If the image we have in our heads of what an ‘explorer’ looks like is male, that’s partly because history has focused too heavily on the achievements of men. But there have been plenty of pioneering women who have accomplished incredible feats, from the first to circumnavigate the globe by boat to the first to scale Everest. We’ve rounded up the most groundbreaking female adventurers from the 1700s to today.

In order for Jeanne Baret to even set foot onboard the Etoile in 1766 – the ship that would ultimately take her around the world – she had to disguise herself as a man, as the French Navy forbade women being on ships. Baret, who was born into a poor family in Autun, France in 1740, joined the voyage with her husband, Philibert Commerçon. He was a well-established botanist and the pair wanted to discover new plant species.

Stories differ as to how and when Baret’s identity was revealed, but when she returned from the two-year expedition she was known to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. What’s more, she achieved some impressive things along the way. It’s believed she discovered the bougainvillaea plant (although it was named after the ship’s commander, Louis Antoine de Bougainville) as well as the baretia plant (which has since been re-classified under a new genus, turraea). 

Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole is often likened to Florence Nightingale. But, being mixed-race (she was born to a Scottish father and a Creole mother) Seacole hasn’t gained nearly the same level of recognition. Born in Kingston in 1805, she learned about traditional Jamaican medicine from her mother, who ran a boarding house for invalid soldiers. She combined these practices with her knowledge of European medicine to become a skilled nurse, travelling around the world to help treat cholera, yellow fever and other deadly conditions of the day.

In 1854, Seacole wanted to go to Crimea to help treat soldiers fighting in the Crimean War, but was turned away – likely due to racial prejudice – and had to fund the trip herself. Not only did Seacole rail against constant discrimination to help the sick, she travelled widely, spending time in Panama, the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba, England and Crimea, which she wrote about it her memoir, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. The book, published in 1857, was one of the first travel memoirs written by a Black woman and it quickly became a bestseller. 

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The first woman to become a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Isabella Bird defied the conventions of the Victorian era to become a pioneering female traveller. Born in Yorkshire, England in 1831, with a spinal defect that would affect her throughout her life, she was encouraged by her doctor to spend as much time outdoors as possible. In 1850, after an operation on her spine, her father gave her 100 pounds to travel the world. She would go on to explore every continent in the world except Antarctica, writing about her travels in a number of best-selling books. 

From horse riding in Tibet to climbing some of Colorado’s highest peaks, her sense of wanderlust drove her towards a wide range of adventures which were undoubtedly unique for a woman of her time. However, her memoirs reveal some problematic attitudes towards people living in the countries she visited. Writing about one of her travelling companions, a Chinese man she referred to as Be-Dien, Bird described him not as an equal but as “a tolerable travelling servant”, despite the fact he contributed to the success of the expedition in numerous ways. 

When she eschewed “masculine garments” as others advised, choosing to wear a long, stiff skirt instead, Mary Kingsley discovered it protected her from serious injury when she fell into a trap of spikes. This is just one of many entertaining anecdotes that can be found in the Victorian adventurer’s memoir, Travels in West Africa. Although she only travelled for two years of her life, between 1893 and 1895, Kingsley was the first European to travel to uncharted regions of west Africa, which included summiting Mount Cameroon and entering uncharted parts of Gabon.

Her book was considered controversial for its time, adopting a critical attitude towards European colonialism in Africa (although her writing still reinforced plenty of Victorian stereotypes about the continent at the same time). As well as being a notable writer and traveller, Kingsley completed important scientific fieldwork during her expedition. She collected a number of fish, insect, plant and reptile samples for the British Museum and today, there are three species of fish named after her: Brycinus kingsleyae, Brienomyrus kingsleyae and Ctenopoma kingsleyae. 

American journalist Elizabeth Cochrane was first inspired to travel by Jules Verne’s 1873 adventure novel, Around the World in 80 Days. Writing under the pseudonym Nellie Bly for the New York World newspaper, she decided to take on the fictional world record. The first leg of her journey began on 14 November 1889, on the Augusta Victoria steamship from New York to England. She arrived in London seven days later, continuing on to Italy before journeying along the Suez Canal to Sri Lanka. From Colombo, Bly sailed the 3,500 miles (5,633km) to Hong Kong via Singapore. 

Finally, she headed to Japan, where she caught the White Star Line's Oceanic steamship back to San Francisco. Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the New York World, commissioned a private train, the Nellie Bly Special, to bring her back to New Jersey completing the 2,577-mile (4,147km) journey across America in just 69 hours. Bly arrived back on 25 January 1890, having circumnavigated the globe in 72 days, six hours and 11 minutes. This meant she’d not only beaten the fictional character Phileas Fogg’s time by more than seven days, but she’d earned herself a place in the history books as one of the world’s best-known female explorers. 

