Intrepid Women Travel Writers: Gutsy Explorers of the 20th Century

The intrepid women travel writers of the 20th century were as affected by the expansion of air travel as were their earlier compatriots by rail travel in the 19th century. Women traveled more for business, and became independent. From that freedom was born a wave of travel writing by women that continues to amaze by its honesty and richness.

Arabian Desert
Photo: Francis Hadden Andrus via Flickr

Dame Freya Madeleine Stark was one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts. She often traveled alone into areas where few Europeans - and even fewer women - had ever been. Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel made history in the early 1900s by walking, disguised as a male beggar, from China across Tibet and into the forbidden city, which she was the first Western woman ever to enter. She lived more than a century - and surprised her local authorities by requesting a new passport at the ripe old age of 100!

Another of the inspiring and intrepid women travel writers and one of my favorites is the Swiss Ella Maillart, know as Kini to friends. A pro-level skiier and sailor, Maillart died in 1997 at the age of 94, having criss-crossed Asia a number of times. Whether in Moscow with the Countess Tolstoy or across Central Asia on her own (read Turkestan Solo), she brilliantly documented her trips in words and pictures - the quintessential 20th century photojournalist.

Ethiopia's dramatic Simiens
Photo: sameffron via Flickr

And who doesn't know the prolific Dervla Murphy - the older she gets the more intrepid, it seems! Born in 1931, she cut her travel teeth on bicycle trips across Europe but graduated to world-class journeys when one blustery day in 1963 she set off on Roz, her Armstrong Cadet, to cycle from Ireland to India. She hasn't stopped since. I've had the privilege of almost running into her twice on my travels, once in Uganda and once in Laos. I admit I took advantage of that coincidence to write to her - and to my amazement I received a lovely typed postcard back!

As I flew low in a tiny plane over the spiky Simien Mountains in Ethiopia one day, I looked down in awe, recalling Dervla's In Ethiopia with a Mule, wondering how she ever made it across. And in Uganda and Kenya, I was reminded of The Ukimwi Road, which documented the spread of AIDS along Africa's trucking routes - written when the epidemic was still new - intrepid women travel writers all.