Forgotten Female Explorers

[mspath]

This current BBC reportage follows the steps of history's forgotten female explorers.... Intrepid might be their motto.

In the steps of history's forgotten female explorers

Walking in the footsteps of history's intrepid women explorers, Elise Wortley hopes to shine new light on these adventurers and inspire a new generation.

www.bbc.com

 

[Former member 91017]

Wonderful! Thank you… Am purchasing David-Néel’s travel memoir right now!

 

[Camino Chrissy]

Wow, what an interesting and fascinating article! Thanks so much for sharing it!

 

[jungleboy]

Wonderful! Thank you… Am purchasing David-Néel’s travel memoir right now!

I have read it. It’s absolutely extraordinary!

 

[TrvlDad1]

Read Full Tilt by Durvla Murphy, a woman alone, bikes from Ireland to India through Iran and Afghanistan in 1963. Surreal by today’s standards.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I love survival stories and overcoming adversity. I'm sure all of these books and stories have plenty of that.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

Maybe I can find these amazing books online...right "up my alley"!

 

[Tincatinker]

Alexandra David-Neel; Freya Stark; Dervla Murphy; Nan Shepherd; Jan Morris; Celia Fiennes: forgotten? Not in this house! And they’re just the ones still in print.
My gran walked from Guernica, after the bombing, to La Rochelle. Got a lift in a fishing boat to Guernsey and another back to Hamble. She’d picked up enough Basque to be able to translate for the pregnant women in the internment camp at Aldermoor. Unfortunately she couldn’t read or write so we’ll never find that tale on Amazon.
I guess it’s my naivety but I find it bewildering that these authors aren’t on every travelers bookshelves.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I'd never heard of any of these courageous women, @Tincatinker, but my head is often in the sand. I may add them to my Camino book collection if available on Amazon...I have read "Guernica" and "The history of the Basque people".

 

[Tincatinker]

I'd never heard of any of these courageous women, @Tincatinker, but my head is often in the sand. I may add them to my Camino book collection if available on Amazon...I have read "Guernica" most of us and "The history of the Basque people".

Chrissy, I don’t recall that any of’em ever did Camino. But they went places and did stuff that most of us wouldn’t even dream of. And then they went and did something more. Read Murphy’s “Full Tilt” or Stark’s “The Valleys of the Assassins” and compare the challenge of booking a bed at Orisson. Fiennes traveled England on horseback between 1680 & 1690(?) when “even the mad passed not abroad”. It might be a bit complicated getting through Madrid to Roncesvalles just now. There aren’t any ships or Captains licensed to transport Pilgrims from my home port of Shoreham anymore but my opportunities for vicarious travel are even wider than the sea girt horizon my library grants me

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I don’t recall that any of’em ever did Camino. But they went places and did stuff that most of us wouldn’t even dream of. And then they went and did something more.

My favorite books are non-fiction stories of adventure, overcoming adversity, and survival...all wrapped up into one. I will write the titles/authors down and see what I can find. Thanks, Tincatinker!

 

[VNwalking]

Beautiful, thank you @mspath.
Very inspiring, each and every one.
I read Alexandra David-Neel before I first went to Ladakh, and after I returned I had a whole new level of respect for what she faced. Still to this day it can be a challenge to walk there.

I am surprised the article does not mention Isabella Bird, who predated many of the women mentioned in the article.
Here are some of my favorites of her accounts:
Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, amongst the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes (1874)
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
Among the Tibetans (1894)

At home she was frail and often ill. On the road, she was anything but.
She married after some astonishing solo journeys. Eventually widowed, she upped her game:

Feeling that her earlier travels had been hopelessly dilettante, Bird studied medicine and resolved to travel as a missionary. Despite being nearly 60 years of age, she set off for India.

Dilettante? Far from it. If she was a dilettante, I don't know what any of us is, but not very adventurous by comparison. We've all gotten a bit soft.

On another level of challenge altogether is the account of Imiji Getsul, an English novice at Rizong Monastery in Ladakh in the early 1960s. I read it and was astonished enough, knowing the place myself. But more reading revealed that he was actually transgender, which under the circumstances was another level of courage altogether.

 

[mspath]

Beautiful, thank you @mspath.
Very inspiring, each and every one.
I read Alexandra David-Neel before I first went to Ladakh, and after I returned I had a whole new level of respect for what she faced. Still to this day it can be a challenge to walk there.

I am surprised the article does not mention Isabella Bird, who predated many of the women mentioned in the article.
Here are some of my favorites of her accounts:
Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, amongst the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes (1874)
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
Among the Tibetans (1894)

At home she was frail and often ill. On the road, she was anything but.
She married after some astonishing solo journeys. Eventually widowed, she upped her game:

Dilettante? Far from it. If she was a dilettante, I don't know what any of us is, but not very adventurous by comparison. We've all gotten a bit soft.

On another level of challenge altogether is the account of Imiji Getsul, an English novice at Rizong Monastery in Ladakh in the early 1960s. I read it and was astonished enough, knowing the place myself. But more reading revealed that he was actually transgender, which under the circumstances was another level of courage altogether.

VN,
Wow! Thanks for citing these additional journeys to read and ponder with so many levels of courage.

 

[TrvlDad1]

And on the higher road, there was Beryl Markham, an adventurer on many levels, who chronicled her solo flight from Abington, England, to North America in a single engine plane in her book West With The Night. She was the first person to fly the Europe to N.A. route east to west (harder than Lindbergh’s west to east trip). Remarkable woman and fascinating book.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

I'll offer two strikingly different "explorers":

Gertrude Bell, the "Queen of the Desert"

and Lois Pryce - one explored on a camel the second prefers a motorbike!

 

[TrvlDad1]

Maybe I can find these amazing books online...right "up my alley"!

Many of these books are on National Geographic’s 100 greatest adventure books. We’ll worth downloading the list for reference. I’ve been reading and collecting them for years. Their are many other lists to chose from as well..Outside, etc. The books never get old, just the reader’s ability to try their adventure.

 

[woolypenguin]

Fascinating thread. Makes me want to learn more about these amazing women.
On the same topic, have people heard of Margery Kempe? She was an English Mystic, 1373-1438, who travelled on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago in the 15th Century. There is a plaque to her in Siguerio on the Camino Ingles.

 

[mspath]

Fascinating thread. Makes me want to learn more about these amazing women.
On the same topic, have people heard of Margery Kempe? She was an English Mystic, 1373-1438, who travelled on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago in the 15th Century. There is a plaque to her in Siguerio on the Camino Ingles.

For more on Margery Kempe read this British Library account of her autobiography

British Library

www.bl.uk