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In 1920, American explorer Harriet Chalmers Adams told a newspaper: “There is no reason why a woman cannot go wherever a man goes – and further.” This boundary-defying attitude took her all over the globe, from Latin America to Ethiopia. But it may have begun much earlier in life. As a young girl, Adams impressed her family members by traversing the Sierra Nevada on horseback and swimming long distances, so much so that they took her out of school to focus on exploration.

Her first major trip took place in the early 1900s, when she was joined by husband Franklin Pierce Adams in an epic 40,000-mile (64,373km) journey (on horseback, canoe, train and foot) across South America. Despite the fact there was very little information about travelling to the region at that time, the pair covered an average distance of 37 miles (60km) a day. After returning to the US, Adams gave her first lecture at National Geographic and wrote 21 stories for its magazine throughout her lifetime. In 1925, she helped to launch the Society of Woman Geographers, serving as its president until she moved to France in 1933.

Intrepid polar traveller Louise Arner Boyd broke the mould in numerous ways. Not only was she the first woman in the world to fly over the North Pole, she was also the first American woman to lead Arctic expeditions and the first female councillor of the American Geographic Society. Born in California in 1887, Boyd’s fascination with the polar regions began in the early 1920s, after she took a cruise to the Arctic Circle. Then in 1928, when polar explorer Roald Amundsen vanished while flying over Greenland, she chartered a ship, The Hobby, and assembled a crew in an attempt to find him. 

Although her mission to save Amundsen was unsuccessful, Boyd had found her calling in life as an Arctic explorer and never looked back. From that point on, she visited everywhere from Arctic Canada to Greenland and of course, the North Pole, which she not only reached by plane, but previously by ship and dog sled. She also pioneered the use of aerial mapping cameras to create high-quality photographs of glacial areas, which ultimately helped to develop more advanced maps of the region. When she died in 1972, her ashes were scattered over the Arctic in accordance with her wishes.

As the world’s first African American and Native American female pilot, Bessie Coleman’s achievements are nothing short of remarkable. Born in Texas in 1892, her fascination for aviation came about after the First World War, when her older brother served in the army in France and returned with tales of women flying planes. Coleman wanted a slice of the action for herself, so applied to a number of American flight schools, but they all refused to let her in because she was a woman. So she went to France, where she took a course and received her pilot’s licence in 1921.

From that point on, nothing seemed to quench her thirst for danger. She studied stunt flying all over Europe and returned to the States as an aerial acrobat, showing off her loop-the-loops and other impressive tricks. She also used her platform to stand up for her beliefs. During one of her flight shows, there were two separate entrance gates for Black and white spectators, but Coleman refused to perform unless the show wasn’t segregated. Although her life was sadly cut short by a plane crash in 1926, her legacy – as a pilot who paved the way for women of colour in the world of aviation – will never be forgotten.

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With a gift for languages, a tenacious character and a long life spanning a century, Anglo-Italian Freya Stark was one of the most prominent European scholars of the Middle East during her time. After studying Arabic at the London School of African and Oriental Studies, in 1927 she made her way to Lebanon and Damascus and on to the uncharted Druze Territory. This was a region which few Europeans, especially women, had ever travelled to before. Determined to chart the area, she undertook drawing classes so she could create her own maps.

In 1930, Stark learned Farsi and travelled to the Valley of the Assassins in Persia – another region which hadn't been mapped before. The ‘assassins’ who gave the region its name were a fanatical sect of Islam who killed their rivals on the basis of religious beliefs. Stark headed into the area with basic equipment, including a camp bed and a malaria net, alongside a local guide. She made further trips to Iraq, Egypt, India, Persia and the Himalayas throughout her 70s and 80s and was made a Dame in 1972, in recognition of her pioneering explorations. 

Globetrotting journalist Martha Gellhorn’s career began in the 1930s, when she became recognised for her passionate coverage of the Great Depression, drawing attention to the plight of the poor. In 1937, she began reporting on the Spanish Civil War for The New Yorker and shortly afterwards began to write about the lead-up to the Second World War, travelling to Europe and the Far East in the process. She soon became known as one of the most formidable war correspondents of the 20th century, covering the Second World War, the Vietnam War and conflicts between Israel and Palestine during her lifetime.

