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20 Most Famous Travellers In History

• by Jonny Duncan
• February 17, 2024 February 18, 2024

These famous travellers, driven by curiosity, ambition, or a quest for knowledge, embarked on epic expeditions that expanded the boundaries of geographical understanding.

Famous Travellers

Throughout history, the world has been shaped by the journeys of these famous travellers, intrepid explorers and adventurers who dared to traverse distant lands, cross treacherous seas, and delve into uncharted territories.

From the ancient Silk Road wanderers to the modern-day spacefarers, their stories inspire awe and wonder, reminding us of the boundless spirit of exploration that resides within the human soul.

These are some detailed accounts of the lives of these famous travellers and explorers.

Marco Polo is one of the most famous travellers in history whom you have most likely heard of already. He was a Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer who travelled extensively throughout Asia along the Silk Road.

Born in Venice in 1254, Marco Polo embarked on a journey to the East with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo in 1271, when he was only 17 years old. They travelled through Central Asia, reaching the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler of the Yuan Dynasty in China.

Marco Polo served as an emissary and official in the court of Kublai Khan for approximately 17 years, during which he travelled extensively throughout China, Mongolia, and other parts of Asia. He documented his travels and experiences in a book titled “Il Milione” or “The Travels of Marco Polo,” which became one of the most famous travelogues in history.

In his book, Marco Polo described the geography, culture, and customs of the regions he visited, introducing Europeans to many aspects of Asian life for the first time. His accounts of the riches of the East, including spices, silks, and other exotic goods, fueled European interest in trade and exploration with Asia.

He died in 1324 in Venice, leaving behind a lasting legacy as one of history’s most famous travellers.

Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta , fully known as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta, was a Moroccan scholar and explorer born in Tangier in 1304. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest travellers in history, known for his extensive journeys across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe during the 14th century.

In 1325, at the age of 21, Ibn Battuta embarked on his first major journey, which would span nearly 30 years and cover over 75,000 miles. He initially set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj), a religious obligation for Muslims, but his travels went far beyond this initial goal.

Throughout his travels, Ibn Battuta visited places such as Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia (modern-day Iran), Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, and East Africa. He served as a judge, diplomat, and advisor in various courts along the way, gaining insights into the cultures, societies, and politics of the regions he visited.

Ibn Battuta documented his experiences in a travelogue called “Rihla” (The Journey), which provides valuable insights into the medieval world and remains an important historical source. His writings offer vivid descriptions of the places he visited, including cities, landmarks, people, customs, and traditions.

Ibn Battuta’s travels were remarkable not only for their extent but also for the diversity of the regions he explored and the challenges he overcame. His adventures have left an enduring legacy, contributing to our understanding of medieval geography, cultures, and interactions.

Charles Darwin 

Charles Darwin was a renowned traveller. His most famous voyage was aboard the HMS Beagle, a British naval vessel that embarked on a five-year expedition around the world from 1831 to 1836. Darwin was originally intended to be the ship’s naturalist, but his observations and discoveries during this voyage ultimately led to his groundbreaking work in evolutionary biology.

During the voyage, Darwin visited various locations, including the Galápagos Islands, where he made significant observations of the unique flora and fauna that would later inform his theory of natural selection. His travels also took him to South America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and other parts of the world.

Darwin meticulously documented his observations in journals and collected specimens that contributed to his later scientific investigations and publications, most notably his seminal work “ On the Origin of Species ,” published in 1859.

Wilfred Thesiger

Wilfred Thesiger, born on June 3, 1910, was a British explorer, travel writer, and photographer known for his extensive travels in the deserts of Africa and the Middle East. He is renowned for his profound respect for traditional cultures and his vivid descriptions of the landscapes and people he encountered.

Thesiger’s most famous journeys took place in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. He first travelled to the region in the 1940s, where he lived among the Bedouin tribes of southern Arabia, including the Marsh Arabs of Iraq and the nomadic tribes of the Empty Quarter (Rub’ al Khali). Thesiger’s experiences during these journeys were documented in his classic books “Arabian Sands” (1959) and “The Marsh Arabs” (1964).

Backpackingman note: Arabian Sands is one of my favourite travel memoirs that I have read.

Thesiger’s writings reflect his deep admiration for the harsh beauty of the desert and his respect for the traditional way of life practised by the nomadic peoples who inhabit these regions. He was critical of the modernization and development that threatened to erode the ancient cultures and landscapes he cherished.

In addition to his writings, Thesiger was also an accomplished photographer, capturing stunning images of the landscapes, peoples, and cultures of the regions he explored. His photographs provide a visual record of a way of life that has since undergone significant changes.

Thesiger’s legacy continues to inspire adventurers, travellers, and writers today, as his works remain celebrated for their insight, empathy, and evocative prose. He passed away on August 24, 2003, at the age of 93.

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, and humanitarian who lived from 1861 to 1930. He is best known for his groundbreaking explorations of the Arctic region and his innovative work in oceanography. Nansen’s achievements earned him international acclaim and left a lasting legacy in multiple fields.

Nansen gained fame for his daring expedition aboard the ship Fram (meaning “Forward”) in 1893-1896. His goal was to reach the North Pole by allowing the ship to become frozen in the Arctic ice and drift with the currents.

Although the expedition did not reach the pole, it set a record for the farthest north latitude attained at that time and provided valuable scientific data about the Arctic Ocean.

Freya Stark

Freya Stark was a British explorer, travel writer, and cartographer known for her extensive travels in the Middle East and her vivid writings about the region. She was born on January 31, 1893, in Paris, France, and grew up in England.

Stark began her travels in the Middle East in the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when few Westerners, especially women, ventured into the region. She explored remote and challenging areas of the Middle East, including parts of Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

Stark was known for her adventurous spirit, intelligence, and ability to connect with people from different cultures. She learned several languages, including Arabic and Persian, which allowed her to communicate with local inhabitants and gain insights into their lives and customs.

Throughout her travels, Stark produced numerous books, articles, and photographs documenting her experiences and observations. Her writings are celebrated for their lyrical prose, keen observations, and deep appreciation for the landscapes, cultures, and history of the Middle East.

Some of Stark’s most famous works include “The Valleys of the Assassins” (1934), “A Winter in Arabia” (1940), and “The Southern Gates of Arabia” (1936). Her books became bestsellers and earned her widespread acclaim as one of the most accomplished travel writers of her time.

Freya Stark continued to travel and write well into her later years, and her legacy as a pioneering explorer and cultural ambassador for the Middle East endures today. Her works remain influential and continue to inspire travellers, writers, and scholars interested in the region. She passed away on May 9, 1993, at the age of 100.

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish physician and explorer who played a significant role in the exploration of Africa during the 19th century.

Over the course of his life, Livingstone undertook multiple expeditions across the African continent, with the primary goals of spreading Christianity, combating the slave trade, and exploring unknown regions.

Livingstone’s most famous expedition began in 1852 when he set out to explore the Zambezi River and its surrounding regions. During this journey, he became the first European to witness the majestic Victoria Falls. Livingstone’s explorations also led to significant geographic discoveries, including the identification of Lake Malawi and the exploration of the Zambezi River system.

Livingstone’s explorations and writings captured the imagination of people around the world and earned him widespread acclaim as one of the greatest explorers and famous travellers of his time. His accounts of his travels, including books such as “Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa,” inspired subsequent generations of explorers and missionaries.

Livingstone died on May 1, 1873, in what is now Zambia, while on his final expedition to explore the sources of the Nile River.

Zheng He was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, and admiral during the Ming dynasty. He is best known for his extensive maritime voyages in the early 15th century, which took place decades before the famous European Age of Discovery.

Zheng He’s voyages were remarkable for their scale and reach. He led a series of expeditions from China to various parts of Asia and Africa, commanding a vast fleet of ships that included massive treasure ships, some of which were reported to be several times larger than the European ships of the time.

Zheng He’s expeditions visited countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and the east coast of Africa. These voyages facilitated cultural exchange, trade, and diplomacy, with Zheng He presenting gifts from the Ming emperor to local rulers and receiving tribute in return.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was an American aviator and pioneering woman in the field of aviation. Born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart developed an early interest in flying and became one of the most famous female pilots and travellers of her time.

Earhart set numerous aviation records during her career. In 1928, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, accomplishing the feat in her single-engine Lockheed Vega. This flight propelled her to international fame and established her as a symbol of women’s advancement in aviation.

In 1932, Earhart made history again by becoming the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, replicating Charles Lindbergh’s famous feat from five years earlier. She flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in approximately 15 hours.

One of Earhart’s most ambitious goals was to circumnavigate the globe. In 1937, she embarked on an attempt to fly around the world along the equator. However, tragically, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean during the final leg of their journey.

Despite extensive search efforts, their fate remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus, born in the Republic of Genoa (in present-day Italy) in 1451, was an Italian explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean paved the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas. Columbus made his first voyage in 1492 under the sponsorship of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

Columbus’s initial goal was to find a westward route to Asia, particularly to India and the lucrative spice trade. However, he instead encountered the islands of the Caribbean, landing on an island he named San Salvador (though the indigenous Taíno people called it Guanahani). Believing he had reached the East Indies, Columbus referred to the indigenous people he encountered as “Indians.”

Over the next several years, Columbus made three more voyages to the Caribbean and explored various islands, including Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Cuba, and Jamaica. His voyages initiated widespread European contact with the Americas and marked the beginning of the European colonization of the New World.

Columbus’s voyages had significant and far-reaching consequences, including the exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and cultures between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. While his expeditions were celebrated in Europe, they also led to the colonization, exploitation, and displacement of indigenous peoples, as well as the transatlantic slave trade.

Today, Christopher Columbus is a controversial figure, with his legacy debated in terms of his role in history and his impact on indigenous populations. While some view him as a courageous explorer who initiated global connections, others criticize him for his treatment of indigenous peoples and the lasting negative effects of European colonization in the Americas.

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who is best known for leading the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe. He was born around 1480 in Sabrosa, Portugal, and he served as a navigator and explorer for the Portuguese crown before offering his services to the Spanish crown.

In 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain with a fleet of five ships and around 270 men, aiming to find a western sea route to the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) in the East Indies. On September 20, 1519, they departed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, and after a long and perilous journey across the Atlantic, they reached the coast of South America.

Magellan navigated through the treacherous waters of what is now known as the Strait of Magellan, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the southern tip of South America.

After passing through the strait, Magellan and his crew sailed across the vast Pacific Ocean, enduring severe hardships such as starvation, scurvy, and storms. They reached the Mariana Islands and the Philippines, where Magellan was killed in a skirmish with local inhabitants on April 27, 1521.

Magellan’s expedition was a landmark achievement in the history of exploration, proving that the Earth was indeed round and demonstrating the vast extent of the Pacific Ocean.

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Shackleton was a renowned British explorer who led several expeditions to Antarctica during the early 20th century. He is best known for his heroic leadership and remarkable survival during the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917.

Born on February 15, 1874, in County Kildare, Ireland, Shackleton began his career as a seaman and later became involved in Antarctic exploration.

Shackleton’s most famous expedition, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, aimed to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. The expedition, launched in 1914 aboard the ship Endurance, encountered numerous hardships, including being trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea.

Despite the loss of their ship, Shackleton and his crew managed to survive for over a year on the ice before finally making a daring escape in small lifeboats to Elephant Island.

Realizing that rescue was unlikely on Elephant Island, Shackleton embarked on an epic voyage with a small crew in an open boat, the James Caird, across 800 miles of treacherous seas to reach South Georgia Island. After successfully reaching South Georgia, Shackleton and his companions completed a hazardous overland journey to a whaling station, eventually rescuing the remaining men on Elephant Island.

Miraculously, Shackleton’s leadership and determination ensured the survival of all the members of the expedition, despite enduring extreme cold, hunger, and danger. Their remarkable tale of endurance and perseverance has become one of the most celebrated stories in the annals of exploration.

Following his Antarctic expeditions, Shackleton continued to pursue various ventures, including further attempts at Antarctic exploration. However, he died of a heart attack on January 5, 1922, while on an expedition to Antarctica.

Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang)

Xuanzang, also known as Hsüan-Tsang, was a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, and traveller who lived during the Tang Dynasty. He is renowned for his legendary journey to India in the 7th century AD, during which he travelled overland across Central Asia to study Buddhism and collect Buddhist scriptures.

Born in 602 AD in what is now Henan Province, China, Xuanzang became a Buddhist monk at a young age and dedicated himself to the study of Buddhist scriptures and philosophy. Despite government restrictions on travel abroad, Xuanzang was determined to visit India, the birthplace of Buddhism, to deepen his understanding of the religion and to obtain authentic Buddhist scriptures that were not available in China.

In 629 AD, Xuanzang set out on his epic journey to India. He travelled overland through treacherous terrain, across deserts and mountains, encountering numerous hardships and dangers along the way. Despite these challenges, Xuanzang persevered, driven by his unwavering faith and determination.

During his 17-year pilgrimage, Xuanzang visited many Buddhist monasteries, universities, and sacred sites in India, studying with renowned Buddhist masters and scholars. He also collected thousands of Buddhist scriptures, which he later brought back to China.

Upon his return to China in 645 AD, Xuanzang was hailed as a hero and a scholar. He spent the rest of his life translating the scriptures he had collected into Chinese and sharing his knowledge and insights with others. His translations played a crucial role in the spread of Buddhism in China and had a profound influence on Chinese culture and philosophy.

Xuanzang’s extraordinary journey and his contributions to Buddhist scholarship have made him a legendary figure in Chinese history and in the history of Buddhism. His life and adventures have been immortalized in literature, art, and folklore, and he remains a revered figure in Buddhist tradition.

Isabella Bird

Isabella Bird was a 19th-century British explorer, writer, photographer, and naturalist. Born on October 15, 1831, in England, she defied the societal norms of her time by embarking on extensive travels, often alone, to various remote and challenging regions of the world.

Bird’s first major journey took her to North America in 1854, where she travelled extensively throughout the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. Her experiences during this trip were chronicled in her book “The Englishwoman in America,” published in 1856.

Throughout her life, Bird continued to embark on remarkable journeys. She explored the Hawaiian Islands, Canada, Japan, India, Persia (now Iran), Kurdistan, Tibet, China, and many other regions. Her travels were not only adventurous but also pioneering, as she often ventured into areas that were little known to Westerners at the time.

Bird was an avid writer, and she published numerous books and articles based on her travels. Her writings were highly acclaimed for their vivid descriptions of landscapes, cultures, and people.

Isabella Bird’s adventurous spirit, keen observations, and literary talents have earned her a lasting legacy as one of the most remarkable female explorers of the 19th century. Her works continue to inspire travellers and readers around the world, offering unique insights into the diverse cultures and landscapes of the places she visited.

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, navigator, and cartographer who played a significant role in the early exploration of the Americas. He was born in Florence, Italy, in 1454 or 1455, and he began his career working for the prominent Medici family in Florence.

Vespucci made several voyages to the New World between 1497 and 1504, primarily under the auspices of Spain and Portugal. While the details of his early voyages are somewhat unclear, Vespucci is best known for his accounts of his voyages, particularly his claim to have reached the mainland of the Americas before Columbus’s third voyage.

The German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller is credited with naming the continent after Vespucci, as he included the name “America” on his 1507 world map, the first to depict the Americas as separate from Asia.

While Vespucci did not make any significant discoveries or advancements in navigation himself, his writings and the use of his name for the continents had a lasting impact on European perceptions of the New World and its place in the world map.

James Cook was a British explorer, navigator, and cartographer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest explorers of all time. He was born on October 27, 1728, in England. Cook made significant contributions to the exploration and mapping of the Pacific Ocean and its islands during the 18th century.

Cook began his career in the British Royal Navy, rising through the ranks as a skilled seaman and navigator. He gained recognition for his precise cartography and his ability to navigate difficult waters.

In 1768, Cook was appointed as commander of the HMS Endeavour and embarked on his first voyage, which was commissioned by the Royal Society and the British Admiralty, to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti and to explore the South Pacific.

During this voyage, Cook and his crew made extensive explorations of the South Pacific, including the mapping of the eastern coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales. Cook’s meticulous charting and observations laid the groundwork for later British colonization of Australia. Cook’s expedition also included the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of New Zealand.

Cook went on to make two more major voyages of exploration in the Pacific. His second voyage, from 1772 to 1775, aimed to locate the hypothetical southern continent of Terra Australis and further explore the Pacific. During this expedition, Cook became the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle.

On his third voyage, from 1776 to 1779, Cook attempted to find a northwest passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Although he did not succeed in finding the passage, he made significant discoveries in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, including the Hawaiian Islands.

Nellie Bly, born on May 5, 1864, was an American journalist, writer, and pioneering investigative reporter. She is best known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days.

In 1889, Bly embarked on her most famous adventure: a solo journey around the world inspired by Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in Eighty Days.” She travelled by steamship, train, and other means of transportation, completing the journey in just 72 days, a record at the time. Her trip captivated the public’s imagination and solidified her reputation as one of the most famous travellers in history.

Throughout her career, Bly wrote about social issues, women’s rights, and travel. She worked for various newspapers and magazines and authored several books, including “Ten Days in a Madhouse” and “Around the World in Seventy-Two Days.”

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, the acclaimed American novelist and short story writer, was also an avid traveller who drew inspiration from his journeys around the world. Throughout his life, Hemingway travelled extensively, often immersing himself in the cultures and landscapes of the places he visited.

Some of his notable travel experiences include:

• Paris, France: Hemingway spent much of the 1920s living in Paris, where he was part of the expatriate community of writers and artists known as the “Lost Generation.” His experiences in Paris, particularly in the bohemian neighbourhoods of Montparnasse and the Left Bank, would later influence his writing, including his novel “The Sun Also Rises.”
• Spain: Hemingway was deeply influenced by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), where he worked as a war correspondent. He spent time in Madrid and other cities, witnessing the conflict firsthand and drawing inspiration for his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which is set during the war.
• Key West, Florida: Hemingway lived in Key West during the 1930s and 1940s, where he wrote some of his most famous works, including “A Farewell to Arms” and “To Have and Have Not.” His house in Key West, now a museum, is a popular tourist attraction.
• Africa: Hemingway embarked on several safaris in Africa during the 1930s and 1950s, where he hunted big game and drew inspiration for his short stories “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”
• Cuba: Hemingway had a deep connection to Cuba, where he lived for many years and wrote several of his major works, including “The Old Man and the Sea.” His home in Cuba, Finca Vigia, is preserved as a museum and is a popular tourist destination.

Hemingway’s travels greatly influenced his writing, and his experiences in different parts of the world are reflected in the settings, characters, and themes of his novels and short stories. His adventurous spirit and love of travel are an integral part of his legacy as one of the greatest writers and famous travellers of the 20th century.

