To celebrate the first female achievements, we are highlighting ladies who were pioneers in exploring the world in the past 100 years. These real-life eager gals threw prudence and custom out of the window and chased their conquests. Here are some brave women explorers of the world who achieved marvelous feat like summiting Mount Everest, flying a plane to remote islands around the world, and many more.
Women Explorers of the World
While we don’t support the complete freedom to travel around the world after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we owe a lot to these amazing superwomen who paved the way for all of our ventures—even the ones yet to come.
Kellee Edwards – First Black Woman to Host a Travel TV Series
Entitled “The Most Interesting Woman in the World” by Outside magazine, Kellee Edwards, the host of Mysterious Islands on the Travel Channel, is an accredited pilot and skillful scuba diver who flies herself to beautiful islands for high-adrenaline exploits. They include investigating Indonesian caves with thousands of buried bodies, freediving with matriarchal divers in South Korea, and piloting an aircraft in Alaska’s sensitive Aleutian Chain.
Nellie Bly – A Wanderlust Journalist
An American journalism pathfinder who served women’s rights, Nellie Bly once spent 10 days in New York City’s notorious Blackwell’s Island women’s asylum for an investigative exposé. She is also known for breaking the “around the world in 80 days” record inspired by Jules Verne’s renowned novel. In 1889 she traveled the world by steamship, train, rickshaw, horse, and a donkey, and that all in 72 days.
Van Buren Sisters – Suffragist Motorcyclists
Sisters Augusta Van Buren and Adeline Van Buren were the first women to drive solo motorcycles across the continental U.S in 1916—a trip that consisted of 60 days and 5,500 miles. Their cross-country trip proved that women could serve as military messengers for intelligence reports in the First World War as well as men.
Bessie Coleman – First Black Female Pilot
“The air is the only place free from prejudices,” said American Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman to obtain her pilot’s license. When she did, in France in 1921, she was also the first Black person to earn an international pilot’s license. Of African American and Native American origin, “Queen Bess,” as she was recognized, accomplished flying stunts and raised funds for an African American flying school.
Aloha Wanderwell – First Woman to Drive around the World
“World’s Most Widely Traveled Girl,” Aloha Wanderwell actually lived the life of an adventure film: Over a seven-year journey she ran across six continents behind the wheel of a Model T Ford. She was only 16 years old in 1922 when she joined a convoy of vehicles touring the globe and instantly became both the actor and director of the films taken throughout the journey, along with her pet monkey.
Junko Tabei – First Woman to Summit Mount Everest
This extraordinary Japanese highlander challenged naysayers who told her to “stay at home and clean the house,” becoming in 1975 the first woman to climb to the top of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak. Then, she took on the “Seven Summits,” the highest mountain on each continent, and was the first woman to surmount those as well.
Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz – First Woman to Sail Around the World Alone
Though it took two years, the Polish voyager and shipbuilding engineer became the first woman to sail solo around the world, completing the round in 1978. Suffering a period of kidney stones and dangerous situations through the Great Barrier Reef, the “First Lady of the Oceans” single-handedly voyaged 28,696 miles across the seven seas.
Barbara Hillary – First Woman t Trek to Both Poles
Defying customs of age and race, African American explorer Barbara Hillary was the first Black woman to trek to both the North and South Poles, reaching at ages 75 and 79, respectively—and after enduring breast cancer in her 20s and lung cancer in her 60s.
