List of female explorers and travelers

The female explorer and traveller Gertrude Bell in Iraq, 1909.

This is a list of women who explored or travelled the world in a pioneering way. The list may include women sailors, mountain climbers, dog sledders, swimmers, pilots, and underwater explorers. Astronauts are not included here but in the list of female astronauts.

Name	Born	Died	Achievement/s
Harriet Chalmers Adams	1875	1937	Explored and photographed South America, Asia, South Pacific
Tania Aebi	1966		Held the record as the youngest person and first American woman to sail solo around the world (with stops and assistance).
Dominick Arduin	1960	2004	Disappeared on her attempt to become the first woman to ski alone to the North Pole
Ann Bancroft	1955		First woman to travel over the ice cap to the North and South Poles
Jeanne Baré	1740	1807	First woman (disguised as a man) to circumnavigate the world
Jean Batten	1909	1982	First person to fly between England and New Zealand solo - broke other records
Gertrude Bell	1868	1926	Explored and mapped Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Arabia
Isabella Bird	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	1915	2009	Australian aviation pioneer
Nellie Bly	1864	1922	Pioneering journalist who travelled around the world in 72 days, the first person to do so.
Louise Arner Boyd	1887	1972	Explored Greenland and the Arctic
Susan Butcher	1954	2006	Dog musher in Alaska
Calamity Jane	1852	1903	American frontierswoman and professional scout, known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok and for fighting Indians.
Renata Chlumska	1973		Climbed Mount Everest, kayaked and bicycled around lower 48 states of USA
Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz	1936		First woman to sail solo around the world
Kay Cottee	1954		First woman to sail solo, non-stop around the world
Octavie Coudreau	c.1870	c.1910	Early explorer and geographer of the Amazon region in Brazil and French Guiana
Aimée Crocker	1864	1941	Heiress, writer spent a decade exploring the Far East in the 1890s. Toured the interior of Java and Borneo.
Sophia Danenberg	1972		First black woman to reach summit of Mount Everest
Alexandra David-Néel	1868	1969	Travelled to Tibet while closed to foreigners
Laura Dekker	1995		Youngest person to sail around world solo
Eva Dickson	1905	1938	Swedish explorer, aviator, travel writer and rally driver. The first woman to have crossed the Sahara by car.
Lady Hay Drummond-Hay	1895	1946	First woman to circumnavigate the world by air (by Zeppelin)
Edith Durham	1863	1944	Explored Albania and the Balkans
Amelia Earhart	1897	1937	First woman to fly solo across Atlantic
Isabelle Eberhardt	1877	1904	Swiss explorer and writer in Algeria, who converted to Islam and traveled freely dressed as a man.
Gertrude Ederle	1905	2003	First woman to swim English Channel
Barbara Hillary	1931		First African American woman to reach North Pole
Amy Johnson	1903	1941	Pioneering aviator who set long-distance flying records
Osa Johnson	1894	1953	Made films of and wrote books about travels in Africa, South Pacific, Borneo
Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner	1970		First woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousander mountains without supplementary oxygen
Mary Kingsley	1862	1900	Ethnographer and explorer of West Africa
Annie "Londonderry" Kopchovsky	1870	1947	First woman to bicycle around the world
Charlotte Mansfield	1881	1936	Wrote Via Rhodesia (1911) about her travels in Southern Africa
Annette Meakin	1867	1959	First Englishwoman 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	1870	1938	Mexican botanist and explorer who started her career at age 55. Discovered one new genus (Mexianthus) and many new species of plants.
Dervla Murphy	1931		Irish travel writer known for cycling alone through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to India
Sarah Marquis	1972		Swiss adventurer and explorer who walked 10,000 miles (16,000 km) across Asia, Siberia and Australia
Marianne North	1830	1890	Prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist
Ida Pfeiffer	1797	1858	Travelled alone around the world in 1847, published books of her numerous travels
Anésia Pinheiro Machado	1904	1999	Second Brazilian licensed female pilot in Brazil
Kate Rice	1882	1963	First woman prospector in Northern Canada, writer, and trapper well known for her dog sled abilities
Wanda Rutkiewicz	1943	1992	Polish mountain climber, the first woman to successfully summit K2
Kira Salak	1971		Travelled in Mali and Papua New Guinea
Annemarie Schwarzenbach	1908	1942	Journalist and photographer, travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, Africa
Beryl Smeeton	1905	1979	Mountaineer, cruising sailor, overland traveller
Annie Smith Peck	1850	1935	First person to climb Mount Nevado Huascarán in the Andes
Hester Stanhope	1776	1839	Conducted first modern archaeology in Holy Land; travelled dressed as a man (unveiled)
Freya Stark	1893	1993	Travelled within and wrote about the Middle East, including the Arabian deserts, Afghanistan
Clärenore Stinnes	1901	1990	First woman to circumnavigate the world by automobile.
Rosie Swale-Pope	1946		Has run, walked and sailed around the world
Junko Tabei	1939		First woman to reach summit of Mount Everest
Annie Edson Taylor	1838	1921	First person to survive a trip over the Niagara Falls in a barrel
Alexandrine Tinné	1835	1869	Dutch explorer in Africa and the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara
Adeline Van Buren	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	1884	1959	Along with her sister Adeline Van Buren, they were the first women to ride solo motorcycles across the continental US.
Jessica Watson	1993		Youngest person to sail non-stop and unassisted around the world (but did not fulfil WSSRC criteria)
Fanny Bullock Workman	1859	1925	American cartographer, explored glaciers in Himalayas

See also

• Age of Discovery
• Exploration
• List of explorations
• List of explorers
• List of lost expeditions
• List of travelers
• List of Antarctic women

References