Ok, these last two aren’t in “history” as they’re still going even in their late age…

Ranulph Fiennes

Sir Ranulph Fiennes , born on March 7, 1944, is a British explorer, adventurer, and author known for his daring expeditions and record-breaking achievements in extreme environments around the world. He is often described as one of the greatest living explorers.

Fiennes has undertaken numerous expeditions throughout his career, often pushing the limits of human endurance and overcoming immense challenges.

In the Transglobe Expedition (1979–1982) Fiennes led the first circumnavigation of the Earth along its polar axis, traversing both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The expedition covered over 52,000 miles and took over three years to complete, making it one of the most ambitious polar expeditions in history.

First to reach both Poles by surface travel: Fiennes became the first person to reach both the North and South Poles by surface travel when he reached the South Pole in 1982 and the North Pole in 1986.

In addition to his exploration endeavours, Fiennes is also a prolific author, having written numerous books about his adventures and experiences.

Fiennes continues to be actively involved in exploration and adventure, inspiring others to push their limits and explore the unknown. His legacy as one of the world’s greatest explorers is firmly established, and his adventures continue to captivate and inspire people around the globe.

Michael Palin

I’m going to end this list with one of my favourite modern-day travellers, Michael Palin . I have loved his TV travel shows for decades now. Michael Palin is a British comedian, actor, writer, and television presenter known for his travels around the world documented in various television series and books.

Palin’s travel adventures began with the groundbreaking television series “Around the World in 80 Days,” which aired in 1989. In this series, Palin attempted to circumnavigate the globe without flying, following in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg from Jules Verne’s novel. The journey took him through Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North America, and back to Europe, and it was documented in a book of the same name.

Following the success of “Around the World in 80 Days,” Palin continued to travel and document his journeys in subsequent television series and books, including:

• “Pole to Pole” (1992): In this series, Palin travelled from the North Pole to the South Pole, passing through Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.
• “Full Circle with Michael Palin” (1997): Palin embarked on a journey around the Pacific Rim, travelling through countries such as Russia, Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Australia, and Chile.
• “Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure” (1999): Palin retraced the footsteps of the American writer Ernest Hemingway, visiting places significant to Hemingway’s life and work in Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
• “Michael Palin’s Sahara” (2002): Palin explored the diverse cultures and landscapes of the Sahara Desert, travelling through countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Niger, and Mali.
• “Himalaya with Michael Palin” (2004): Palin journeyed through the Himalayas, from Pakistan and India to Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, and China, exploring the mountains, cultures, and people of the region.

Palin’s travel adventures have inspired and entertained audiences around the world, making him one of the world’s most beloved travel presenters and one of the most famous travellers of them all.

The legacies of these famous travellers endure as testaments to the indomitable human spirit and the insatiable thirst for discovery. Their courage, resilience, and insatiable curiosity have left an indelible mark on history, shaping our understanding of the world and inspiring future generations to venture beyond the known horizon.

These are just a few examples, and countless other explorers and travellers have made significant contributions to our understanding of the world through their journeys and discoveries.

For a look at another well-known modern traveller have a look at my article about a good friend of mine who is regarded as one of the most travelled man in the world today.

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10 Most Legendary (And Infamous) Travelers In History

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

– anthony bourdain.

At Elevated Trips we hold in high esteem the spirit of adventure and exploration as we seek out remote destinations that few foreigners have ever been to.  Here are 10 of the greatest explorers in the world to inspire your own travels to get off the beaten path and to forge new roads.

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen was the first man to cross Greenland’s ice cap. He also sailed farther north in the Arctic Ocean than any man before him. That’s pretty awesome. He and a colleague even endured nine winter months in a hut made of stones and walrus hides, surviving solely off polar bears and walruses. Nansen explored the great white north and had an asteroid named after him.

Christopher Colombus

Here’s a guy who had no idea where he was when he landed so assumed he was in India, enslaved a population (for which he admitted to feelings of remorse later in life), and brought a host of terrible diseases to an entire hemisphere (he got syphilis from the native people, in return). Colombus showed Europeans there was a new world out there and ushered in a new age of European exploration.

Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta was a great Muslim explorer who traveled more than 120,000 kilometers through regions that, today, comprise 44 countries — from Italy to Indonesia, Timbuktu to Shanghai. He was mugged, attacked by pirates, held hostage, and once hid in a swamp. His travel writings provide a rare perspective on the 14th-century medieval empire of Mali (from which not many records survive).

Xuanzang was a Chinese Buddhist monk, intrepid traveler, and translator who documented the interaction between China and India in the early Tang Dynasty. He became famous for his 17-year overland journey to India, on which he was often ambushed by bandits, nearly died of thirst, and survived an avalanche.

Lewis and Clark

These two guys lead an expedition of 50 men to chart the northwestern region of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase and establish trade with the local populations. They set out in 1804 and didn’t return until 1806. They rode off into the unknown, were helped by the famous Sacagawea, and were the first Americans to set eyes on the Columbia River. They faced disease, hostile natives, and extreme weather conditions. They were true adventurers and scientists.

Ernest Hemingway

The manliest of manly travelers, Hemingway traveled extensively. His journeys inspired many of his greatest stories. He was a fisherman, hunter, soldier, and ardent drinker who lived in Paris, Cuba, and Spain. He was the most interesting man in the world before it was cool to be the most interesting man in the world.

This legendary Venetian set out with his father and uncle to explore Asia when he was just 17 years old. They came back 24 years later after traveling over 15,000 miles. He’s inspired generations of travelers with tales that provide fascinating insight into Kublei Khan’s empire, the Far East, the silk road, and China.

Ernest Shackleton

Antarctica’s most famous explorer (though Roald Amundsen was the first to reach it in 1911), Ernest Shackleton is synonymous with Antarctic exploration. He traversed the continent many times and is most famous for the 1914 voyage that trapped his ship  Endurance  in ice for 10 months. Eventually, she was crushed and destroyed, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. After camping on the ice for five months, Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which—a treacherous 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island—is now considered among the greatest voyages in history. Trekking across the mountains of South Georgia, Shackleton reached the island’s remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all the men he had left behind. That’s badass.

Neil Armstrong

The first man to set foot on the moon. That pretty much means he wins. He was a modern adventurer who traveled to the moon (no easy feat) and took one giant leap for mankind. Neil Armstrong is living proof that when we put our mind to it, there’s no place we can’t explore.

Freya Stark

In 1930, Freya Stark – who had also learned Persian – set out for Persia. The goal of her trip was to visit the Valleys of the Assassins, at the time still unexplored by Europeans, and carry out geographical and archeological studies. The Assassins were fanatical followers of a sect belonging to Shiite Islam, who used religious reasons to justify killing their enemies. They were said to enjoy hashish, which is reflected in the name “hashshashun,” or hashish-smoker. French crusaders derived the word “assassin” from the word “Hashshashun”, which came to mean “murderer” in Romance languages. The reign of the Assassins began in the 11th century and ended in the 13th century after the Mongol conquest.

On the back of a mule, equipped with a camp bed and a mosquito net, and accompanied by a local guide, Freya Stark rode to the valleys near Alamut (= ruins of a mountain fortress castle near the Alamut River), which had not yet been recorded on her map. Malaria, a weak heart, dengue fever, and dysentery plagued her, but she continued her trip and her studies. Back in Baghdad, she received much recognition from the colonial circles; overnight she had gained a reputation as an explorer and scholar to be taken seriously.

And here are some inspiring quotes to take you further in your travels:

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”               – Ibn Battuta

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”         -Anaïs Nin “You can shake the sand from your shoes, but it will never leave your soul.”

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10 Most Legendary (And Infamous) Travelers In History

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Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen was the first man to cross Greenland’s ice cap. He also sailed farther north in the Arctic Ocean than any man before him. That’s pretty awesome. He and a colleague even endured nine winter months in a hut made of stones and walrus hides, surviving solely off polar bears and walruses. Nansen explored the great white north and had an asteroid named after him.

Christopher Colombus

Here’s a guy who had no idea where he was when he landed so assumed he was in India, enslaved a population (for which he admitted to feelings of remorse later in life), and brought a host of terrible diseases to an entire hemisphere (he got syphilis from the native people, in return). Colombus showed Europeans there was a new world out there, and ushered in a new age of European exploration.

Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta was a great Muslim explorer who travelled more than 120,000 kilometers through regions that, today, comprise 44 countries — from Italy to Indonesia, Timbuktu to Shanghai. He was mugged, attacked by pirates, held hostage, and once hid in a swamp. His travel writings provide a rare perspective on the 14th century medieval empire of Mali (from which not many records survive).

Xuanzang was a Chinese Buddhist monk, intrepid traveler, and translator who documented the interaction between China and India in the early Tang Dynasty. He became famous for his 17-year overland journey to India, on which he was often ambushed by bandits, nearly died of thirst, and survived an avalanche.

Lewis and Clark

These two guys lead an expedition of 50 men to chart the northwestern region of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase and establish trade with the local populations. They set out in 1804 and didn’t return until 1806. They rode off into the unknown, were helped by the famous Sacagawea, and were the first Americans to set eyes on the Columbia River. They faced disease, hostile natives, and extreme weather conditions. They were true adventurers and scientists.

Ernest Hemingway

The manliest of manly travelers, Hemingway traveled extensively. His journeys inspired many of his greatest stories. He was a fisherman, hunter, soldier, and ardent drinker who lived in Paris, Cuba, and Spain. He was the most interesting man in the world before it was cool to be the most interesting man in the world.

This legendary Venetian set out with his father and uncle to explore Asia when he was just 17 years old. They came back 24 years later after traveling over 15,000 miles. He’s inspired generations of travelers with tales that provide fascinating insight into Kublei Khan’s empire, the Far East, the silk road, and China.

Ernest Shackleton

Antarctica’s most famous explorer (though Roald Amundsen was the first to reach it in 1911), Ernest Shackleton is synonymous with Antarctic exploration. He traversed the continent many times and is most famous for the 1914 voyage that trapped his ship Endurance in ice for 10 months. Eventually she was crushed and destroyed, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. After camping on the ice for five months, Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which—a treacherous 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island—is now considered among the greatest voyages in history. Trekking across the mountains of South Georgia, Shackleton reached the island’s remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all the men he had left behind. That’s badass.

Neil Armstrong

First man to set foot on the moon. That pretty much means he wins. He was a modern adventurer who traveled to the moon (no easy feat) and took one giant leap for mankind. Neil Armstrong is living proof that when we put our mind to it, there’s no place we can’t explore.

Freya Stark

About the author

Matthew Kepnes

Budget travel expert, author of “How to Travel the World on $50 a Day” at Nomadic Matt .

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10 Inspiring Books About Travel Written By Women That Will Soothe Your Aching Wanderlust

10 Epic Travel Experiences You Must Have Before You Die

The Three Most Unbelievable Things That Happened While I Traveled The World By Myself

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The 10 greatest travellers of all time

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Just who is the world's greatest traveller? That is the question posed by Wanderlust magazine. While there is some consensus about the greatest movie ever (Citizen Kane) and best pop record (Bohemian Rhapsody), opinion is divided on the top explorer. In a bid to discover the Orson Welles/Freddie Mercury of the travel world - and provoke a bit of healthy debate - Wanderlust asked a selection of experts to pick the person who they believe has most changed the way we travel. This is the final top 10, counting down to the best traveller of all time. But do you agree? Please e-mail [email protected], and we will compare notes with the readers of Wanderlust.

10 APHRA BEHN (1640-1689)

First Englishwoman to make a living by the pen; possibly the world's greatest armchair traveller

Nominated by Dea Birkett, travel writer: "Aphra Behn was groundbreaking, claiming to have sailed to Suriname in the 1660s. Yet 300 years after writing Oroonoko, her powerful anti-slavery novel set in Suriname, we still don't know if she went to South America or not. She started the tradition of European travellers grossly exaggerating and lying about what they'd done. We've been fictionalising ever since."

Travelling style: mysterious, incognito - often travelled as a spy, and in the 17th-century equivalent of economy class.

Places visited: Suriname (probably), Antwerp, the Netherlands. Behn's plays suggest knowledge of Italy - though this may be the fruit of her stupendous imagination.

Hardships suffered: Rumour suggests she lost family members in Suriname and was once shipwrecked.

Changed-the-world rating: Helped to invent the English novel and the travel memoir. Oroonoko is fictional, one of the first great exotic travel narratives and an indictment of slavery. An unusual mix today, this must have seemed outlandish 300 years ago.

9 MICHAEL PALIN (1943-)

Affable Python and actor who went from spoofing Alan Whicker to replacing him as TV's foremost traveller

Nominated by Charlotte Hindle, Lonely Planet author: "He's done more than anyone else to bring the world into everyone's living room."

Travelling style: Intrepid, good-humoured Englishman abroad, self-confessed dromomaniac - one who suffers from the compulsive urge to travel.

Places visited: Around the world in 80 days, pole to pole, full circle, across the Sahara and through the Himalaya.

Hardships suffered: Cracked ribs, altitude sickness, getting a cut-throat shave from a blind barber, being mistaken for Eric Idle, having his car rocked by an angry mob.

Changed-the-world rating: The surges in bookings that follow his televised travels are known as the "Palin effect". Travel on TV once meant Judith Chalmers wishing you were there; Palin turned travel into a prime-time attraction and made the world a more exciting, accessible, place.

8 YURI GAGARIN (1934-1968)

Starman - the first man in space - who became the man who fell to earth, dying in a crash on a routine flight

Nominated by Mark Ellingham, Rough Guide's founder: "He took the greatest leap into the unknown since Columbus - or at least since Laika, Sputnik 2's dog."

Travelling style: Focused and fearless. On 12 April 1961 Yuri was blasted into space in crude terms - in a seat on top of a tin can, which was itself on top of a bomb.

Places visited: Around the Earth and 315km above it.

Hardships suffered: In training he withstood 13Gs of force in the centrifuge and sat in a dark, silent room for 24 hours; being grounded after his historic flight drove him to drink.

Changed-the-world rating: Fuelled the space race. With space tourism still somewhere between a prophecy and a joke, we haven't seen the full impact of his heroism.

7 FRIDTJOF NANSEN (1861-1930)

Skier, oceanographer, humanitarian, godfather of polar exploration; has an asteroid named after him

Nominated by Pen Hadow, explorer: "Nansen was the first to cross Greenland's ice cap and the Arctic Ocean, and sailed further north than man had been before."

Travelling style: Brave but not reckless - he never lost a single man nor major piece of equipment.

Places visited: Skied across Norway, crossed Greenland and travelled 255km further north than any man had been.

Hardships suffered: Endured nine winter months with a colleague in a hut made of stones and walrus hides in Franz Josef Land, eating polar bear and walrus.

Changed-the-world rating: Technologically revolutionised polar exploration, inventing a cooker and water bottle still used today.

6 CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882)

Founder of evolutionary theory

Nominated by William Gray, TV presenter and writer: "Darwin discovered many species, while his observations during his voyage on the Beagle formed the bedrock of his theory of evolution through natural selection."

Travelling style: Argumentative, determined, blessed with an inexhaustible curiosity.

Places visited: Across the Atlantic, Pacific, both coasts of South America, remote islands such as the Galapagos and Tahiti; he also rode across the Argentinian plains, hiked up mountains and trekked through the Peruvian desert.

Hardships suffered: Stomach pains, vomiting, heart palpitations, boils, storms and revolution in Buenos Aires.

Changed-the-world rating: He changed the way we think.

5 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1451-1506)

The most controversial explorer in history

Nominated by Bill Bryson: "Christopher Columbus didn't actually discover America, but he opened the door to the European exploration of two mighty continents."

Travelling style: Visionary, fearless, neurotic, ruthless. Stopped travelling only when mortally ill.

Places visited: Four voyages across the Atlantic, around the Mediterranean and, possibly, to Iceland.

Hardships suffered: Arthritis, flu, temporary blindness, fever, bleeding eyes, malnutrition, insomnia.

Changed-the-world rating: "He was head of the horde that introduced yellow fever, dengue, malaria, smallpox, measles, diphtheria, typhoid and a few others to the Americas," says the explorer Dr Jane Wilson-Howarth. "In exchange, they brought back syphilis." Columbus paved the way for Spain's global empire, genocidal conflict with the indigenous cultures, slavery and the European settlement of North America.

4 IBN BATTUTA (1304-1368 OR 1377)

Medieval geographer who made Marco Polo look like someone who ought to get out more

Susan Spano of the Los Angeles Times says: "His tale is a wild but true yarn that surpasses that of Marco Polo."

Travelling style: A charming freeloader, resilient, brave, a bit of a fussbudget and teller of tall tales.

Places visited: Travelled more than 120,000km, through regions that, today, comprise 44 countries, from Italy to Indonesia, Timbuktu to Shanghai.

Hardships suffered: Muggings, attacks by pirates, was held hostage, once hid in a swamp for a week without food.

Changed-the-world rating: He was the last great Muslim geographer. His work offers an unparalleled insight into the 14th-century Muslim world and a rare perspective on the medieval empire of Mali.

3 SIR RICHARD BURTON (1821-1890)

Diplomat, fencer and explorer; man of towering intellect

Nominated by John Gimlette, travel writer: "While others travelled to blow the family cash, for Sir Richard Burton it was all an exercise in comprehension. He constantly challenged convention, and left his readers gasping."

Travelling style: "Disloyal, waspish, foul-mouthed, scruffy, drunken and misogynistic, he was the worst of travelling companions," says Gimlette. But he was seldom short of courage, ideas or a word - he knew 30 languages and 60 sounds in the vocabulary of monkeys.

Places visited: India, Arabia, East Africa, Fernando Po, Brazil, Syria, the US West and Trieste.

Hardships suffered: A spear struck through his jaw, syphilis, malaria, rheumatic ophthalmia, attacked by bandits, smoked too much opium and was circumcised to make his disguise as a Muslim more convincing.

Changed-the-world rating: Burton may have been the first modern anthropologist, and he helped John Hanning Speke to discover the source of the Nile. His feat in becoming only the second European to visit Mecca, inspired countless explorers. His translation of the Arabian Nights opened up a mysterious - and still misunderstood - culture to the West.

2 XUANZANG (602-644 OR 664)

Chinese Buddhist monk who went on the mother of all pilgrimages and pioneered travel writing

Nominated by Michael Palin: "Xuanzang travelled alone on a pilgrimage to discover the origins of Buddhism. The scope, scale and significance of these travels for Chinese and Indian history have never been equalled."

Travelling style: "He was curious, courteous, determined, intelligent and courageous," says Palin.

Places visited: Xian, the deserts and mountains of western China, Afghanistan and Pakistan, all of India.

