The Woman Who Walked the World and Other Female Explorers

June 4, 2021 Chris

Put a great story of a modern female explorer in front of me, and I go far down that rabbit hole – from the story to its timeless messages and ending up at legendary female explorers!

This rabbit hole started with the BBC story about Angela Maxwell, The Woman Who Walked the World and many of the things that she said: why she did it, having a plan (or not), fear. Curiosity and open-mindedness. Quitting not being an option.

Timeless Travel Themes

These are timeless themes that thread through the wonderful (meant literally) stories of female explorers going back almost 300 years:

Jeanne Baret (1740 to 1807) who had to disguise as a man and was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe
Isabella Bird (1831-1904), who despite “poor health, she scaled mountains, rode thousands of miles on horseback and trekked through jungles”
Elizabeth Jane Cochran (aka Nellie Bly) (1864-1922) who bettered Jules Verne’s record, going around the world in 72 days
Freya Stark (1893-1993) who wrote more than 25 books, and “ventured to lands few foreigners had ever stepped foot in”
Amelia Earhart who was one of the first female pilots, lost at sea in her solo journey around the world
more recently Rita Goldman Gelman who became a female nomad and
Robyn Davydson who traversed across Australia with camels.
and then there’s Rosie Swale-Pope, who hitchhiked from Europe to Nepal, sailed around the world, crossed Chile on horseback and, at age 59, began jogging around the world, taking five years to do it. She is still jogging at 75 and was just a guest on Tough Girl Podcast.

Think of these women over these centuries and what they must have endured, using their different modes and means of travel. Think of the different norms and expectations. And just think of the hardship of travel in earlier times, particularly in the places some of them ventured! May I never complain again.

Maxwell’s decision was not unlike these other women (or mine, although she’s taken it to a different level than me!) It’s not that they were unhappy, or had to escape a bad life, or had “to find themselves.” When you read the stories about or written by these women, they were curious and open-minded women who became extraordinary by their decisions to follow those instincts. There was more to be gained by their adventures, and they weren’t going to not do them.

As Maxwell said, “I realised that I was searching for more… for a deeper connection with nature and people – by living on less and connecting with the world around me.”

Maxwell set out with a plan, but “quickly realised the detours make the adventure. That’s why, despite following a general direction, she would always trust her gut feeling of where to turn left or right.”

“Still,” she said, “I didn’t start walking because I was fearless – but rather because I was terrified. I was more afraid of not following my heart than I was of losing everything I owned and loved.”

(This reminded me of Cecilia who bought a one-way ticket to Assisi with no plan, just knowing that she had to live there. Now, I believe that Cecilia thinks of herself as an ordinary person, but I remind her that she did an extraordinary thing. Read that story here.)

Whether you are an armchair explorer, adventurer or traveler or an active one, The Woman who Walked the World will inspire you and may make you question what adventure you want next. And now that things are opening up again to travel, it seems like there is a whole new world to explore.