft grew up with a learning disability but later became a physical education teacher. She eventually quit her job and scripted history by becoming the first woman to reach the North Pole. She also led the first women’s group that reached the South Pole on skis.

Jeanne Baret is recognized as the first woman who circumnavigated the globe through maritime-transport. She did so disguised as a man called Jean Baret and joining expedition of French admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, according to whose account Baret was an expert botanist. She enlisted herself as valet and assistant of French naturalist Philibert Commerson for the expedition.     

English ethnographer and traveler Mary Kingsley was the daughter of renowned physician and traveler George Kingsley and the niece of Charles Kingsley. Unlike girls of her era, she was well-educated and later ventured on an exploratory trip to West Africa, becoming the first European to enter remote areas such as Gabon.

Alexandrine Tinné was a Dutch explorer and photographer. Tinné, who was among the first group of women from Europe to reach Gondokoro in Africa, also became the first European woman to make an earnest attempt to cross the Sahara. An early photographer, Alexandrine Tinné worked with many commercial photographers like Francis Frith and Robert Jefferson Bingham.

US ethnologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson was a pioneering female figure in the scientific world. She was also the first woman to work for the Bureau of American Ethnology. She was known for her research on the indigenous Zuni community. She also helped establish the Women's Anthropological Society in Washington DC.

Kathleen Conlan is an Antarctic marine biologist who was named one of Canada's greatest explorers by Canadian Geographic. She has a Ph.D. from Carleton University. She was invited by pioneer Antarctic marine biologist Dr. John Oliver to join his Antarctic research team. She received an Antarctica Service Medal and the Science in Society Children's Book Award for her works. 

Argentine-Paraguayan botanist is known for her explorations in the US and South America. She also worked as an associate curator and a researcher at the Missouri Botanical Garden and was a student of celebrated Argentinian botanist Ángel Lulio Cabrera. She has been an expert on the flora of the Plata basin.