Hardships suffered: hunger strikes, often caught by bandits, nearly died of thirst, survived an avalanche.

Changed-the-world rating: "He left a priceless legacy in the record of his journeys and translations of Buddhist writings that might otherwise have been lost," says Palin.

1 CAPTAIN JAMES COOK (1728-1779)

Indefatigable explorer who had all the essential traveller's virtues - until he went a bit funny at the end

Nominated by Sara Wheeler, travel writer: "Captain Cook discovered more of the earth's surface than any other man and excelled as a scientist, cartographer and surveyor. He was bad-tempered - I like a touch of clay feet in a hero."

Travelling style: Precise - an excellent navigator, he always drew up accurate charts; indomitable - when his ship, the Endeavour, ran aground in the Coral Sea, he beached and repaired it; shrewd - he averted scurvy by forcing his crew to eat fruit and sauerkraut; open-minded - his notes show genuine interest in other cultures.

Places visited: He circumnavigated the globe twice, visited all seven continents and crossed the Arctic and Antarctic circles.

Hardships suffered: Sailed with Captain Bligh, recovered from biliary colic by eating stew made from a ship's dog; was clubbed to death in Hawaii.

Changed-the-world rating: By finding Australia and mapping New Zealand, Captain Cook essentially created the map of the Pacific we know today. He also anticipated ethnology and anthropology - and, arguably, independent travel. His aim to go "farther than any man has been before me but only as far as I think it possible for a man to go" is an inspiration to every traveller.

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Photos: Famous Great Travelers

Tourism has been around since antiquity—the earliest guidebook, The Description of Greece, was written by Greek geographer Pausanias around A.D. 160—but travel is timeless. A handful of history’s boldest travelers staged epic journeys that crossed new lands, broke cultural barriers, and revealed the radical diversity of the world around us. In doing so, these trailblazers confirmed that wanderlust is part of the human condition. “Curiosity is the one thing invincible in nature,” wrote explorer Freya Stark—one of ten travelers whose intrepid itineraries left the world a better place. —By George W. Stone

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History’s most famous explorers and their epic journeys

Mar 31, 2020 • 6 min read

In a time before planes, credit cards and the internet, travel was often as dangerous as it was exciting. Yet for millennia those with a taste for adventure have given in to the human impulse to explore the world, to discover new cultures and pave the way for others. The roll call of great historical travelers includes the well known and the should-be-better known. Here are a select few, each of whom demonstrates that curiosity that keeps us exploring today.

Zheng He and the "treasure voyages"

“Eventful” is an adjective that could easily apply to the lives of many well known travelers but it’s particularly apt for Zheng He. Born a Muslim, he was captured, castrated and converted by Chinese troops, before rising through the ranks of the Ming army to become a trusted adviser to Emperor Yongle. 

Made admiral in charge of the “treasure voyages” (seven sea trips designed to expand Chinese knowledge, trade and influence in the early 15th century), he headed west to Southeast Asia , India , the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa , employing diplomacy where possible and force where necessary to impress the locals.

Marco Polo on the Silk Road (and beyond)

When he left his home in Venice in 1271, Marco Polo, arguably the most famous traveler of all time, couldn’t have imagined he’d be away for 24 years. Driven as much by trade as by the travel bug (he came from a family of merchants), he followed the Silk Road to China (or Cathay as it was then known). There he became friends with the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and embarked on a series of journeys as emissary of the khan, which he subsequently documented in the Book of the Marvels of the World , a bestseller at the time.

Gertrude Bell broke and created boundaries

Scholar, diplomat, empire-builder, mountaineer, traveler – if you thought we were about to talk about a man, you’d be mistaken. All these attributes and more belong to the Brit Gertrude Bell. Breaking into previously male-dominated areas of society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she had already been stranded on a rope for some 53 hours while climbing in the Alps, circumnavigated the world twice and spent years exploring the Middle East before she was involved in drawing up the post-WW1 borders of Iraq, an area she knew well thanks to her love of archeology. 

A less controversial legacy of her time in the region is the Iraq Museum, a repository of objects from the country’s extraordinarily long past which she helped create shortly before her death in 1926.

Ibn Battuta's 30-year trip

Hailing from Morocco , Ibn Battuta would, like his near contemporary Marco Polo, not see his home for many decades once he headed off on his travels. Deciding to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, he left his family and friends in Tangier in 1324, following the North African coast in the company of camel caravans (for safety) and completing his hajj in 1326. 

Influenced by a holy man’s prophecy saying he would travel the earth, he then continued east – and south and north and west, crossing Spain, India, Persia, China, Southeast Asia and many more destinations on his wishlist. Sometimes treated as an honored guest by those he encountered, other times as a hostage, as well as exploring new places he also found time to marry (and divorce) an astonishing ten times during his trip, before finally returning home for good (and presumably a rest) in 1354.

Percy Fawcett and the lost city of Z

Once British soldier and explorer Percy Fawcett got the idea of a mysterious civilization in the Brazilian Amazon into his head, he couldn’t shake it and his obsession with "the lost city of Z" would lead to his death. A respected cartographer, he was sent to Brazil’s Mato Grosso region in 1906 to help determine the country’s border with Bolivia. 

On subsequent visits he became fascinated by rumors of a former culture, with grand architecture, hidden somewhere in the area’s vast jungles. In April 1925 he set out to find it with his son and his son’s best friend. By the end of May they had disappeared. Whether they were killed by a local tribe or died of starvation is still unknown. But recent research has offered tantalizing evidence that a civilization just like the one Fawcett was looking for, did exist in the region and is known as Kuhikugu.

Leif Erikson landed in North America

Centuries before Marco Polo and Zheng He set off on their expeditions, an intrepid Icelander decided to sail west from his home to see what he would find. It’s not surprising that travel was in Leif Erikson’s blood (his father, Erik the Red, was exiled from Iceland to Greenland), but he couldn’t have known, as he set sail around 1000 CE, that he would build the first European settlement in North America. 

Exactly where he created his community of Vinland is hotly debated – tradition has it in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada – but history, and a large, west-facing statue of him outside Reykjavík’s Hallgrimskirkja church, will always remember his groundbreaking journeys.

Mansa Musa's economic impact

There aren’t many trips that can claim to have devastated local economies, but the pilgrimage to Mecca by Malian ruler Mansa Musa did just that. Like Ibn Battuta a year or two earlier, Musa traveled across northern Africa on his hajj, but with an entourage whose stats defy belief: 60,000 people, including 12,000 slaves and heralds, plus 100 elephants and 80 camels carrying thousands of pounds of gold which was lavishly dispensed to people en route – Mali was the world’s main gold producer at the time making Musa possibly the richest man who has ever lived. His generosity proved disastrous, though, as so much gold flooded the market that its value dropped and negatively impacted local economies for around a decade after his trip.

Nellie Bly circumnavigated the world in 72 days

“No one but a man can do this!” scoffed her editor when journalist Nellie Bly suggested a round-the-world trip in 80 days, emulating the fictional Phileas Fogg. The year was 1889 and convention simply didn’t allow a solo female traveler to do this kind of thing, but, as with Gertrude Bell, “convention-defying” could have been Nellie Bly’s middle name (actually her real name was Elizabeth Jane Cochran; Nellie Bly was her pseudonym).

Having already earned her credentials with an exposé on the appalling treatment of women in New York’s mental asylums, she packed her bags (very lightly), hid her money in a small pouch under her clothes, and boarded the steamship Augusta Victoria . Crossing Europe , South Asia, Japan and the US, and having several adventures and close calls along the way, she returned to a rapturous welcome on January 25, 1890 – 72 days after setting off. Beat that, Phileas!

You might also like: History lives here: the most storied places in the US Jane Austen's England: a traveller's guide to finding Mr Darcy

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T+L's 50 Most Notable People in Travel: 2021

Behind every change the travel world has seen in the past year — and in the past 50 — there are people. That's why we're marking Travel + Leisure 's 50th anniversary by celebrating the travelers who have changed our world for the better. 

Meena Thiruvengadam is a lifelong traveler and veteran journalist who has visited more than 50 countries across six continents. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal , Departures , TripSavvy , and other publications.

When Travel + Leisure launched five decades ago in 1971, we had put a man on the moon only two years before. Pan Am had recently launched the first commercial Boeing 747. Smoking on board was standard (as was ample legroom and champagne, even in coach.) Now, squeezing into basic economy and paying for a carry-on is par for the course, but we're also on the brink of space tourism, we have apps that predict hotel and flight deals at our fingertips, and with a passport and a little patience, most corners of the globe are reachable. And, at long last, after a year when the world stayed home, we're starting to get back out there.

Behind every change the travel world has seen in the past year — and in the past 50 — there are people. That's why we're marking our 50th anniversary by celebrating the travelers who have changed our world for the better.

Some people on this list are industry veterans and famous firsts; others are adventurers and athletes, writers and photographers, chefs and conservationists, filmmakers and designers, historical icons and modern heroes. Some are no longer with us; others are beloved fictional characters who encouraged us to dream. All of them have done their part to elevate the travel experience, simplify it, make it more inclusive, or just inspire us to continue exploring. These are T+L's 50 Notable People in Travel.

Arne Sorenson

The first person outside the Marriott family to lead the company, Sorenson began in 1996 as associate general counsel at the behest of Bill Marriott. He rose to become president and CEO, a role he remained in until his death on February 15, 2021 at age 62 . Known for his commitment to the environment, human rights, and diversity in addition to his business acumen and vision, Sorenson believed that corporations should be good community citizens. His major achievement was the acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, making Marriott the world's largest hotel operator with more than 30 brands and over 7,500 properties and creating the customer loyalty program, Marriott Bonvoy. Several months before his death, Sorenson posted on his LinkedIn blog "A Love Letter to Travel," describing the importance of travel in both his life and career . "The places we go stretch us," he wrote. "They literally open our horizons, broaden our perspectives about life and give us memories that bring us back again and again."

Rick Steves

Since his first trip to Europe as a teenager in the late 1960s, Steves has been a dedicated traveler, documenting his adventures on postcards and journals, and later sharing his experiences in guidebooks, memoirs, radio and television shows, and through his tour company. As America's leading expert on European travel, his advice and encouragement have made travel accessible to millions. To Steves, the essence of travel is connecting with people, and he counsels his readers and viewers to get out and meet the people of the world—not just in major cities, but in small towns, local markets, and homey lodgings. His recent book, For the Love of Europe: My Favorite Places, People, and Stories , is a collection of 100 of his best memories.

David Attenborough

Sir David Frederick Attenborough's voice is familiar to fans of his award-winning television programs, including The Blue Planet , Planet Earth , Our Planet , and his 2020 documentary, A Life on Our Planet . Through more than 60 years of travel, Attenbourough has been to every continent on the globe, bringing his love of wildlife and the natural world to our living rooms. Attenborough's early interest in wildlife and anthropology led him to travel to some of the most remote places on earth, inspiring his audience's appreciation of nature as well as interest in preserving it for future generations.

Samantha Brown

Brown is one of the most recognizable and long lasting travel TV hosts of our lifetime. Since 1999, she's hosted nine popular Travel Channel programs, and for the last four years she has produced and hosted her own Places to Love on PBS, which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Travel/Adventure Program (Brown herself won for Outstanding Host.) Her informal, approachable style, eagerness to speak to strangers, and ability to get off the beaten path is what keeps fans tuned in year after year.

José Andrés

Born in Spain, José Ramón Andrés Puerta moved to New York at age 21 to cook in a popular Spanish restaurant. Thirty years later, the man who is credited with popularizing tapas-style dining in the U.S. owns more than 25 restaurants, representing a variety of global cuisines and cultures. But for Andrés, travel is for both culinary and humanitarian purposes: he founded World Central Kitchen in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the organization's work has continued, serving nearly 20 million meals in more than a dozen countries affected by natural disasters and food crises, including during the Covid-19 pandemic . Among his many honors, Andrés was awarded a 2015 National Humanities Medal for his work.

Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci certainly has a loyal base of fans who adore his movies (and his soothing bartending videos during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.) With his new six-part food and travel documentary series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, the Emmy and Golden Globe award winner has found a new audience. Tucci guides his viewers through the country of his ancestors, focusing on regional dishes, with a backdrop of Italy's gorgeous scenery, charming personalities, and unique culture. From classic pizza in Naples to his favorite spaghetti and zucchini dish on the Amalfi Coast, Tucci takes his audience on a food journey through home kitchens, restaurants, vineyards, and farms, adding bits of culinary history along the way. In Tuscany, he visits a lively market gathering ingredients for a dinner of bistecca alla Fiorentina and in Milan, he indulges in the traditional aperitivo and local cheese. Each episode leaves his viewers hungry for both the food and the atmosphere of Italy.

Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi is the definition of a multi-hyphenate: the model, author, actress, activist, and Emmy-nominated television host has led the cooking competition show Top Che f for 17 seasons; she's written newspaper columns, a memoir and three cookbooks; and in January 2020, she launched her own television series, Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi. Taste the Nation combines her interests in food and travel with her commitment to immigrant rights, exploring how foods from different cultures influence American cuisine. As she journeys across the country visiting various communities, Lakshmi delves into Persian foods in Los Angeles, Thai dishes in Las Vegas, Peruvian foods in Paterson, New Jersey, and Native American ingredients in Arizona. In New York City, she cooks dishes from India, reminding viewers of her own background as an immigrant. Lakshmi travels frequently with her young daughter, sharing her love of travel and the importance of learning from different cultures around the world.

Anthony Bourdain

Bourdain's influence and reach is nearly impossible to catalog. Brash, outspoken, and authentic, his death in 2018 at age 61 shocked the world, and his numerous award-winning shows and bestselling books are still beloved, examples of a more intentional, curious method of seeing the world. Known for his irreverent style and his interest in the cuisines and culture of lesser known destinations, he praised the quality of other countries' street foods, encouraging his viewers to be open-minded in their travels . Three years after his death, interest in Bourdain has not waned: Bourdian's longtime assistant Laurie Woolever recently published World Travel: An Irreverent Guide , is a collection of essays about Bourdain as well as an introduction to some of his favorite places, which the two had begun working on shortly before his death (Woolever is also publishing Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography , this October.) Released in July of this year, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain , a revealing documentary, covers his career, including interviews, footage of his travels, and comments from fellow chefs.

Paul Theroux

"The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It's a passion. And I can't understand people who don't want to travel," said Theroux, an acclaimed writer whose love of travel has taken him around the world, beginning with a Peace Corps stint in Africa during the 1960s. Theroux's prolific writings include travel memoirs as well as fictional works set in some of the many places he explored over the past 50 years. Theroux's first best-selling travel book, The Great Railway Bazaar , described his four-month train journey through Asia, while several of his other works have been made into movies, including The Mosquito Coast , a 1986 film starring Harrison Ford and now an AppleTV+ series featuring his nephew, actor Justin Theroux. His latest novel, Under the Wave at Waimea , is set on the north shore of Oahu, his home for the last 30 years.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was a traveler, but her first love was the journey, not the destination. Born in 1897, she discovered flying while watching the Royal Flying Corps in Toronto during World War I. Earhart's first airplane ride in 1920 stirred her passion for aviation and she soon began lessons, earning her license in December 1921. Among her many records, Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first woman to fly solo across the United States. In 1935, she became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the mainland. She championed not only aviation, but women's rights through her example and her work; she was also one of the first people to promote commercial air travel, and served as Vice President of National Airways, later to become Northeast Airlines. Her mysterious 1937 disappearance during a flight over the Pacific Ocean has never formally been solved, and continues to intrigue people to this day..

Nobu Matsuhisa and Robert DeNiro

The friendship between a celebrated Japanese chef and restaurateur and an Academy Award-winning actor launched an empire, and helped bring Japanese-Peruvian food into the spotlight. It all started with DeNiro's meal at Matsuhisa's Los Angeles restaurant in 1988. Six years later, the friendship became a partnership when they opened Nobu in New York City, and today, there are nearly 50 Nobu restaurants worldwide. In 2013, they extended their brand to hotels when the first Nobu Hotel opened inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas; now there are 13 Nobu Hotel locations, including a newly-opened London outpost , and plans for locations in Marrakesh, Hamburg, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Brazil, and Toronto.

Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish

The hit Outlander television series made fans fall in love with Scotland, so much so that tourism to the country spiked and created what Visit Scotland deemed " the Outlander effect ." Two Scottish actors who appeared in the show, Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish, also found a new appreciation for their country—together they created Men in Kilts , an eight episode series that follow the charming pair as they road trip through Scotland in a camper van, exploring the nation's food, sports, music, dance, whisky, legends, and history. They also wrote a bestselling book focused on Scotland's culture and history, Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other , written as a prelude to filming their show. A new book is also on the way, The Clanlands Almanac: Seasonal Stories from Scotland, a practical travel guide as well as a celebration of the country's festivals, traditions, and events.

Lhakpa Sherpa

Born in Nepal in 1973 into a family of Mount Everest expedition guides, Sherpa began working as a porter at the age of 15, transporting equipment for tourists. Her dream was to reach the mountaintop, and she achieved that goal in 2000, becoming the first woman to successfully summit Mount Everest. Since then, Sherpa has reached the summit of Everest nine times, earning her the Guinness World Record . She has made the two-month journey in windstorms, whiteouts, and while two months pregnant, overcoming mental and physical challenges that few can imagine. Yet, she has received surprisingly little recognition for her accomplishments compared to other (typically white, male climbers.) Today, she lives in the United States, supporting herself and kids as a single mother of three. Sherpa maintains her hope to return to Mount Everest for a tenth expedition.

Jaylyn Gough

The outdoor enthusiast has spent most of her life as an avid mountain climber, biker, hiker, and landscape photographer. A member of the Navajo Tribe in New Mexico, Jaylyn Gough noticed the absence of women of color, specifically Native American women, in mainstream advertising campaigns for outdoor and travel media. As the founder of the Native Women's Wilderness , she created a community that not only increases indigenous representation, but also provides Native American women with a space to share their stories, support each other, and educate others about their ancestral lands and their people. Gough and her non-profit organization inspire women to get outside and reconnect with nature. Gough told Hoka One One during a 2019 interview on women reconnecting to the wilderness, "Our history may be broken. Too many spirits, hearts and lives are broken. The land is crying. But I believe that the only way to reimagine what can be, the only way to heal, is to revisit and connect with the land that connects us all."

Pablo Segarra, Esq.

More than 62 million Latinx people live in the United States, and this population represents one of the fastest-growing markets in the country, according to New York-based entrepreneur Pablo Segarra, Esq. After working as a police officer in Washington Heights, an immigration lawyer, and traveling to nearly 30 countries, Pablo Segarra, Esq. merged his passions to become the CEO of the Latinx Travel Club , a platform to share the Latin American experience through various means including heritage travel. The organization will host its first annual Latinx Travel Summit in Miami to "bring together industry and thought leaders to push the culture forward." He remembers his first trip to Puerto Rico after hearing his grandparents' stories about his ancestral homeland. It's an opportunity he wants to offer to Latinx youth. A portion of the Summit's proceeds will go to local community organizations and also provide scholarships to Latinx youth to encourage them to travel around the world.