Gellhorn’s bravery took her to war zones all over the world. On D-Day in 1944, she disguised herself in a nurse’s uniform and stowed herself away in a hospital ship to cover the invasion, since the American military disapproved of women being on ships. She also wrote fiction, writing five novels, two collections of short stories and 14 novellas during her lifetime. Although many people knew her for her marriage to Ernest Hemingway (pictured, far right) whom she met while covering the Spanish Civil War, Gellhorn frequently voiced her frustration at this, staying during one interview: “Why should I be a footnote in somebody else’s life?” We couldn’t agree more.

It’s incredible to think that when Junko Tabei began mountaineering, many of the men on trips she attended refused to climb with her. Determined to prove them wrong, the Japanese adventurer set up a womens-only climbing club in 1969. Six years later she made history by becoming the first woman to conquer Mount Everest – but it was no easy feat. In 1975, during the climb, Tabei was woken by an avalanche and, along with her team, would have been killed were it not for the fast-acting Sherpas, who dragged them out by their ankles.

For Tabei, Everest was just the beginning. She tackled summits in over 70 countries and earned the title of the first woman in the world to ascend the highest summit on each of the seven continents. Despite being diagnosed with cancer in 2012, Tabei never stopped climbing, taking a group of Japanese students up Mount Fuji in July 2016, just months before she passed away. She was also a big supporter of sustainable mountaineering, saying in 2003: “Everest has become too crowded. It needs a rest now."

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By the age of 30, Ellen MacArthur had managed to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe twice. The British adventurer, who grew up in land-locked Derbyshire, first got a taste for sailing at the age of four, at which point she was immediately taken in by the feeling of being on the water. Competing in a number of races throughout school, she was named young sailor of the year in 1995. Then in November 2004, MacArthur set off on the voyage that would catapult her to global fame.

Attempting to break a record set by French sailor Francis Joyon just nine months before, she boarded the 75-foot (23m) trimaran B&Q yacht and sailed more than 26,000 miles (41,843km) around the globe. Returning 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds later, MacArthur had smashed the world record (although it has since been surpassed). Shortly afterwards, she was the youngest woman ever to be named a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE). Now retired from competitive sailing, she focuses her attention on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which aims to raise awareness about climate change and aid the transition to a circular economy. 

British athlete and adventurer Sarah Outen is best known for her four-and-a-half-year “London2London: via the World” trip, which saw her kayak, row and cycle 25,000 miles (40,234km) around the Northern Hemisphere in 2015. During the expedition, she became the first woman to row solo across the North Pacific Ocean, encountering sharks, violent storms and even hallucinations during the 4,000-mile (6,437km) leg of the voyage.

In one particularly harrowing three-day episode, Outen was hit by a tropical storm and had to lie strapped to her bunk in the cabin of her boat while the seas raged around her. The boat was so badly damaged that she needed to be rescued afterwards. Outen said: “For me this expedition has always been about the adventure, the challenge and importantly about the learning." Since then, Outen has released a film, Home, detailing the highs and lows of her journey, including an honest reflection on her battle with emotional trauma and PTSD.

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Recent loveEXPLORING interviewee Lucy Shepherd first developed a taste for adventure when she was just 15 years old, after taking part in a survival camp in Scotland. From then on, she became hooked on expeditions of all shapes and sizes. Most recently, the British explorer completed a gruelling 50-day, 253-mile-long (400km) trek through an uncharted patch of the Amazon rainforest in Guyana, alongside a team of Amerindian men from the Macushi and Wapishana tribes. The only maps they had to guide them through the area were 50 years old and the forest was so dense that they went without seeing daylight for 17 days. 

Prior to this, Lucy had undertaken a range of trips in some of the world’s most extreme environments. These have included skiing the Norwegian-Russian border during winter in 2017, completing an unsupported crossing of the Arctic Finnmarksvidda Plateau from west to east in 2018, climbing Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains in 2018 and traversing the High Sierra mountains in 2019. She also guides first-time adventurers in Arctic expeditions and is a passionate advocate for protecting the environment for future generations.

Trailblazing Australian sailor Jessica Watson was just 16 years old when she became the youngest person ever to sail solo non-stop and unassisted around the globe. Defying her critics – as well as those who slated her parents for allowing her to go – she spent seven months navigating some of the world’s most challenging oceans in her 30-foot (9m) yacht, Ella’s Pink Lady. She was named Young Australian of the Year 2011.

Along the way she faced some terrifying challenges, including ferocious waves reaching up to 50 feet (15.2m), prolonged isolation, seven knockdowns, fierce winds and a collision with a 63,000-tonne ship. Since then, Watson has continued to rack up the impressive accolades. She has sailed in a number of races, served as a youth representative for the UN’s World Food Programme, co-founded a free boating app and written a book, True Spirit, detailing her epic voyage around the world. 

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