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Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir -

Born possibly around 980–1019 CE, Thorbjarnardóttir was an Icelandic Viking explorer. It is believed that she crisscrossed between Greenland and Iceland several times, and that she also went to North America before Christopher Columbus.

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Jeanne Baret (1740-1807) -

Baret was a French sailor and botanist who became the first woman to circumnavigate the world. However, she did so at first disguised as a man.

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Sacagawea (1788-1812 or 1884) -

Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition. A crucial part of the expedition, she helped establish cultural contacts with Native American people from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean.

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Amelia Earhart (1897-1939) -

American aviation heroine Amelia Earhart is best known for becoming the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She tragically disappeared somewhere in the Pacific while attempting to set a record to circumnavigate the globe. Her body was never found.

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Valentina Tereshkova -

Leaving Earth for this one, Russia's Valentina Tereshkova is known for being the first and youngest woman in space. She went on a solo mission on the Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, and orbited the Earth 48 times. She was 26.

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Annie Londonderry (1870-1947) -

Annie Londonderry was a Jewish Latvian immigrant in the US who became the first woman to cycle around the world, from 1894 to 1895. She visited many places, including Marseille, Alexandria, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Nagasaki.

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Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz (1936-2021) -

This Polish sea captain and shipbuilding engineer became the first woman to sail solo around the world. She sailed from 1976 to 1978 on her ship Mazurek.

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Raymonde de Laroche (1882-1919) -

Raymonde de Laroche was the first woman in the world to hold a pilot's license, which she received on March 8, 1910. At the time, she was only the 36th person to receive a pilot’s license in the world.

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Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) -

A colleague of T.E. Lawrence, Bell was a writer and archaeologist who traveled all around the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Fluent in Persian and Arabic, she was the first woman to achieve seniority in the British military intelligence and diplomatic service.

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Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) -

Coleman was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. Banned from flying schools in America because of the color of her skin, she taught herself French in order to travel to France on a scholarship to take flying lessons. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1921.

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Harriet Chalmers Adams (1875-1937) -

An American explorer, writer, and photographer, Adams traveled extensively in South America, Asia, and the South Pacific. She published accounts of her journeys in National Geographic. Adams was also the first president of the Society of Woman Geographers.

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Amy Johnson (1903-1941) -

Johnson was a pioneering English pilot who became the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. She also set records, such as flying from London to Moscow in 21 hours in 1931. Johnson died after going off course in bad weather while transporting RAF aircraft around the UK for the Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II.

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Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) -

Considered one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century, Martha Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist. Having been in 53 countries, she was in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and in Normandy during D-Day.

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Osa Johnson (1894-1953) -

Osa Johnson was an American explorer who traveled the world with her husband, photographer Martin Johnson. Together they captured the public's imagination through their films and books of adventure in faraway lands.

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Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839) -

A highly admired English socialite, Lady Stanhope left England forever after a string of messy romances at the age of 33. She went on to become a biblical archaeologist, and traveled to Greece, Turkey, France, and Germany.

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Fanny Bullock Workman (1859-1925) -

Traveling with her husband William Hunter Workman, this American mountaineer broke several women’s altitude records while becoming a noted geographer, cartographer, and travel writer. She also became the first American woman to lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris.

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Isabella Bird (1831-1904) -

English explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist Isabella Bird traveled the world despite her poor health. She went to Australia, Japan, China, Indonesia, Morocco, and the Middle East. She also explored Hawaii, where she trekked up an active volcano. In 1892, she became the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society of London in honor of her contributions to travel literature.

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Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1859) -

The Austrian explorer journeyed through Southeast Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa, including two trips around the world from 1846 to 1855. Her journals were translated into seven languages and earned her spots in the geographical societies of Berlin and Paris.

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Nellie Bly (1864-1922) -

The American journalist is best known for her exposé of the abuse at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island (today Roosevelt Island) in New York City. But Bly was also known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, inspired by Jules Verne’s novel 'Around the World in 80 Days' (1872).

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Aimée Crocker (1864-1941) -

An American railroad heiress, Crocker was famous for her lavish lifestyle and a long list of lovers and husbands. But when gossip became too much, she went on a cultural exploration of the Far East. After 10 years abroad, Crocker returned with wild tales, tattoos, and a new devotion to Buddhism.

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Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) -

A Swiss explorer and author, Eberhardt was fated to defy convention. Interested in North Africa, she moved to Algeria in 1897, where she dressed as a man and converted to Islam. In her brief life, she participated in revolts against French colonialism and wrote travel essays for magazines. Eberhardt was killed in a flash flood in Aïn Séfra.

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Emma Gatewood (1887-1973) -

In 1955, 67-year-old Emma Gatewood became famous as the first solo female hiker of the 2,168-mile (3,489-km) Appalachian Trail. She subsequently became the first person, male or female, to hike that same trail three times.

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Aloha Wanderwell (1906-1996) -

Born Idris Galcia Hall, Aloha Wanderwell was a Canadian explorer, author, filmmaker, and aviator. While only 16 at the start of her journey, she traveled across 80 countries, becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a Ford 1918 Model T. The journey took five years to complete.

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Annie Smith Peck (1850-1935) -

Peck was an American suffragist, adventurer, and mountaineer. She lectured extensively around the world, and wrote four books encouraging travel and exploration.

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Alison Hargreaves (1962-1995) -

Alison Hargreaves was a British mountain climber who broke huge barriers. In May 1995, she climbed Mount Everest alone, without supplementary oxygen and without support from a Sherpa team. Sadly, a month later, Hargreaves was killed in a violent storm while attempting to climb K2.

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Augusta Van Buren (1884-1959) and Adeline Van Buren (1889-1949) -

The Van Buren sisters were American socialites looking for adventure. In 1916, the sisters rode 5,500 miles (8,850 km) in 60 days to cross the continental US with their motorcycles.

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Ellen MacArthur -

In 2005, Ellen MacArthur broke the record for the fastest solo circumnavigation sailing of the globe. Following her retirement from professional sailing in 2010, she launched the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity that works to inspire people to rethink, redesign, and build a sustainable future.

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Freya Stark (1893-1993) -

Stark was a British-Italian explorer and travel writer, who wrote over two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan. She was one of the first non-Arabs known to travel through the southern Arabian Desert.

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Louise Arner Boyd (1887-1972) -

The first woman to fly over the North Pole in 1955, Boyd was an American explorer of Greenland and the Arctic. She wrote extensively of her scientific expeditions in the regions.

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Dervla Murphy (1931-2022) -

Having written for over 50 years, Murphy was an Irish touring cyclist and author of adventure travel books. She's best known for her 1965 book 'Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle,' about a cycling trip through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

Sources: (National Geographic) (NBC News) (History Hit) (Mental Floss)

See also: These women were the first in their fields

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