Ashley Smith

For more than three years, Ashley Smith and her business partner Trevor Claiborn have been culture preservationists—keeping the storied past, present, and future of the Black farmer in Kentucky alive. Smith oversees the daily operations, strategic partnership, and planning of Black Soil KY , the only statewide agritourism company with a mission to reconnect Black Kentuckians to their heritage and legacy in agriculture. Black Soil features intimate year-round events, including customized farm tours, farm-to-table dinners, and off-season workshops, where visitors can connect with Kentucky's Black farmers, growers, and producerS—only 1.4 percent of the farm operators in the state. In addition to providing this unique cultural experience, Smith's mission is to ensure that more Black farmers and producers excel to claim a larger piece of the consumer market looking for healthy food options.

LaToya Allison

Latoya Allison and Mariana Güereque have cut down the amount of screen time children spend on electronic gadgets, especially during long family trips. The two Austin-based moms invented the waterproof TernPaks backpack that comes prepacked with a variety of fun items, including dry-erase mazes, watercolor gel crayons, magnetic cubes, an art folio, and a travel journal. "We wrote a journal that allows kids to reflect on the experience they're having," Allison says in a Travel + Leisure article . The journal asks specific questions about travel such as, 'What is your favorite place in the whole world?' 'What is your favorite memory?' and 'Do you like long trips or short trips?' Before new TernPaks products are available to the consumers, Allison has them tested to ensure they keep kids entertained and engaged while parents focus on getting the entire family to their final destination.

Mario Rigby

In 2018, the eco-explorer and author embarked on an epic two-year journey across Africa . He made the 7,456-mile trek from Cape Town to Cairo entirely by foot and kayak. During his adventure, Mario Rigby was able to bridge the gap between humanity by connecting with all people and communities along the way in an effort to also share their stories. He is an advocate for the inclusion of diversity in the outdoor travel industry and encourages adventurers to explore the world through sustainable travel. A former track and field athlete, Rigby continues to travel the world and give back to local communities. Born in Turks & Caicos, he traversed the Caribbean nation's eight main islands in five days, for the Caicos Challenge , a fundraiser for local charities, including the Turks & Caicos Reef Fund. No word on where he's heading next, but you can bet he'll give back to the local communities on his next grand journey.

Jessica Nabongo

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to Ugandan parents, Jessica Nabongo says her first international trip was to London and Uganda when she was 6 years old. Nabongo is t he first documented Black woman to visit every country in the world —a total of 195 countries. Some of those destinations included visits to her favorite beaches, such as West Bay Beach in Roatan, Honduras, and Nungwi Beach in Zanzibar. She shares her most recent travel adventures on multiple platforms, including her website Catch Me If You Can . Nabongo also created Jet Black, a boutique luxury travel company that hosts group trips, curating itineraries to countries in Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. And at the core of this world traveler is her desire to share immersive travel stories and captivating photography to educate and inspire others to travel and experience the world around them.

The award-winning filmmaker and photographer is known for taking jaw-dropping snapshots from high-risk vantage points. A true adrenaline-rush adventurer, Chin has become one of a few people to ski off the summit of Mount Everest. His talent and world-renowned work have scored him numerous photography awards from reputable organizations, including the American Society of Magazine Editors. Chin's expertise in adventure travel and extreme sports gifted him with an authentic perspective to create films such as Meru , and more recently, Free Solo , a documentary that follows rock climber Alex Honnold as he attempts to conquer the first free solo climb of El Capitan at Yosemite National Park. The film garnered several accolades, including seven Emmys and an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019. Chin's wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, was also a director of the film. We're eager to see what's next for the daring storyteller and traveler.

Robert Sharp

After spending a year traveling the world, Robert Sharp launched Out Adventures , an LGBTQ travel company that provides small-group escapes and customized tours to a variety of destinations around the globe, including New Zealand, Egypt, Nepal, Peru, Iceland, and Italy. Sharp's global network has allowed his company to evolve into a team of queer-savvy tour guides, in more than 100 countries, who know how to navigate local customs and attitudes as well as seek out airlines, hotels, resorts, and restaurants that genuinely welcome the LGBTQ+ community. Sharp uses his platform to not only give back to the local LGBTQ+ community in Toronto, homebase for Out Adventures, but he also supports international organizations, such as Rainbow Railroad , a nonprofit organization that helps resettle LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing state-sponsored violence. Rainbow Road receives a $50 donation for each guest scheduled on an Out Adventures group tour.

A transgender Welsh historian, author, and travel writer, Jan Morris passed away in November 2020. She worked as a correspondent at The Times to cover the first ascent of Mount Everest with New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and is also known for penning The Pax Britannica Trilogy , a series of books about the history of the British Empire. 'James Morris' was her name prior to gender reassignment surgery in Morocco in 1972, and the trans pioneer writes about her life-changing evolution in her 1974 memoir Conundrum . In addition to self-reflective autobiographies, Morris had a flair for writing descriptive portraits of cities, such as Oxford, Venice, Hong Kong, New York, and Trieste. In Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere , she eloquently describes the moodiness of the history-drenched city. Although she never liked to be described as a travel writer, her undeniable talent was to pen prose that continues to inspire travelers and writers around the world.

Norma Pratt

In 1949, Rodgers Travel Agency opened its doors for business in Philadelphia, and today, it is the oldest Black-owned travel agency in the U.S. Norma Pratt started out as a travel agent, and in 1980, replaced her father Fred Russell, co-owner of the agency, as CEO. Under her leadership, she enrolled Rodgers Travel, Inc. into the Small Business Administration's development program, and secured a $10 million yearly contract with Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois in 1991. It was the travel agency's first federal government contract. She expanded the agency—now headquartered in Wayne, Pennsylvania—to serve leisure, corporate, and government travelers in the U.S., which transformed it into a multi-million-dollar travel business. Pratt received accolades for her leadership of Rodgers Travel, including the Eastern Pennsylvania Minority Small Business Person of the Year Award. In a post-pandemic world, she continues to valiantly lead the agency through unforeseeable obstacles to keep her family's legacy alive.

Kellee Edwards

Kellee Edwards is a tour de force when it comes to her impact on travel. She's an award-winning travel expert and journalist, a pioneer of her own personal brand, Kellee Set Go , and she's also a licensed pilot and certified scuba diver. Edwards is the host of Travel + Leisure 's podcast called Let's Go Together to highlight diversity and inclusion in the travel and adventure space. She's also the island-hopping host on the Travel Channel TV show, Mysterious Islands . The global jetsetter has traveled to more than 60 countries, embracing new adventures such as dog sledding in Alaska, participating in a Mayan archaeological dig in Central America, and trekking Mt. Papaya, an active volcano in Guatemala. We're not sure what's next for the Los Angeles-based traveler but hiking and flying around in a Cessna 172 are always on her agenda.

Jeff Jenkins

Jeff Jenkins is a travel pioneer who created ChubbyDiaries.com , a brand, and community to represent plus-size travelers, so they don't feel isolated. The Austin-based travel expert is focused on developing excursions that include hotels, airlines, and other suppliers that are accommodating to plus-size travelers. The body activist's fun personality and authentic storytelling fill a void in the travel space—more than 42 percent of all Americans are obese, according to the CDC, and for that reason alone, representation is important. Jenkins offers his unique travel insight and shares body-positive experiences to inspire travelers to explore the world on their own terms. On the Let's Go Together podcast, Plus-size Travelers on Traveling the World in a Bigger Body , he says, "People need to see more plus-size people traveling so that they can see themselves as the reflection and want to go travel more."

​​Carmen Sandiego

To countless kids of the '80s and early '90s, there was never a name in travel nearly as notorious as her's. But even as founder of the Villainous International League of Evil (VILE), the fictional master thief's greatest legacy isn't larceny. She instilled in us something truly charitable: a curiosity for cultures and countries beyond our own. Hot on her trail across a series of educational software games we learned of global commodities and capitals and spied a—crude, DOS-based—glimpse of what these faraway lands looked like (long before Googling images of them was an option). Eventually the slippery swindler would land on an eponymous gameshow, appearing weekday afternoons on Public Broadcasting. Thirty years later, most Millennials can't read the title, Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? without humming its theme song in their heads.

Mickey Mouse

If Mickey's connection to travel isn't immediately obvious, here's a hint: his spiritual home in Orlando, Florida is the most visited theme park on the planet. Boasting an average annual attendance of roughly 58 million, Walt Disney World will celebrate its 50th anniversary this October. And it's all built around a mouse and his house—or a castle, more accurately. Magic Kingdom was the first landmark to rise up in this part of Central Florida. It was soon followed by Epcot, where guests can "walk the world" through 11 themed pavilions, each inspired by the landscapes and culture of a specific country—staffed by its respective citizens. Mickey, for his part, has hardly stayed put over the past century. As star of over 100 films, the animated icon has inspired wanderlust to locales as remote as Hawaii and the high mountaintops of Switzerland.

The Wild Thornberrys

The late '90s were undeniably a golden age for cartoons, but for those with a passion for wildlife and conservation, nothing compares to the zany antics of the Thornberry family. While the premise of the show is pretty fascinating on its own—a girl enchanted with the ability to talk to animals travels the globe with her esteemed nature-documentarian parents—it's the seamless blend of real-life issues pegged to protagonist Eliza's own personal struggles that makes the series standout. From fighting mass deforestation in the Amazon to forgetting about Mother's Day, our bookish heroine excels at battling poachers, pollution, and prejudice all while navigating life as a (not-so) average preteen girl. Add in a lovable cast of characters ranging from wild child Donnie to style icon Debbie to the ridiculously meme-worthy Nigel Thornberry, and you've got an enduring classic that leaves you entertained and educated all at once.

Whether at the beach or at the big game, Waldo has a befuddling way of blending into a crowd. Persistent anonymity throughout the years hasn't stopped him, however, from winning over fans from every corner of the globe. In his native England, illustrator Martin Handford conceived the beanie-bearing bespectacled sensation as "Wally" in an eponymous puzzle book, debuting in 1987. Since then he's gone on to assume no less than 30 different identities across the many countries in which his adventures appear. The French know him as Charlie. In Japan he's Wōrī. No matter the name, the watchers are never far behind, eager to seek him out and never surprised by where those trademark red-and-white stripes might crop up next.

Dora the Explorer

A young girl traverses the rural countryside accompanied by her singing backpack and red-boot-clad monkey BFF, all while being pursued by a klepto-maniacal reynard. It may sound bizarre, but anyone who grew up in the early 2000s is all too familiar with the adventurous exploits of Dora the Explorer , who made her grand debut on Nickelodeon in 1999. As our plucky protagonist navigated verdant forests and troll-ridden bridges, she was also met with a monumental task—introducing young viewers to the Spanish language. Though the United States still suffers from serious monolingualism, there's certainly a large subset of mid-20s millennials out there who remember "vamanos," "delicioso," or "muy bien" from their favorite exploradora —or, at the very least, can recite the entirety of "I'm The Map" from memory.

Paddington Bear

Born in Peru and ultimately named after the bustling London train station where he was adopted, Paddington has gone on to become a bear beloved by all. The marmalade sandwich enthusiast first sweetened hearts back in 1958, when British author Michael Bond penned a book with a rather on-the-nose title: A Bear Called Paddington . Today his series of children's stories has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. As an animated character Paddington has starred in two movies. As a real-life stuffed animal he became the first item to pass through the Chunnel upon its completion in 1994. In the U.K., UNICEF now sells Paddington's Postcards to educate English children about their counterparts in other parts of the globe, while raising money to protect young people in underserved areas. Cloaked in a peacoat, suitcase in hand, you can be sure that wherever he's headed next, this bear is packing some serious care.

Bessie Coleman

Fearless pioneer. Indefatigable adventurer. Aviation legend. There is no way to overstate the influence that Bessie Coleman continues to impart, 95 years after her tragic final flight. Born in late 19th Century Texas, Coleman lived in a time and place where BIPOC women were segregated from virtually all aspects of public life. Denied access to vote, to basic education, to railway cars, the idea of a Black woman flying a plane was nothing short of fantasy. And it's precisely what Coleman was going to do. Her imagination was initially sparked by tales of high-flying vets returning home from World War I. She would have to make it to the Old World herself—and learn a foreign language—to find an academy willing to admit a Black woman. In 1920 she enrolled in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale and was awarded an international pilot's license seven months later. Coleman returned to the U.S. as both the first African-American woman and also the first of Native-American woman to earn the distinction.

Victor Hugo Green

There's Green Book— the Academy Award winning film for best picture from 2018—and then there's The Green Book— an actual guidebook that helped inspire the movie's plot. Between the years of 1936 and 1966, this literally lifesaving compendium catalogued the motels, hotels, gas stations, and restaurants serving Black customers. It was largely thanks to the tireless devotion of its namesake publisher, Victor Hugo Green. The postal-worker-turned-travel-writer initially started compiling data from establishments near his native Harlem, New York. Demand soon swelled for a national edition, with 15,000 copies ultimately hitting shelves each year. In the introduction Green wrote: "There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published." He died in 1960, four years before passage of the Civil Rights Act legally barred racial segregation. A poignant rallying cry for social justice lives on in the words he left behind.

Long before the days of Instagram, or even TV, Nellie Bly managed to make herself a global superstar and travel influencer just the same. As an accomplished reporter for the New York World in 1889, she set out to break a world record set by Phileas Fogg—the fictional protagonist of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days . Bly's very real journey actually bested its imaginary inspiration by eight days. And although her world record lasted less than a year, her fame and reputation as a heroic explorer would continue to grow, long past her death in 1922. Today, merely the mention of her name is enough to render as absurd any intimation that women ought to avoid solo travel.

Slim Aarons

Slim Aarons offered the world more than mere photography. He gave it a vibe. In his own words, that aesthetic could best be described as, "attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places." The glamour of 'Old Hollywood', the Golden Age of Aviation, monarchs in mansions getting martinis—he was there to capture all of it, along with the envy of anyone who desired even the narrowest glimpse into the lives of the unimaginably privileged. And for those drawing from similar mood boards to fill Instagram feeds du jour, this is the #blessed benchmark by which they all must measure. Just be forewarned: in the orbit of well-heeled travel, few could ever hope to fuse inspiration with aspiration so effortlessly.

Cyrill Gutsch

"Brand Developer" isn't exactly the title you expect to see on the business card of an environmental champion. But Cyrill Gutsch proudly flaunts both badges without contradiction. The German expat founded Parley for the Oceans back in 2012 with a primary focus on combating marine plastic waste. An early partnership with Adidas resulted in the world's first sneaker fabricated entirely out of reclaimed ocean plastic. He's worked with American Express to create credit cards out of the same. But these are just baby steps towards the ultimate goal: eradicating plastic production altogether. For a man who sees recycling as merely a climate bandage, real healing begins when innovative technologies such as bio-fabrication and green chemistry become corporate standards. An alignment between economic and ecologic is necessary to turn the tides, here.

Martinique Lewis

Martinique Lewis was frustrated by a lack of representation in the travel industry. She was even more disheartened by the prominent players—from hotels and airlines to tourism boards and travel conferences—unwilling to address these issues from within. So she opted to take matters into her own hands, founding the Black Travel Alliance and establishing herself as a "diversity in travel consultant." In 2018 she published a report card on associated practices. By then, plenty of brands in the space were talking the talk regarding inclusion. Lewis became the first to assemble a methodology by which accountability could be measured. It resulted in a 'D' score—abysmal yet predictable. In the year that followed she consulted with major corporate entities showing them that they ought to be among the driving forces for equitable growth; pointing to stats correlating how much more likely multicultural travelers are to spend with brands actively representing them. A year later that same score came back as a 'C-'. There's obviously much more room for improvement. But people like Martinique Lewis are showing us what that improvement looks like.

Chris Burkard

In the age of Instagram, virtually all travelers fancy themselves photographers to some extent. Yet so much of what we see on our feed is intended to inspire #FOMO as opposed to awe. If you want to know what the latter looks like, give @ChrisBurkard a scroll. Already among the most followed visual artists on the platform the 35-year-old nomadic lensman typically shares imagery with his 3.6 million fans several times a week. Even on the smallest of smartphone screens his content hums with movement, sings with purpose, and pierces with grandeur. If he's snapping something you've seen countless times before, he'll convey it in a way that looks altogether fresh, which, of course, takes a brilliant eye. It also helps to be in the right place at the right time—like, say, Fagradalsfjall on March 19th, 2021. Suspended in a helicopter above Iceland's remote southwestern corner, he became the first professional photog to capture the volcano's dramatic reawakening from an 800-year-long dormancy. "Have Camera, Will Travel," his bio proclaims. We'll follow. Even if it's only on Instagram.

Carissa Moore

Carissa Moore first got on a surfboard as a five-year old in idyllic Waikiki. A Honolulu native, she describes the ocean as her happy place, and even the pandemic hasn't been able to keep her from breaking barriers while riding waves. This summer, Moore became the first American woman to compete at the Olympics when surfing finally made its pandemic-delayed debut as an official Olympic sport. Even before the Olympics, Moore won four world championships, and became the youngest winner ever of a women's Vans Triple Crown of Surfing event, the Reef Hawaiian Pro. She even took on the men at surfing events where she would have otherwise had no competition. Moore has been surfing professionally since 2004 and is coached by her father, a lifelong surfer himself.

If you're stuck in a job you hate, take some inspiration from interior designer Ken Fulk and get out. He was working in a marketing job he hated in Boston when a laundry mixup led him to his future husband and a new more fulfilling life in San Francisco. There, Fulk pursued a career as an interior designer despite not having been trained or formally schooled in design. He developed a whimsical style reflective of the freedom of self he found while living there. Fulk describes himself as someone who has always seen life in a cinematic fashion. Design, he says, is his way of helping others see the world the way he does.

Julian Fellowes

Julian Fellowes is a prolific actor, producer, and writer with a knack for bringing history back to life and winning awards along the way. He created, executive produced, and wrote the Downton Abbey television series and film, and wrote the screenplays for Gosford Park , Romeo and Juliet , and more. His accolades include an Academy Award for a best original screenplay award for his work on Gosford Park . Downton Abbey , a British period drama that earned a Guinness Book of World Records title for being the most critically acclaimed television show of the year in 2011, has earned enough recognition to become a Saturday Night Live parody. Fellowes next project, The Gilded Age , is an HBO series chronicling the economic transformation of New York City in the late 1800s through the eyes of an orphaned daughter of a Union general.

Stephen Satterfield

If you've seen Netflix's High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America , you know Stephen Satterfield. The Atlanta-born sommelier and media entrepreneur is best known for hosting the Netflix docu series, but the culinary anthropologist has spent his entire career using food and wine to organize, activate, and educate. After years of working in restaurants, Satterfield, in 2016, founded Whetstone Media, the first Black-owned food magazine in the U.S. Whetstone's mission: to use food to better understand humans around the world and to create a space for Black people to tell their own stories. The idea was born when Satterfield began looking for the stories getting lost in the farm-to-table movement while working at a restaurant in the Bay Area.

Fabien Cousteau

Perhaps unexpected for the grandson of Jacques Cousteu, Fabien Cousteu is working to build a $165 million underwater research facility in the Florida Keys that's meant to serve as a sort of International Space Station, but for the deep sea. The Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center is a nonprofit that aims to restore the health of the world's water bodies through community engagement and education. The aquanaut, ocean conservationist, and documentary filmmaker launched the center in 2016, but his love affair with the water began decades earlier when his grandfather outfitted a four-year-old Cousteau in a custom made scuba suit for a first dive in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea.

Adrian Zecha

Adrian Zecha is the man responsible for bringing the world Amangiri—the gorgeous luxury resort in the Utah desert that you've been seeing all over Instagram. The Indonesian founder of Aman Resorts is known for creating award-winning luxury properties and redefining some of the world's most beautiful destinations. Zecha was a journalist before he was a hotelier, pivoting into the hotel business after turning 40. In 1988, he opened Aman Resorts first property, Amanpuri—which means place of peace—on the beach overlooking the Andaman Sea in gorgeous Phuket, Thailand. His minimalist approach ensures gorgeous resorts fall into place against natural landscapes that offer endless opportunities for outdoor adventure and so many chances to truly get away from it all.

Captain Kate McCue

A cruise to the Bahamas when she was 12 hooked Kate McCue on the sea. Twenty-five years later, she became the first American woman to captain a mega cruise ship. Nowadays, McCue is the captain of the Celebrity Edge, which recently departed Miami becoming the first ship to set sail from the U.S. since the pandemic shut down cruising. McCue's career has taken her around the world, but it was persistence that got her there. For nine months, she fruitlessly searched for a job on a cruise ship with no luck. Then, she found her way into an entry-level position on a Disney cruise and began sailing her way into history.

Floyd Cardoz

Mumbai-born Floyd Cardoz was heading toward a career in medicine when he changed course, setting out on a journey that would take him from New York City line cook to global culinary icon. He elevated Indian cuisine, carving out space for himself in one of the most competitive fine dining scenes in the world. Cardoz was the first chef born and raised in India to lead a top Manhattan kitchen. He became known for creative dishes like halibut in watermelon curry and his extensive use of Indian spices. At one point, his kitchen had a separate spice room meant to preserve flavor and protect them from the heat of the kitchen. Cardoz wrote two cookbooks and was among the earliest casualties of the coronavirus. He died in New Jersey in March 2020.

Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly started using frequent flyer miles before he could drive. As a kid, his dad promised him a family vacation if he could figure out how to pay for it with miles. Kelly traded his dad's miles for six tickets to the Grand Cayman and hasn't looked back. As an adult working on Wall Street and earning frequent flyer miles of his own, Kelly launched The Points Guy blog in 2010 to share his tips for swapping miles for first class flights, gorgeous hotel rooms, and amazing experiences. That blog has since grown into a media empire with Kelly as its jetsetting CEO.

Evita Robinson

Evita Robinson is a nomadic explorer who built one of the earliest online communities for Black travelers. A solo backpacker whose adventures include teaching English in Japan, living abroad multiple times, and embarking on several solo backpacking trips, in 2011 Robinson set out to build the travel community she felt the world was missing. The community of travelers of color she launched with the support of about 100 Facebook friends has since grown into the Nomadness Travel Tribe, an invitation-only community for Black travelers. The group now boasts more than 22,000 members in dozens of countries and leads a handful of international trips each year to locations like Panama, India, and South Africa.

Alvaro Silberstein

A car accident at 18 left Alvaro Silberstein with a spinal injury that would require him to use a wheelchair, but it couldn't stop his adventurous spirit or keep him from achieving any of his dreams. A Chilean, Silberstein took on Torres del Paine in Patagonia and the University of California at Berkeley to prove that even the most difficult terrain need not be inaccessible to travelers in wheelchairs. Silberstein, who holds an MBA from Berkeley, has since opened up a new world for disabled travelers, launching tours to iconic but difficult to access sites like Torres del Paine in Patagonia and Machu Picchu in Peru. His Wheel the World travel company is the world's first to operate tours of rugged Machu Picchu for people in wheelchairs.

David Chang

Momofuku Milk Bar Pie is legendary, just like David Chang's noodles. The Korean-American chef founded the Momofuku restaurant empire with Noodle Bar in Manhattan's East Village in 2004. He's since opened several more Manhattan restaurants, expanded to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Toronto, and embraced his sweet tooth with Milk Bar—the dessert chain whose products offer adventurous twists on childhood favorites. Chang has won two Michelin stars for Ko, a high-end Manhattan restaurant with an epic tasting menu that includes unique dishes like uni with hummus and olive oil and a Mandarin Tarte Tatin. Chang also has become a regular in many people's homes through a line of home cooking products and as the star of the Netflix series Ugly Delicious .

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written by Joanne Owen

updated 26.10.2022

Being well-travelled is one thing. Being an explorer is quite another. From Marco Polo’s Silk Road expedition to Nellie Bly’s epic 1889 voyage around-the-world-in-72-days, these 15 famous world explorers sure knew how to make the most of their time on earth. What’s more, these famous explorers' names might just provide inspiration for places to visit during your own trip of a lifetime. 

• 1. Marco Polo (1254 -1324)
• 2. Abubakari II (c.1280 - c.1337)

3. Christopher Columbus - undoubtedly one of the most famous world explorers (1451 -1506)

4. amerigo vespucci (1454 -1512).

• 5. Ferdinand Magellan (1480 - 1521)

6. Charles Darwin (1809 -1882)

• 7. Dr David Livingstone (1813 - 1873)

8. Isabella Bird (1831 - 1904)

• 9. Nellie Bly (1864 - 1922)
• 10. Freya Stark (1893 - 1993)
• 11. Matthew Henson (1866 –1955)
• 12. Jacques Cousteau (1910 -1997)

13. Ranulph Fiennes (1944 - present)

14. fran sandham (1965 - present), 15. mario rigby (1985 - present).

And we’re talking ultimate  bucket list experiences . It's important to note, though, that many famous explorers in history aren’t without their controversies due to the imperialist notion of Europeans “discovering” long-settled places. In the piece that follows we've included a few lesser-known voyagers among the more famous explorer names, along with trailblazers making history today.

This article is inspired by our Rough Guides guidebooks — your essential guides for travelling the world.

Travel ideas for Spain, created by local experts

Andalucía Explored

Discover the best of Andalucía's breathtaking palaces, churches, museums, vineyards, and more, as you travel through spectacular scenery dotted with pueblos blancos and bordered by rugged mountains and coast en route to Granada, Seville, Ronda and Jerez de la Frontera.

A culinary experience in Seville

Explore the cuisine and surroundings of Seville in Andalucia. From Iberian ham over sherry wines to the production and secrets of olive oil, this tour is an ideal weekend getaway. Decide yourself if you prefer a rental car or a chauffeur-driven car to explore the beauty of Andalucia.

Spanish Honeymoon

Discover Andalusia, starting with the cultural city of Seville, then on to Córdoba and Granada, home of the stunning Alhambra Palace. Next you'll visit Granada and the Albayzin Arab quarter, then enjoy a stunning hot-air balloon ride, before ending your trip with a luxury boat trip from Marbella!

Made for Madrid

Take to the Spanish capital for art, culture and a taste of life in the city, Madrileño-style. Explore age-old churches and pretty plazas, stroll through the lovely Buen Retiro Park and visit captivating Toledo. Then, come sundown, discover the city's vibrant barrios and lively nightlife.

A Madrid getaway

Spend four days discovering the wonders of Spain's capital Madrid: from fascinating museums like El Prado and Reina Sofia over exploring unknown corners with your private guide to a day trip to the surroundings, this itinerary packs the best of Madrid.

Hidden Spain - From Barcelona to Basque Country

Do you want to explore highlights in Spain while staying in nature at the same time? Look no further. Start your Spanish adventure in Barcelona before heading off to the mountains - drive your rental car to Andorra and further on to Basque Country. Decide between driving yourself or guided tours.

 1. Marco Polo (1254 -1324)

Famed for his travels along the  Silk Road , thirteenth-century Venetian Marco Polo is unquestionably one of the world’s most famous historical explorers.

One of the first European explorers to visit  China , he left Venice in 1271 and crossed the Middle East with his family. They traversed Jerusalem, Afghanistan and the Gobi Desert for three years on their way to China. There they visited Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor. Polo stayed in China for 17 years, and only around 1292 - after escorting a Mongol princess to Iran - did he make the return journey to  Venice  via  Istanbul .

Marco Polo's portrait on the Italian 1000 lira banknote © Shutterstock

If you fancy following in Marco Polo’s fearless footsteps, you could explore our customisable tailor-made trips. Among them an exploration of some of Uzbekistan’s unique cultural highlights and inspirational itineraries around China . But fear not if you’re looking for closer to home adventures. You could always discover more about the man on a  Venetian land and water tour  that includes a visit to his birthplace.

2. Abubakari II (c.1280 - c.1337) 

Abubakari II might not be one of the most famous explorer names, but some scholars argue that he deserves a prominent place alongside them. Thought to have been the ninth mansa (sultan or emperor) of West Africa’s Mali Empire, Abubakari II abdicated to undertake an exploratory ocean voyage.

According to an account recorded by the Arab historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari or al-Umari, Abubakari II “did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean.” So, “he equipped two hundred boats full of men, like many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient enough for several years.” It’s said that Abubakari II didn’t return from this voyage, and a few scholars have posited the view that he travelled to the New World.

Having said that, the jury’s still out, with other academics arguing that there’s simply not enough evidence - for the time being at least. One thing’s for sure, on-going research and debates around Abubakari II are important reminders of the need to keep an open mind when it comes to understanding the past. New discoveries about famous historical explorers are always possible, much like the possibilities envisaged by explorers themselves.

Map of Africa by Abraham Ortelius, circa 1570 © Shutterstock

Undoubtedly one of the most famous explorers in history, Christopher Columbus was born in  Genoa  in 1451. From a young age his impulse to travel was strong - he went to sea as a teenager and made  Portugal  his base. Having failed to secure royal patronage for his planned “enterprise of the Indies” (to reach Asia by sailing west), he went to Spain .

After a time, he secured backing from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and on 3rd August 1492 he set sail across the Atlantic. Ten weeks later, land was sighted. But he was far from Asia. This land was, in fact, what later become known as the Bahamas.

After landing on other islands around the Caribbean  (devastating indigenous populations), Christopher Columbus returned to Spain. Having been made admiral of the Seven Seas and viceroy of the Indies, he undertook three further transatlantic voyages, never reaching the Asian lands he’d originally planned to find.

Christopher Columbus — one of many famous explorers © Shutterstock

When visiting the Caribbean, be sure to check out museums that uncover Christopher Columbus from the perspective of those whose lives he impacted. The  Seville Great House  heritage site in St Ann’s,  Jamaica , for example, is home to an excellently curated history of the region. The exhibition covers the area and its peoples from the indigenous Taíno (who Columbus and his men abused and murdered in their thousands).

Alternatively, if you’re in Genoa, you could take a  guided tour of the city  to see where Christopher Columbus was born and learn more about its history back in his day.

Florence-born Amerigo Vespucci is another name that comes to mind when thinking of world famous explorers.

A merchant and navigator with a well-connected family (they counted the Medici’s among their friends), Vespucci relocated to  Seville  in 1492. Here he worked for Florentine merchant Gianotto Berardi, who invested huge sums of money in Columbus's first voyage. Berardi also won a potentially profitable contract to provision Columbus’s second fleet.

Statue of Amerigo Vespucci on the facade of the Uffizi gallery, Florence © Shutterstock

As for Vespucci’s discoveries, considering that the Americas are named after him, the documentation is surprisingly scant. What is certain is that during the late 1490s he undertook two voyages to the New World. While another two trips have been alleged, the letter-based evidence is patchier, and the documents’ authorship is debated.

During these voyages he did, however, observe that the continent he was exploring was not part of Asia, as was believed at the time. He also explored the coast of modern-day  Brazil , including areas of the  Amazon  and Para Rivers. Strong currents put paid to any plans they may have had to explore deeper.

In 1502, during Vespucci’s second voyage, his fleet found a bay that they named  Rio de Janeiro  after the date - 1st January.

If you fancy following in Vespucci’s footsteps in South America, check-out our customisable Brazilian trip itineraries  for inspiration. Chances are, you’ll see more of this vast country than Vespucci did during his voyage.

Related articles from the blog

5. Ferdinand Magellan (1480 - 1521)

As famous historical explorers go, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was no stranger to embracing the hazards that often went hand in hand with his profession. 

After an early life as a page to queen consort Eleanor and Manuel I in Lisbon , Magellan jumped ship and sailed on behalf of Spain. This came as a result of Magellan being accused of illegal trading. Manuel I refused to support of Magellan’s plan to find a new spice route by sailing west through South America to Indonesia and India.

Ferdinand Magellan's arrival in the Philippines © Shutterstock

Not one to be deterred, Magellan found favour with Charles V in Spain and secured the funds for a five-ship voyage that set off in 1519. His Spanish crew weren’t best pleased to be taking orders from a Portuguese captain, to say the least. In fact, they mutinied in present-day Argentina .

With one ship destroyed, and another making its way back to Spain, Portuguese explorer dealt with the mutineers (some were beheaded) and gained control of his reduced fleet. After navigating the treacherous channel connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans he and his sickly crew made landfall on the Micronesian island of Guam. There a missing small boat prompted them to kill some of the island’s indigenous people.

A month later, Magellan reached the Philippines . Since an enslaved crew member he’d bought before the voyage could speak the indigenous language, it seems this chap had circumnavigated the globe before Magellan. And Magellan didn’t make it the full way around either. After demanding that local people convert to Christianity, he was killed, leaving his crew to complete the round-the-world voyage without him.

Charles Darwin is undoubtedly one of the world’s most influential European famous explorers. In 1831, aged 22 and fresh out of Cambridge University, Darwin joined the crew of the HMS Beagle to survey the coast of South America.

Rebellion in Río de la Plata, fossils in Bahía Blanca, observations in the Andes and, of course, finches in the Galápagos turned his mind into “a chaos of delight”. Later it paved the way for one of the greatest theories in history: evolution.

Statue of Charles Robert Darwin in Natural History Museum, London © Shutterstock

7. Dr David Livingstone (1813 - 1873) 

Missionary, abolitionist and explorer, Livingstone was vital in the mapping of the African interior. In 1852 he embarked on a four-year expedition to find a route from the upper Zambezi to the coast. Then, in 1855, he was the first European to see Victoria Falls and in May 1856 he became the first European to cross the width of southern Africa.

The legendary meeting between Henry Morton Stanley (left) and David Livingstone in Africa in 1871 © Shutterstock

Ten years later he set out, on what would be his final trip, to locate the source of the Nile. Uncontactable for several months, he was found by Henry Stanley, explorer and journalist, near Lake Tanganyika in 1871. It was here the famous phrase was coined: “Dr Livingstone I presume?”

If you want an unforgettable solo travel experience, perhaps our list of the best places to travel solo can help you decide on the best destination for you.

When it comes to famous world explorers' names, Isabella Bird probably doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Yet this fearless Yorkshire woman definitely deserves to be reckoned among the world’s famous historical explorers.

After a sickly childhood, her adventures began when her doctor advised that she take an overseas trip to improve her health. As a result, Isabella accompanied her cousins to America, on instruction from her clergyman father that she could remain away for as long as her £100 allowance lasted.

1885 hotel porter - Isabella Bird's celebrated photography © Isabella Bird/Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attributio n

The letters Bird wrote home during this trip become the basis of her first book, “An Englishwomen in America”. Following the deaths of her parents, she continued to travel and write to support herself. Her most notable exploration are Hawaii, as described in her second book, “Six Months in the Sandwich Islands”, as they were then known.

Bird later rode 800 miles through the Rocky Mountains  (as desrcibed in “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains”) and explored Asia (as recounted in “Unbeaten tracks in Japan”). She also studied medicine so she could travel as a missionary, and studied photography so she could document her travels.

Eternally defying the conventions of her day, she travelled to India at the age of 60. She later explored China and Korea, with her last book, “The Yangtze Valley and Beyond”, published in 1900.

9. Nellie Bly (1864 - 1922)

In 1888, at the age of 25, Nellie Bly set off to travel the world in 80 days, just like Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg. Her trip took her from New York to London. Then onwards from Calais in France to Brindisi in Italy, Port Said in Egypt, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Penang in  Malaysia ,  Hong Kong ,  San Francisco  and finally back to New York City.

Bly actually completed the journey in 72 days, winning a bet struck with Verne himself. Of this achievement, she declared: “It's not so very much for a woman to do who has the pluck, energy and independence, which characterize many women in this day of push and get-there."

Portrait of adventuress Nellie Bly © Shutterstock

Not only a trail-blazing, record-breaking traveller, Nellie Bly was also a pioneering investigative journalist. She reported on everything from the lives of impoverished working girls in Pittsburgh, to corruption and poor living conditions in Mexico . She also investigated the living conditions and treatment of patients in a New York insane asylum, even faking her own illness in order to be admitted to the asylum.

All that considered, Bly certainly merits a place at the table of famous explorers. And, while it goes without saying that she's a pretty impossible act to follow, if you fancy embarking on an epic solo voyage (or several) of your own, you might want to check out our list of tips for doing exactly that.

10. Freya Stark (1893 - 1993) 

Born in Paris to bohemian parents - a British father and Italian mother - Freya Stark studied Persian and Arabic at the University of London.

At the age of 30 she began her lifelong immersion in the Middle East some four years later when she caught a cargo ship to Beirut. This pivotal trip saw Stark travel widely through Syria in secret (at this time it was under French control). This trip paved the way for a future as one of the most esteemed, knowledgable and famous explorers of the Middle East.

Stamp created in honour of Dame Freya Madeline Stark © Shutterstock

In the coming years Stark trekked into western Iran’s wilderness, areas of which had never been visited by Westerners. In 1934 she voyaged down the Red Sea with the aim of reaching the ancient city of Shabwa, thought to have been the Queen of Sheba’s capital. Though illness curtailed this particular journey, Stark’s exploration of this region resulted in a clutch of seminal books. Later she was awarded with the Royal Geographical Society’s Founder's Gold Medal.

During WWII Stark worked for the British Ministry of Information in Yemen and Cairo, and later travelled extensively through Turkey . She made her last expedition in 1968 (a trip to Afghanistan at the age of 75), though she continued to travel well into her eighties.

11. Matthew Henson (1866 –1955)

As the first person to reach the top of the world, there’s no doubt that intrepid African-American Matthew Henson should be recognised as one of the world’s most famous historical explorers. 

Born in Maryland, where his parents were subjected to attacks from the Ku Klux Klan, Henson was orphaned as a child and set sail as a cabin boy at the tender age of twelve. Under the tutelage of the ship’s Captain Childs, Henson was educated and became an accomplished sailor. He voyaged China, Japan , Africa, and the Russian Arctic seas.

When Childs died, Henson though his seafaring days were over until he met Robert Peary, a US Naval officer and explorer.

Peary took Henson on to assist his next assignment - mapping the jungles of Nicaragua. During this trip, the men formed a lifelong bond. Henson went on to play a pivotal role in Peary’s exploration of the Arctic. He mastered the Inuit language and learned skills that were essential for their survival during their expedition to the North Pole in 1908-09 (Peary’s eighth attempt).

US stamp showing Robert E Peary and Matthew Henson © IgorGolovniov/Shutterstock

Peary was lauded as the first man to reach the North Pole. However, Henson’s account of the final push of this attempt, as recounted in his 1921 memoir “A Negro Explorer at the North Pole”, describes otherwise. Henson rode in the lead sledge, his footprints were first to make their mark at the North Pole, and it was Henson who planted the American flag.

In 1937 the inaccuracy of Peary being deemed the first man to make it to the North Pole was rectified when Henson was made an honorary member of the prestigious Explorers Club of New York. Then in 1946 the US Navy awarded him the same medal they’d issued to Peary. Henson was also later honoured by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower.

12. Jacques Cousteau (1910 -1997) 

In the field of underwater expeditions, famous historical explorers don’t come more well-known than Jacques Cousteau - the researcher, photographer, filmmaker and marine conservationist who co-invented the Aqua-Lung.

Cousteau’s early career in naval aviation was cut short by a car accident, and led to him following his love for the ocean. In the mid-to-late 1930s he worked for the French Navy’s information service, which saw him sent on missions to  Shanghai and Japan.

Jacques Cousteau statue in La Paz, Baja California Sur, northwest Mexico © Shutterstock

In 1943 Cousteau and engineer Emile Gagnan co-created the Aqua-Lung. This breathing apparatus revolutionised underwater exploration by making it possible to stay submerged for longer. A few years later, he showcased his first films, bringing the wonders of the ocean to a far wider audience. He also pioneered the field of underwater archaeological exploration.

Cousteau’s conservation achievements include making a key contribution to restricting commercial whaling, and leading a campaign against the French government’s plan to dump nuclear waste in the Mediterranean Sea.

Hailed as the world’s greatest living explorer by the Guinness Book of World Records, Ranulph Fiennes has led over fifteen gruelling expeditions in the past forty years. He is living proof that intrepid exploration still exists: he led the first hovercraft expedition up the Nile. Also, he was the first to circumnavigate the world along its polar axis – a feat of 52,000 miles, starting in the Antarctic and ending at the North Pole.

In 2003 he completed seven marathons, in seven days, on seven continents, and was the first British pensioner to climb Mount Everest, raising £6.2 million for charity.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes © Foreign and Commonwealth Office

In 1997, lecturer, author and former Rough Guides editor Fran Sandham threw caution to the wind and left his London life to walk 3000 miles across Africa. Remarkably, there was no big plan. There was no big sense of purpose beyond achieving that ambitious goal of traversing the continent in a spirit of adventure, on foot and alone - no sponsors, no strings, no support team. 

Namibia's Skeleton Coast, starting point of Fran Sandham's journey across Africa © Shutterstock

As recounted in  Traversa , Sandham’s boundlessly engaging account of his epic journey, he modelled his route on the Victorian-era "traversas" journeyed by the likes of Henry Morton Stanley and Dr David Livingstone.

Sandham's journey took almost a year. During the journey he was stricken with malaria, and the threat of lions and mines never left his mind. All this demonstrates the human impulse to set out and do things his own way. Traversa suffused in a spirit of joie de vivre, albeit brilliantly tempered by the author's endearing self-deprecating wit.

Modern-day adventurer  Mario Rigby  is surely set to become one of the world's most famous explorers. Born in Turks and Caicos, Rigby grew up in Germany and Canada, where a talent for athletics saw him pursuing a career as a personal trainer. It was an athletics competition in San Salvador that first inspired Rigby’s desire to explore more of the world, and ultimately led to his  Crossing Africa  expedition.

If you are inspired by Mario Rigbys adventures check our list of the world's best backpacking destinations.

Adventure explorer Mario Rigby, Crossing Africa © Quantumtoastmedia/Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

In November 2015 Rigby left Toronto for Cape Town from where his incredible adventure began. An astounding 12,000 km trek north through eight African countries by foot and kayak that saw him reach Cairo in 2018. Contracting malaria, and dodging bullets and wild dogs along the way, Rigby was driven to learn from the people he met along the way. He also committed to share their stories with authentic, respectful realism.

Also a powerful, inspirational advocate for eco-conscious travel, Rigby’s continued adventures help support a number of charities. Among them are the  Rainmaker Enterprise  in Sudan and Toronto-based  My Stand , a mentoring scheme for vulnerable young people.

If you prefer to plan and book your trips without any effort and hassle, use the expertise of our local travel experts to make sure your trip will be just like you dream it to be.

To find more inspiration for your future journeys check our Rough Guides guidebooks and find out all the information you need about your dream destination.

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Header image: map of Columbus's voyage © Shutterstock

Joanne is a Pembrokeshire-born writer with a passion for the nature, cultures and histories of the Caribbean region, especially Dominica. Also passionate about inspiring a love of adventure in young people, she’s the author of several books for children and young adults, hosts international writing workshops, and has written articles on the Caribbean and inspirational community initiatives for Rough Guides. Follow her @JoanneOwen on Twitter and @joanneowenwrites on Instagram.

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Angelina Jolie

During her first trip as Special Envoy for the UN, on a layover in Paris en route to Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, the Hollywood actress noted in her diary that ‘an African man wearing a nice blue suit and a warm smile asked me if I was a journalist. I said, “No, just an American who wants to learn more about Africa .”' That was the Jolie before her dozens of field missions, meeting refugees from Kabul and Darfur as well as the Syria-Iraq border. In Notes from My Travels , she writes: ‘I feel I was not raised to seriously think outside my own country’ and describes her epiphany through exchanges with women in camps, kids begging and market vendors. ‘It will take me a while to recover from this trip and, of course, I hope I never do,’ she remarks on leaving Pakistan. While her column inches may focus on her films, her ex-husbands and her children adopted from all over the world (she has a tattoo on her shoulder of the coordinates of each child’s birthplace), Jolie’s UN work has taken her to more than 40 countries, and she is known to cover all her costs on missions. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said of her work for refugees: ‘I have seen how much they inspire her as she listens to them for hours on end. She has spent many days and nights in camps or at border crossings. I speak on behalf of the world’s refugees to say how grateful we are for her incredible dedication.’

Marie Colvin

With her signature pirate’s patch (she’d lost her eye in a grenade blast in Sri Lanka ), this frontline correspondent defied death numerous times – until she didn’t. In 2012, Colvin was killed in an airstrike while covering the siege of Homs in Syria. Tragically, Marie herself used to say, ‘No story is worth dying for, because there’s no story then'. The American journalist, who reported mostly for The Sunday Times , was known for her swearing, her smoking, her drinking, her PTSD, the La Perla bra she wore under her flak jacket, and her strong belief in the need to bear witness to the atrocities of war from Iraq to Afghanistan, East Timor to Kosovo and Chechnya to Libya. Her writing was spare, incisive, even painful to read. ‘In Basra, they say the day belongs to Iraq; the night to Iran. Iraq’s second city is under siege, and Iranian shells slammed into houses for the 70th successive day yesterday,’ she typed in 1987. Colvin didn’t deny the indecision she sometimes felt; sentiments such as ‘What am I doing?’ in emails to friends were quickly followed by ‘Story incredibly important, though’. ‘Bravery is not being afraid to be afraid,’ she once said. In the foreword to On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin , her sister wrote that she hopes ‘Marie will continue to inspire young women everywhere, as they dream of the difference just one girl can make in the world’.

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah

‘I am an Arab through and through,’ says the queen consort of Jordan, ‘but I am also one who speaks the international language.’ Palestinian by nationality, Rania was born in Kuwait, spent her summers visiting relatives in the West Bank, spoke Arabic at home and English at school. She says she carried hummous sandwiches in her packed lunch, while a classmate brought peanut butter and jam; she imagined theirs would be ‘disgusting’, but when she tried it, she thought it was ‘heavenly’ (a story she wrote down and turned into a children’s’ book, The Sandwich Swap ). It was a small step towards fuelling a desire for east-west exchange and cross-border adventures. She went off to study at the American University in Cairo and was there when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Her family fled to Jordan , she joined them, there hobnobbed with royalty and ended up marrying the future king. In 1999, at the age of 28, she became the youngest queen in the world when her husband took the throne and became King Abdullah II. She has redefined the modern monarch during her world tours of duty — while connecting with nearly five million Instagram and 10.4 million Twitter followers (where her profile reads: ‘a mum and a wife with a really cool day job’). Her charity, the Jordan River Foundation helps rural women find a way to sell their traditional crafts: Queen Rania likes to quote the African proverb: ‘As you educate a woman, you educate the family,’ she says. ‘If you educate the girls, you educate the future.’

Amelia Earhart

It only took a single plane ride at an air show in California and Earhart was hooked: ‘By the time I had got 200 or 300 feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly,’ said the American aviation trailblazer. Working as a truck driver, photographer and stenographer to save for flying lessons, she secured her license and bought a yellow bi-plane she named The Canary , going on to break records, from highest altitude climbs to fastest flights. The gung-ho tomboy teamed up with publicist George Putnam, who she married on his seventh proposal, telling him that marriage is a partnership ‘with dual control’. Some say he turned an average pilot into a legend, but there’s no denying Earhart alone spearheaded her successful attempt to be the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. Her dream of circumnavigating the globe ‘as near its waistline as could be’ led to her last flight. In July 1937, she vanished over the Pacific. She wasn’t yet 40, and was never seen again.

Jane Goodall

‘How could you possibly love travelling 300 days a year,’ asks English primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, 84, ‘when it’s just hotels and meetings, all the lines at security, the terrible pat-you-downs and how they treat you like a criminal?’ Goodall details her flights for the next few months: Bangkok , Taiwan (which she loves), Beijing , Chengdu, Hong Kong , then Greece , Spain and France . She drags around a suitcase she named the Coffin, full of books, a single-cup electrical-heating element and a jar of Marmite, and always carries a stuffed toy monkey called Mr H. Yet the pioneering researcher-turned-activist doesn’t plan to change her schedule any time soon. Her lectures are near-evangelistic, often provoking tears and ovations. ‘They’ve been selling out, sometimes 5,000 seats in one day,’ she says. Goodall was 10, reading Dr Doolittle and Tarzan , when she decided ‘to live with wild animals in Africa’. After school, a friend invited her to Kenya and she worked as a waitress to save up for her boat passage to Mombasa in 1957. There she met the palaeontologist Louis Leakey who gave her the opportunity to work as a chimpanzee researcher, even fast-tracking her place at Cambridge so she would be qualified. She then spent half a century observing the chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania , tearing up the book on what we thought we knew of animal behaviour and inspiring a cultish obsession with our closest relative in the animal kingdom.

Valentina Tereshkova

In 1963, this Russian cosmonaut blasted off in the Vostok 6 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, becoming the first woman in space at only 26. Tereshkova orbited the planet 48 times and flew 1.2 million miles (barely eating, she says, because the tube-fed food was so disgusting). During the three-day mission, she racked up more hours solo in space than all American spacemen combined at the time. Her call sign was Chaika (Russian for seagull), given to her by Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. On her way up, she said: ‘Hey sky, take off your hat, I’m on my way!’ and was reprimanded by Gagarin, who was listening in. He hardly had cause, given that Tereshkova was game enough to continue the odd tradition he had started of peeing on the tyre of the transfer bus to the launch pad. After her landmark mission, she travelled the world before going into politics, and at 81 Tereshkova is still shaping policy as a member of the State Duma. An advocate of women’s rights, she complained that systems and spacesuits were designed by men for men. ‘A bird cannot fly with only one wing,’ she said. ‘Human space flight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women.’ She still dreams about going into space and would agree to a one-way Mars mission in a heartbeat. ‘I am ready,’ she affirms.

Martha Gellhorn

Franklin D Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor so admired the chain-smoking war correspondent’s work that she invited her to live in the White House, which Gellhorn actually did for a while. Imagine that happening in 2019. However, life in Washington DC didn’t quite give Gellhorn her fix. Born in St Louis in 1908 to publicly progressive parents, she started out covering the horrors of the Great Depression and, after bunking down in the White House in 1934, wanted to get back to the battlefields of Vietnam , Nicaragua and the Middle East. Conflict was what made this striking beauty tick. She swung between affairs, most famously with Ernest Hemingway . The pair met in a bar in Key West and did eventually marry (with roast moose for the wedding feast). The early days of their life together were spent covering the Spanish Civil War from Madrid’s frequently shelled Hotel Florida, and they tried to build a home in Cuba, listening to Chopin’s Mazurka in C Major while Gellhorn planted a garden of dahlias, petunias and morning glories. But the relationship didn’t last. Lured back to Europe, she reported on the Blitz and joined British bomber crews on raids over Germany. On D-Day, Gellhorn managed to get ashore while the rest of the press corps – including Hemingway – watched from the sea through binoculars. Her shattering writing certainly brought the wider world home in a new way. She described herself as ‘permanently dislocated – un voyageur sur la terre ’ and worked into her ninth decade, covering the American invasion of Panama in 1989.

Kris Tompkins

The extreme conservationist behind one of the greatest land legacies ever, California-born Tompkins chose to carve out her adult life thousands of miles from home, in Patagonia. ‘We would fly almost every day, in all kinds of weather, scoping out new conservation possibilities. We learned to love the landscape – even more so from above. I would attribute a lot of our understanding of the earth from our thousands of hours of flying together.’ She speaks of ‘we’ a lot, referring to her late second husband Doug Tompkins, who died in 2015. Together she and Doug (who both made their millions separately with outdoor-clothing companies – he as the co-founder of The North Face, Inc and she the ex-CEO of rival Patagonia) tirelessly worked to preserve the pristine wilderness and rainforest on both the Chilean and Argentinian sides of the border. And now she’s pushing on with their land-restoration work, recently donating more than a million acres to the Chilean government chiefly in the Patagonia and Pumalín National Parks. ‘Getting people travelling was absolutely one of our goals; we didn’t make everything private and put a lock on it; we wanted people to get out into the wild and fall in love again. If they think a place is fabulous, then they can’t sit back and do nothing to try to protect it; we need deeply rooted responsibility.’ Curiously, she feels like she came late to travelling: ‘I’m not a very good holiday person. There needs to be a reason for hitting the road, associated with work or teaching me how the earth is degrading.’ Upcoming trips include South Georgia Island, one of her favourite places, and sailing through the Northwest Passage – both cold places, but ‘I have pretty good gear,’ she says, smiling.

Freya Stark

Stark was 100 when she died and it was a life that could not have been richer or fuller. Born in 1893, she chronicled her journeys to remote regions of the Middle East in some of the world’s most poetic travel literature, first visiting French Lebanon in 1927, slipping through a military cordon surrounding the Druze, while carrying ‘a copy of Dante’s Inferno , very little money, a revolver and a fur coat.’ She went on to investigate the mysterious assassins of Persia, became the first Western woman to explore Luristan in Iran , followed the ancient frankincense route, ventured to northern Yemen in 1940 and finally settled to live in Baghdad. She was drawn to remote and risky places, choosing to go alone, and remarking that she found confronting danger a way of 'passing through fear, to the absence of fear'. Her seven languages, mostly self-taught, helped her research an impressive body of work that includes The Valley of the Assassins , The Hadhramaut , Letters from Syria , Beyond Euphrates , Riding to the Tigris and The Minaret of Djam — books that have inspired a generation of travel writers with their evocative descriptions of harems and caravans. After her death in Asolo in north-east Italy , the newspapers referred to her as ' la regina nomade '.

The South Sudanese musician is a traveller in the rawest sense, having been a refugee her entire life. Born on an unknown date around 1983, at the height of the Second Sudanese Civil War, she saw her family torn apart. Aged 10, she lost her mother; her father raped and threatened to kill her. She fled to Khartoum but was repeatedly sexually abused by her employers. When she eventually made it to a refugee camp in Kenya and managed to find her brother, Emmanuel Jal, who had become an acclaimed hip-hop artist, the pair recorded a song called ‘Gua’ (meaning peace in their native Nuer tongue); it reached number one in Kenya. Nyaruach also went public with her life story in War Child , the award-winning documentary focusing on her brother’s time as a child soldier. In 2013, she was invited to Aswan, Egypt, to take part in the Nile Project, which represented the region’s best musicians, culminating in a concert in Cairo. Now a single mother of two living in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Nyaruach is facing travel restrictions, but she and her brother have put out an Afrobeat album, Naath , and are aiming to tour the UK and the USA this year. The music, inspired by traditional folklore, reflects on the resilient culture of their homeland. Nyaruach says that she wants to help prevent women and children of war from losing hope. A hero for our times, surely.

Robyn Davidson

‘Perhaps all Australians have some sense of the desert buried in their psyches,’ says intrepid adventurer Davidson. Her own fascination stemmed from being raised on a cattle station – ‘those early sensual signals of dry air and the smell of arid grass’. She remembers feeling restless, wanting ‘to do something big and challenging’. She moved from Sydney to Alice Springs in 1975, got a job as a waitress and two years later, aged 26, embarked on a nine-month, 1,700-mile trek from the Northern Territory to the coast, across a ‘transcendent landscape’, with her dog and four camels. It was documented in National Geographic , then in her book Tracks (which she wrote at the London home of novelist Doris Lessing) and on the big screen, in the Golden Lion-nominated film starring Mia Wasikowska. Davidson tells of the extreme heat, poisonous snakes and lecherous men – but the journey ends in triumph, swimming with her camels in the Indian Ocean . She was occasionally joined by journalist Rick Smolan, who photographed her progress, and by Eddie, an indigenous man who walked her through the Jameson Ranges. Since Tracks , she has studied and written about nomadic people, and spends several months a year in the Himalayas . She writes hoping her readers too will consider choosing ‘an adventure of the spirit’.

Her hair may have greyed in her early thirties, but Arnold reached the grand age of 99, having spent her long life behind the lens after she was given a $40 Rolleicord camera by a boyfriend. In New York she shot ‘drunken bums sleeping in the Bowery and sun glinting off rope’ and loved it so much she abandoned a medical degree to become the first woman member of the award-winning Magnum agency, where photographers retain full copyright. Raised in Philadelphia by Ukrainian immigrants, Arnold was mostly self-taught, with a dash of guidance from Harper’s Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch. Her photojournalism had a critical social eye, seeking an intimacy with subjects from minority to celebrity, Malcolm X to Marilyn Monroe. When she photographed men, they became ‘flirtatious and fun’ and female subjects felt ‘less as if they’re expected to be in a relationship’. Hers was a life on the road, as seen in the portraits of Mongolian horse trainers, Chinese factory workers, Cuban prostitutes and political prisoners in Russia . When away on assignment she would queue for hours to phone her son. ‘If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given,’ she said.

Laura Dekker

The uniquely determined Dutch-born Dekker is the youngest person to sail solo around the world – she was just 14 when she set off. The challenge to get her out on the water was astonishing in itself: social services tried to stop her because of her age. They went to court and Dekker won; she says those memories keep her up at night more than fears of pirates. The voyage went ahead in 2010, commencing in Gibraltar. What followed were 518 days alone on the 38ft, two-masted Guppy , fitting in her homework and learning to play the flute to pass the time. Every teenage schoolgirl worth her salt read Dekker’s blog, and she celebrated her feat by eating doughnuts on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten before deciding against going home, sailing on to Whangarei, New Zealand the port where she had been born (her parents had moored here two years into a seven-year sailing trip, and she spent her first five years at sea). Dekker turned her experience into a no-gloss documentary, Maidentrip , and a book, One Girl One Dream . And she’s still living on a boat.

Bessie Coleman

Born a decade before the Wright Brothers even attempted flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Coleman became the first African-American woman to hold a pilot’s licence. The daughter of a black mother and a mixed-race father, Coleman laboured in the cotton fields of Texas with her 12 sisters and brothers as a child. But unlike most Americans of that era, she finished high school, then went on to study at Langston University, dropping out only because she could not afford the fees. Later, while working as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop in Chicago , she saw pictures in the newspapers of airforce pilots and started to dream. One of her brothers teased her: ‘You ain’t never goin’ to fly. Not like those women I saw in France’ (he had served in Europe during World War I). That galvanised her completely. After all the American flying schools turned her down, Coleman signed up for French lessons and applied to France ’s most elite flight school – where she learnt to fly, as well as to master stunts such as tailspins. On returning to the USA in 1921, she was unable to become a commercial pilot because of her race and gender and worked as a stunt pilot, declining to appear at any air show that refused entry to blacks. Her motto was ‘No Uncle Tom stuff for me’. She overturned social conventions – smoking cigarettes, heading out without a chaperone – and had ‘plans to establish a flying school and teach the Negro to fly so they will able to serve their country better’, but she died before her dream could be realised. She was killed, aged just 34, during a test flight (her mechanic was piloting), when the plane went into a spin and she fell out of the open cockpit.

Hanli Prinsloo

When record-breaking South African freediver Prinsloo gives talks, she demonstrates the slowing down of her breathing, quite fascinating in itself. She also reminds everyone that every second inhalation we take comes from the ocean. ‘It’s not only the trees that supply our oxygen,’ she says. Unsurprisingly, she prefers to travel by boat than plane, but can’t avoid getting on flights given she teaches the sport all over the world — in the company of whale sharks in Madagascar , humpback whales in the South Pacific and orcas in Norway . But her favourite marine creatures are dolphins: ‘they make eye contact, twirl around you until they’re dizzy with the absolute joy of the connection,’ she says. To stay healthy — critical in this line of work — she ‘pops loads of vitamins, drinks gallons of water’ and to avoid coughs and colds uses Uber rather than public transport (regrettably, she adds). It’s been a long journey from her rural beginnings growing up on a land-locked farm, but from an early age Prinsloo had a dream to become a mermaid (she and her sister even had their own mermaid language). She couldn’t afford to attend university in South Africa, but heard you could study for free in Sweden if you spoke Swedish; she moved there, learnt the language in six months and signed up to study acting in Gothenburg. A college buddy introduced her to freediving and Prinsloo showed promise. On graduation, she moved to the Red Sea to dedicate herself to the sport. After smashing 11 world-bests and notching up a staggering breath-hold of five minutes 39 seconds, she gave up competing. Now her time is split between teaching and running her charity I Am Water, that shows underprivileged children living in coastal communities the wonder of their marine backyard, aiming to educate and rouse the next generation of conservationists. ‘I am terrified of our reckless overfishing,’ she says. ‘We run the risk of literally eating our oceans empty.’ Yet she’s always upbeat and positive: ‘It is a complex situation with many challenges, but also many solutions.’

Cheryl Strayed

Obsessed with travel since she was a ‘kid in elementary school, looking at maps on classroom walls imagining all the ways (her) life would be expanded if (she) got to Australia or New York City or South Africa ’, Strayed grew up without money for plane tickets and hotel rooms. She battled with heroin and a messy divorce. But she managed to notch up the miles on the cheap exploring the US in her 1979 Chevy LUV pickup called Myrtle, which she fitted out with a twin-sized futon. ‘I was very bold sleeping in the back… it wasn’t locked… anyone could have come in… but that helped give me the courage to be out in the wilderness.’ And Strayed (her made-up, adopted name for herself) is best known for finding her escape in the wilderness – hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail – which she wrote about in her New York Times bestseller Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found , later turned into the film starring Reese Witherspoon. Oprah Winfrey even relaunched her Book Club in part to share Strayed’s intelligently, elegantly written memoir. Yes, it is a travelogue, but it’s also an extraordinary message on how travelling, exploring, sheer physical movement can be a balm, can bring about meaningful resolution. ‘Barely a day’s passed (since publishing Wild ) that I haven’t met or received an email from someone who’s said to me, “I went and did this because of you, I hiked the PCT or another trail,”' Strayed says. ‘I’m deeply honoured that people read Wild and do that.’ Now married with two children living in a Prairie Craftsman home in Portland , Oregon, she’s trying to give her family the experiences she wished she’d had growing up. ‘I pull the kids out of school and we go travelling for a couple of months. They’ve been to 27 countries. It’s an important part of their education.’ Upcoming, she vows ‘to return to New Zealand, that’s top of my list,’ and ‘I turned 50 last month, so I’ve promised myself I’m going to get myself to Italy within the year.’

Dian Fossey

The National Geographic image of a passionate intrepid scientist ensconced among the Virunga volcanoes with a family of affectionate mountain gorillas is not the whole truth. Nor is her 1983 book, Gorillas in the Mist , later made into the film in which she was played by Sigourney Weaver. The American primatologist was also known as a bully, intimidating her staff, behaving erratically, traits further exacerbated by her hard drinking habits. Yet she had her admirers – in wonder at her total commitment, call it obsessive, to these majestic animals that were being heavily poached at the time. After travelling extensively throughout Africa , she founded the Karisoke Research Centre and based herself here in Rwanda’s cloud forest. Of her first ever encounter with the species, she was struck by ‘their individuality combined with the shyness of their behaviour’. But her extreme single-mindedness to protect the animals and her unpredictable ways isolated her. Relationships soured with the local community, with fellow researchers and conservationists. Those who cared about her begged her to leave and take up a university position back in the USA. But her calling was too strong. She remained — and was murdered two days after Christmas in 1985 at the age of 48. The exact circumstances of her death still remain unclear, but she had many enemies. Appropriately she lies in the burial ground of her research gorillas, including her favourite, Digit. On her tomb the plaque reads: ‘No one loved gorillas more.’ It might be difficult to love Fossey, but she made the world love gorillas.

Harriet Chalmers Adams

‘I’ve wondered why men have so absolutely monopolised the field of exploration,’ she told The New York Times in 1912. ‘I’ve never found my sex a hinderment; never faced a difficulty which a woman, as well as a man, could not surmount; never felt a fear of danger; never lacked courage to protect myself.’ Adams helped found the Society of Women Geographers after being refused entry to the men-only Explorers Club – despite a lifetime spent on the road. Born in California , this fearless, multilingual photo-journalist’s first forays took her to Mexico when she was 24, followed by a two-year trip from the Andes to the Amazon, and later crossing Haiti by horseback — documenting her travels in National Geographic magazine. Fascinated by tales of migration, she followed Christopher Columbus’s route through the West Indies, the Spanish conquistadores’ crusades into South America and Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage from Spain to the Philippines, as well as covering World War I from the trenches of France . All that squeezed into 61 years; she settled and died in Nice, perhaps at its Mediterranean loveliest, in 1937.

Jeanne Baret

Born in France in 1740, Baret was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe – disguised as a man, of course; at the time women were forbidden on French navy ships. She’d been working as housekeeper to, before becoming the lover of, naturalist Philibert de Commerçon, who’d been invited to join the round-the-world expedition of Commander Louis Antoine de Bougainville. Feigning to be his male valet, and dressed up in loose-fitting clothes, her chest strapped flat with strips of linen, she and De Commerçon set sail on the Étoile in December 1766. For two years they managed to maintain the fiction, no mean feat given there were 116 men on board living in close quarters. Ship journals are contradictory, but there is some suggestion she pronounced herself a eunuch when suspicions were raised about her gender; other accounts hint at violence and rape. Meanwhile, Baret pressed on with her work, particularly because De Commerçon was sickly on board; in Rio de Janeiro , it was she who ventured ashore — plucking a flower to be named after the captain, bougainvillaea. Over the course of the voyage, the pair collected more than 6,000 botanical samples from around the world, disembarking the ship in Mauritius — the circumstances unclear — to continue their botanical studies.

Junko Tabei

In spring 1975, just after the Vietnam War finally drew to a close and as Diane von Furstenberg’s wrap dresses were selling in their millions and Tammy Wynette’s 'Stand By Your Man' was blaring from Roberts Radios across the UK, a 35-year-old, five-foot-tall Japanese climber became the first woman to scale Mount Everest as part of an all-female team she had put together. Think about the more localised context and her achievements are even more brilliant. ‘Back in 1970s Japan , men were the ones to work outside and women were asked just to serve tea,’ she said. Yet against this backdrop, Tabei started the Ladies Climbing Club and worked more than one job to fund expeditions — as an editor of a scientific journal, a piano tutor and teaching English. Funding requests were blanked with responses such as ‘You should be raising children instead'. Which, by the way, she was. As she climbed Everest, back home her daughter turned three (Tabei drew a birthday cake on a postcard and sent it from High Camp). At the summit, she remembered thinking: ‘Oh, I don’t have to climb any more,’ an idea that didn’t last long. She was first woman to notch up the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on each continent. Even after being diagnosed with cancer, she continued to climb. At 76, she had scaled the highest peaks of 76 countries, while promoting sustainable mountaineering and lesser-known climbing areas. She died a year later.

Dervla Murphy

It was soon after her 10th birthday and the gift of a second-hand bicycle from her parents that Murphy resolved to cycle to India . She writes: ‘I have never forgotten the exact spot, on a steep hill near Lismore, where this decision was made. Half-way up, I rather proudly looked at my legs, slowly pushing the pedals around, and the thought came: “If I went on doing this for long enough, I could get to India.”’ That journey, 20 years later, was documented in Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle , passing through Afghanistan (where she says she became ‘Afghanatical’, describing the country as ‘a man after my own heart’) and Pakistan (where she was a guest of the last Wali of Swat Miangul Aurangzeb). Her writing has become unapologetically political: the struggles post-apartheid in South from the Limpopo: Travels Through South Africa ; The Ukimwi Road: From Kenya to Zimbabwe , exploring the impact of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa ; and Visiting Rwanda , reflecting on the 1994 genocide. A prolific writer, at 87 she’s written 24 travel books covering 54 countries, with adventures such as meeting a tiger when cycling through the Nepalese Terai, watching the emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie single-handedly quell a student riot in Addis Ababa and losing her packhorse – panicked by a leopard – camping in the mountains of Cameroon.

Gertrude Bell

Often called a female Lawrence of Arabia, this Englishwoman was arguably much more. Born into wealth and privilege in 1868, Bell read Modern History at Oxford , one of the few subjects women were allowed to study at the time. She headed off on her travels: spending years moving around the Middle East – from Tehran to Jerusalem to Beirut to Damascus – and became fluent in Persian, Arabic, French and German, as well as speaking Italian and Turkish, and holding titles such as Liaison Officer, Correspondent to Cairo and Oriental Secretary for the British government. At the end of the war, Bell was pivotal in drawing up the borders of modern-day Iraq and shaping the country's politics. She has been described as ‘one of the few representatives of His Majesty’s Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection’. A mean mountaineer as well, she also spent time in the Alps , summiting both La Meije and Mont Blanc, and had one peak in the Bernese Oberland, Gertrudspitze, named after her. Praise back in the day was hardly that, such as: she has ‘masculine vigour, hard common sense and practical efficiency – all tempered by feminine charm and a most romantic spirit’. Bell lived out her last days in Baghdad, where she took up again archaeology, founding what became the National Museum of Iraq.

Maureen Wheeler

Wheeler grew up in a housing estate in Belfast , but she had dreams far beyond the borders of Northern Ireland. With her new husband Tony, they hit the hippie trail and backpacked from the UK to Australia in the early 1970s – a wholly different time when Kabul was a must-see, many of Thailand ’s beaches were still undiscovered and Bali had but a few rudimentary hostels. When the couple arrived in Australia they were flat broke with just 27 cents in their pocket, but they’d been inspired by their journey. They set about writing a guidebook, which they called Across Asia on The Cheap , sticking it together around their kitchen table with foul-smelling glue, before trying to peddle it to friends and then bookshops. The year was 1972 and Lonely Planet was born, which was set to become the world’s biggest travel guidebook outfit (35 years later BBC Worldwide bought the publishing company for tens of millions). Maureen never stopped travelling, even when she was at her busiest with the company and with her two children. In fact, she wrote Travel With Children as a shout-out to parents who were hesitant to hit the road with their families, including practical tips and, in the latest edition, travel stories written by her kids. Critically, Lonely Planet carries on the mission that independent travel is easy and doesn’t cost a fortune – and that has inspired millions to haul on a backpack and head off across the world.

Karen Blixen

‘I had a farm in Africa , at the foot of the Ngong Hills…’ is probably one of the most evocative film openings, conjuring up a dreamily romantic view of life in Africa, played out by Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. It was based, of course, on Karen Blixen’s memoir Out of Africa , published under her pen name Isak Dinesen. After an aristocratic upbringing in Denmark , schooled there and in Switzerland , Blixen and her Swedish second cousin, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, moved to Kenya , marrying in Mombasa before heading to the Rift Valley to learn Swahili and set up a coffee plantation: ‘Here at long last one was in a position not to give a damn for all conventions, here was a new kind of freedom which until then one had only found in dreams!’ The dream faded, though – Blixen grew weary of her husband’s long hunting trips and affairs, perhaps contracting syphilis from him, which she suffered from throughout her life. They divorced, but she continued to run the farm, now single-handedly, fighting drought, fire and creditors. She fell in love with the English big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, with whom she travelled all over the country, at her happiest up in the clouds in his de Havilland Gipsy Moth. When his plane crashed, his death, coupled with the failure of the farm, forced Blixen to leave Kenya for good. She was a beguiling conversationalist, husky in voice (she smoked constantly) and with a piercing gaze, and above all was a luminous and prolific writer of books that set travel hearts racing, nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature twice; when Ernest Hemingway won, he suggested it should have gone to her.

Born James in 1926, Morris started his career as a young intelligence officer in Palestine and Italy during World War II and later, as a news journalist, meeting Che Guevara, visiting Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb and reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Of his many scoops, his greatest was Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s Everest climb in May 1953. He received the news of their summiting when James himself was at 23,000ft, dressed in short sleeves, and he scrambled down the mountain to despatch his copy – in code to avoid competitors stealing the story. ‘Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement’ actually meant success. James married, had children, and in 1972, he became Jan, a transition from man to woman documented in Conundrum, a powerful account that sees Jan and her lifelong partner Elizabeth emerging as heroines to lead their close-knit family. Morris’s essays, biographies and novels, including intimate portraits of Trieste, Oxford , New York , Hong Kong and Venice , have shaped our idea of what it is to go abroad, and what it is to belong. The impressive collection A Writer's World: Travels 1950–2000 reflects the life of a compulsive traveller, although during the final stages of her life before she sadly passed away in November 2020, she was mostly ensconced in her converted stable home in north-west Wales , ‘tired of taking my shoes off at airports’.

Annie Smith Peck

Amelia Earhart once toasted her, saying ‘I felt an upstart compared to Miss Peck. [Her] mountain climbing résumé gives me the impression I am just a softie. However, I am somehow comforted by the fact that [she] would make almost anyone appear soft.’ Black-and-white photographs of Peck show her heading off on expeditions wearing veiled hats with a brooch at her collar, before she changes her clothes and is snapped clutching an ice axe on mountain summits and zip-lining the Iguazu River. When the American famously climbed the Matterhorn in 1895 aged 45, the headlines focused on her wearing trousers. Fifteen years later she became the first climber to summit Mount Huascarán in Peru (at the age of 58)— pledging ‘to attain some height where no man had previously stood’. The epitaph of the scholar, suffragist and political activist reads: ‘you have brought uncommon glory to women of all time.’

Sarah Marquis

The 46-year-old Swiss explorer first ran away from home aged six, heading into the woods with her backpack and her father’s dog Sultan. ‘I was always a wild kid, the weirdo of the family,’ Marquis says. ‘My mum once called the police. They found me about an hour’s walk away. I’d spent the night in a cave full of bats.’ Marquis has turned that weirdness into a career — as a speaker and writer, recently nominated as National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. She’s not a scientist but likes to have a fact-finding mission to her expeditions, because ‘we need nature today more than ever.’ Her last trip was three months solo walking the west coast of Tasmania , collecting data on plant life for the Australian government; while there, she fell down a gorge, broke a shoulder and continued to carry her 35kg backpack on it for the next three days. Next she’s off to northern Canada to train for an upcoming expedition — by contrast, this time in the desert. The common theme is that she prefers to be alone. ‘I’m not good with teams,’ she admits. ‘People ask me: are you scared? and I say ‘of what?’. When she occasionally returns home, she retreats to a small cabin in the Swiss Alps — before she hears again the call of the wild. ‘I’ve explored our darkest corners through pain and fear,’ she says, ‘and I deal with the things that we don’t want to deal with because that’s what makes you powerful.’

Cristina Mittermeier

From small-town middle-class Mexico , her only travels as a child were once a year to Disneyland in Los Angeles but she was inspired to go further after reading the novels of Emilio Salgari, who ‘painted a picture of places that struck my imagination’. Mittermeier went on to study marine biology, imagining it would be more about ‘pirate ships and swimming with dolphins’ than the realities of ‘fisheries and exploitation’, a strange start for a woman who now runs SeaLegacy, the powerful ocean conservation non-profit. It’s been a long journey. In fact, for this award-winning 52-year-old photographer, it’s extraordinary to think she didn’t pick up a camera till she was 24. Then married to the president of Conservation International whose trips took them all around the world, she borrowed his camera and took a first snap of an indigenous community in Brazil which turned out to become the outside advertising banner for an Amazonian art exhibition at the Natural History Museum of Houston. She went back to school to study fine-art photography, while following her husband with their family to more than 100 countries. Then she started her own expeditions, established the International League of Conservation Photographers and now spends only a couple of months a year at home on Vancouver Island with her partner Paul Nicklen, also a marine biologist and photographer. The rest of the time they’re on the road posting for their millions of Instagram followers . Her latest book, Amaze , is just that, a 250-page book showcasing indigenous people from Ethiopia to Papua New Guinea to Greenland .

Noo Saro-Wiwa

This 42-year-old Nigerian writer grew up in Surrey , which she describes as ‘a bountiful paradise of Twix bars and TV cartoons and leylandii trees, far removed from the heat and chaos of Nigeria’ where you see ‘machine guns, tuxedos, army fatigues and evening frocks together at an airport.’ Her book Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria , is a brave first foray into travel literature; Noo’s father Ken Saro-Wiwa, who campaigned against government corruption, was executed by the military dictatorship of his country in 1995. Noo had spent childhood summers in Port Harcourt on the Niger Delta but after this, she didn’t return for 10 years (except for his funeral and burial), wanting nothing more to do with the country. But in time she began tackling the subject of homeland, the same way she’d approached writing guidebooks (on Ivory Coast, Guinea, Madagascar , Benin, Ghana and Togo for Lonely Planet and Rough Guides) and writes that she came ‘to love many things about Nigeria: our indigenous heritage, the dances, the masks, the music, the baobab trees and the drill monkeys’. ‘I’ve been amazed by how many people have written to me and told me they knew nothing about Nigeria and how I opened their eyes,’ she says. ‘I feel I have a responsibility there.’ She’s now penning a book about Africans who live in China , a country she’s fallen in love with (‘after China, everything feels very boring,’ she says), then plans one on the Niger Delta, followed by Switzerland , which she calls ‘the heart of darkness of Europe’.

Anisa Kamadoli Costa

A rooted New Yorker in every way, down to her immigrant parents (Costa’s mother is from Maharashtra, her father from Karnataka in India ), the Tiffany & Co Chief Sustainability Officer isn’t just sitting comfortably with her feet up on a Fifth Avenue mahogany desk. She spends at least half of the year on the road, personally overseeing her projects for the Tiffany & Co Foundation: opposing a proposed mine on Alaska’s Bristol Bay that would sit at the headwaters of one of the world’s greatest salmon fisheries and leading journalists to the Great Barrier Reef to raise awareness of ocean conservation. ‘Most people just don’t consider how important the oceans are to the world,’ Costa says. Her background includes stints at the US Mission to the United Nations and working for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund with the goal of ‘making sure Americans travel more’. She has spearheaded Tiffany’s support of the virtual-reality film Valen’s Reef about Indonesia’s Raja Ampat marine life (where 75 per cent of the planet’s coral species can be found) and champions the company’s ecological commitment, with all the profits from dedicated jewellery lines funding conservation projects. ‘When I travel I always try to think about the place as a whole, rather than just its airport code,’ she says.

Our 'Women Who Travel' Facebook Group – 120k-strong and growing fast – helped select the final line-up. Join the group and the conversation at facebook.com/groups/womenwhotraveltheworld .

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The 100 Most Inspirational Travel Quotes Of All Time

• Quotes , Travel Tips
• November 8, 2020 November 17, 2020
• 12 min read

If you’re planning a holiday, fighting post-trip blues, or just scrolling through instagram travel photos, you can be sure there’s a quote about traveling out there that hits the spot for you.

Travel quotes to discover yourself, travel quotes to motivate your next journey, fantastic travel quotes to drive you to live your best life and more. We can all relate to inspirational travel quotes, making them so fun to read.

In this article, I gathered some of the most popular travel quotes (and my personal favourites). I hope you’ll find these incredible travel quotes inspiring, and they’ll make you want to go out and see the world.

Famous travel quotes

1. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”–Andre Gide

2. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” – Helen Keller

3. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

4. “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.” – Mohammed

5. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” –Mark Twain

6. “Surely, of all the wonders of the world, the horizon is the greatest.” – Freya Stark

7. “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

8. “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu 

9. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign” – Robert Louis Stevenson

10. “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” –Saint Augustine

11. “Life is meant for good friends and great adventures” – Anonymous

12. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” –Susan Sontag

13. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by” —Robert Frost

14. “Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.” –Dalai Lama

15. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” –Tim Cahill

16. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”  – Anita Desai

17. “Don’t listen to what they say. Go see.”-Anonymous

18. “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle

19. “Collect Moment, Not Things.”-Anonymous

20. “Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” – Lovelle Drachman

21. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment.” — Hilaire Belloc

22. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

23. “I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” ― Melody Truong

24. “This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one.” – Paulo Coelho

25. “If we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet” – Rachel Wolchin

26. “Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” – Michael Palin

27. “We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” – Ray Bradbury

28. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.” ― Mark Twain

29. “People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck

30. “Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” – Paulo Coelho

31. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

32. “I travel because it makes me realize how much I haven’t seen, how much I’m not going to see, and how much I still need to see.” – Carew Papritz

33. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd

34. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett

35. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

36. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

37. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”― David Mitchell

38. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley

39. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu

40. “Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?” – Caroline Myss

41. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anonymous

42. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” ― Jack Kerouac

43. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

44. “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret” – Oscar Wilde

45. “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous

46. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” –Randy Komisar

47. “I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth, then I ask myself the same question.” –Harun Yahya

48. “Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.” –Unknown

49. “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

50. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

51. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin

52. “No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” – Chuck Thompson

53. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

54. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

55. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de St. Exupery

56. “To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

57. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination with reality, and instead of thinking of how things may be, see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson

58. “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Saint Augustine

59. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

60. “With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.” – Sandra Lake

61. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anonymous

62. “Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” — Peter Hoeg

63. “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor

64. “When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.” – Clint Borgen

65. “The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” – Shirley MacLaine

66. “I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” – Caskie Stinnett

67. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman

68. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost

69. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville

70. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

71. “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” — Lawrence Block

72. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley

73. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

74. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comforts of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things — air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky. All things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

75. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” – Randy Komisar

76. “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson

77. “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen

78. “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do — especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

79. “Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse.” – Thomas Fuller

80. “When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller

81. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” – David Mitchell

82. “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” – Stephen Covey

83. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” – Anita Desai

84. “We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” – Ray Bradbury

85. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

86. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” -Antoine de St. Exupery

87. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” – Randy Komisar

88. No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang

89. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” -Jack Kerouac

90. “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” -Benjamin Disraeli

91. “Own only what you can always carry with you: known languages, known countries, known people. Let your memory be your travel bag” -Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

92. “When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.”   -Susan Heller

93. “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

94. “Conventional wisdom tells us… we take our baggage with us. I’m not so sure. Travel, at its best, transforms us in ways that aren’t always apparent until we’re back home. Sometimes we do leave our baggage behind, or, even better, it’s misrouted to Cleveland and is never heard from again.”   -Eric Weiner

95. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” -Robert Frost

96. “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” – Jack Kerouac

97. “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.” – Anthony Bourdain

98. “At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to rethink our assumptions, shake us a bit, make us broader minded and more understanding.” –Arthur Frommer

99. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” -Oscar Wilde

100. “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret” -Oscar Wilde

It’s not a matter of where, but when. Time is precious and my time spent living and experience the cultures of this world is what I lust for. This is why I created this website, to share true, genuine experiences and not just typical touristy info. Travel, the love of coffee , and food!

The 69 Greatest Fiction Travel Books of All Time

First things first, you may be thinking: what is a fiction travel book, anyway well, here's what we think: it's a book in which a place is as important a character as the protagonist; it's a book so informed by the writer's culture that it's impossible to read it without uncovering the life of the author behind it; it's a book that has shaped the way we see a certain place; it's a book whose events and characters could be set nowhere else. so for everyone who, like michael ondaatje, got his first glimpse of japan through yasunari kawabata's snow country; or, like nathan englander, found india in rohinton mistry's a fine balance; or discovered the world through homer's odyssey—this is the list to have. read on..

Absurdistan

Gary Shteyngart (2006)

"It's probably the best contemporary travel novel," says Darin Strauss. "Certainly the most fun." The Russian immigrant's second book tops his first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, in screwball inventiveness, with a gluttonous character in the slothful tradition of Oblomov who (sometimes literally) flies over the Bronx and hails from an autonomous ex-Soviet republic that could exist only in Shteyngart's mind. "The sweep," Strauss says, "is matched only by the humor and exuberance of the prose" (Random House, $14).

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain (1885)

Huck and Jim's "downstream education," as Jonathan Raban puts it, is important for numerous reasons, but alongside its lessons in the American vernacular and the history of race, there is the canonization of the Mississippi. "The idea of the river as America's first great interstate arterial highway, at once a place of magical solitude in nature and of fraught encounters with society, survives even now," says Raban (Bantam, $6).

The Alexandria Quartet

Lawrence Durrell (1957-1960)

These four novels come as a set, with different perspectives on essentially the same forlorn story. They "play with time and point of view like a Charlie Kaufman script," says Darin Strauss, but "are worth reading not for their gimmickry—supposedly based on the theories of Einstein and Freud—but for their lush descriptions of Egypt. Durell was more famous as a poet than a novelist, and his pointillist evocations of Alexandria are breathtaking" (Penguin; set, $45).

Jim Crace (1992)

Inspired by London, the unnamed city of the master novelist's morality tale about a self-made millionaire and his utopian dreams almost upstages the Dickensian struggles at its heart. "There is so much life and strife and detail," says Amy Bloom. "An entire world has been conjured up, street by street, an imagined city with every cobblestone and desire and character made real" (out-of-print).

The Baron in the Trees

Italo Calvino (1977)

Imagine John Cheever's swimmer traveling via tree instead of suburban pool—for his entire life—and you have Calvino's fairy tale of an eighteenth-century Italian boy who climbs a tree one day and never comes down. Michael Ondaatje calls this world "a thrilling, unforgettable universe, beautifully evoked, completely real and believable—a landscape where there are great adventures and love affairs and politics and wars" (Harvest, $14).

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler (1939)

This caper redefined the city that W. H. Auden called "the great wrong place" and which Phillip Lopate dubs "the city that didn't want to be a city." Lopate loves that, contrary to its bright reputation, Chandler's Los Angeles is "portrayed as a very occult, secretive place." "Don't expect sunshine and palm trees," seconds David Ebershoff. "His L.A. is a shadowland—damp with fog, dark with night, and peopled with killers and cons" (Vintage, $14).

Prosper Mérimée (1841)

In the lamentably obscure French writer's most accomplished novel, a jaded colonel and his daughter journey to Corsica in search of untouched paradise, only to become immersed in international intrigue, culture clash, and a still-thriving ancient tradition of the vendetta. Fernanda Eberstadt calls it "a shrewd, dispassionate portrait of nineteenth-century Corsica" (Kessinger, $21).

Come to Africa and Save Your Marriage

Maria Thomas (1987)

This story collection is one of only three books by Thomas, who died in a 1989 plane crash en route to an Ethiopian refugee camp. Thomas wrote, "A language you don't understand reminds you how vulnerable you are," and it's through her writing and our own journeys, says Julia Alvarez, that "we discover that it is precisely this vulnerability which connects us with one another—a good enough reason to travel if nothing else" (Soho, $12).

Cousin Bette

Honoré de Balzac (1846)

Phillip Lopate says that his favorite Balzac novel, and what it has to say about life, are summarized in a single sentence from the book: "In the heart of Paris the close alliance between squalor and splendor…characterizes the queen of capitals." There's also Balzac's use of the courtesan, "the figure who threads her way through Paris and unites wealth and poverty by beauty." For this "cartographer of cities and societies," as Lopate calls him, the geography is just as important as the social intrigue (Oxford, $12).

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866)

This map of the soul of modern man is also not too shabby at nailing St. Petersburg's crooked canals and alleyways. It inspires daily tours in the city, which has changed tremendously since the fall of communism—though not as much as you'd think. Francine Prose says that, beyond Nevsky Prospect and its Versace stores, "it's still the same. You feel Crime and Punishment all over the place" (Vintage, $16).

The Day of Judgment

Salvatorre Satta (1979)

Satta's posthumously published novel gets deep inside Sardinia at a time (a century ago) when it was a backwater, and his depiction of its "demoniacal sadness" is hardly the stuff of tourist brochures. Such inertia means a listless plot, but for Colin Thubron, the author's observations of "timeless, eccentric lives" make it worthy on its own terms (FSG, $14).

The Day of the Locust

Nathanael West (1939)

Drawing on West's stint as a screenwriter in Depression-era Hollywood, this iconic farce was fated to be repeated as noir in the Chandler era. "His L.A. is a hysteric pleasure dome that teems with grotesqueries and perversity," says Nathaniel Rich. "Ever since I read it, I can't go to L.A. without thinking of cockfighting" (Signet, $7).

Dead Lagoon

Michael Dibdin (1995)

This is the fifth in Dibdin's Aurelio Zen mystery series but the first in which the investigator from Rome revisits his native town. "Venice is a marvel," says Jonathan Raban. "A familiar place rendered strange and foreboding by the author's intimate familiarity with its streets—no gondolas for the pedestrian Zen. I greatly admire Thomas Mann, but it's the Venice of Dead Lagoon that I walk in my Italian dreams" (Vintage, $14).

Death in Venice

Thomas Mann (1912)

Tied for second place on our list of most-nominated books, this dark classic of pederast obsession resonates brilliantly with its setting. "Gray Venice in the high season, with its humid air and empty corridors, amplifies the story's meaning by a thousand," says David Ebershoff. "This small book is both a warning and a love letter to Venice and all who long to travel there. Heartbreak, decay, lethal regret? Sign me up." Also nominated by: Francine Prose, Jennifer Belle (HarperPerennial, $13).

Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes (1605)

How many travelers, seduced by fictional narratives, have flown to exotic destinations only to discover how comically pedestrian and daunting life can be no matter where they go? Quixote, besotted as he was with tales of chivalry, was the first to do that—even if it took a bit longer, in his case, for disillusion to set in. Nominated by: Matthew Sharpe (Penguin, $12).

The Epic of Gilgamesh

(circa 2500 B.C.)

There are many translations of the world's oldest epic poem (sorry, Homer), but Julia Alvarez recommends Herbert Mason's version of the story, in which the titular great king, inconsolable over a friend's death, goes off in search of "immortality and a way to keep loss at bay." Alvarez likes the tip he gets from a barmaid, "good advice for any traveler: 'Fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice' " (Mariner, $9).

Far Tortuga

Peter Matthiessen (1975)

Perhaps better known as a phenomenal travel memoirist, Matthiessen also wrote fiction as adventurous as its hardscrabble characters. In this elegy for a dying ecology and a dying livelihood, a boatful of turtle fishermen roam across the overfished Bahamas, riffing one another in pidgin dialects between encounters with near disaster and modern pirates. Nominated by: Michael Ondaatje (Vintage, $17).

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry (1995)

Mistry manages his own fine balance between detail and scope in this Mumbai-set novel. "Few have taken us beneath India's intense surfaces and into its forgotten streets with the quiet, patient care of its native son," says Pico Iyer. "Going on a train ride with Mistry is amazing," adds Nathan Englander. "You can feel the people packed in and the lunch tins and the swarming city. It could be among my top five books of the last 25 years" (Vintage, $16).

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway (1940)

This taciturn tale of stoic warriors ground down by the Spanish Civil War reminds us, says Peter Hessler, that "Hemingway was a remarkable landscape writer. Sometimes this can be forgotten because we tend to focus on other—and more easily parodied—subjects and interests" (Scribner, $15).

Good Morning, Midnight

Jean Rhys (1939)

Decades before the Caribbean-born British writer became acclaimed for Wide Sargasso Sea, she evoked Paris through a glass very darkly in this first-person tale of a woman's melancholy return to the city. "This book transports me to Paris like no other book can," says Jennifer Belle. "In fact, I feel more like I'm in Paris when reading this book than when I'm actually in Paris" (Norton, $14).

A Hazard of New Fortunes

William Dean Howells (1890)

The critic Alfred Kazin credited Howells, onetime editor of Boston's Atlantic Monthly, with tilting the axis of literature south, to New York, when he moved there in the 1880s. His fictionalized account of the move was "about a city at a moment when it's bursting with promise," says Phillip Lopate, who wrote the introduction to this edition. Protagonist Basil March's encounters with teeming immigrant New York shift his politics, just as it turned Howells into a champion of the masses (Modern Library, $15).

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad (1902)

Not enough can be said of the influence of this imagined trip to the Congo. "Conrad established a genre in this novel," says Alexander McCall Smith, "and since then many writers have contributed to the canon of spiritually bleak, uncomfortable journeys into dark places. Unfortunately, it has established a mold for many a subsequent despairing literary vision of Africa" (Norton, $12).

A High Wind in Jamaica

Richard Hughes (1929)

Hughes's tale of warped children set upon by pirates reads like Lord of the Flies, but with irony. Nathaniel Rich relishes its depictions of Jamaica as "a country in the last throes of a losing battle with nature," while Jesse Ball loves what happens after the kids leave the island and hit the waters: "This book of books invests everything it touches with an indefinite but shimmering brilliance. Do you want to be hauled off by force along with your brothers and sisters? I do!" (NYRB, $14).

Julio Cortázar (1963)

The Argentine-Parisian novelist's very strangely structured novel—complete with contradictory instructions on how to read it—boils down to an evocative story of a man's obsession with a disappeared lover. Horacio Castellanos Moya reports that several generations of Latin American readers have gone to Paris primarily "to repeat the enchanting journey of Cortázar's fictional characters through the city. Warning: That journey ends in the cemetery of Montparnasse, where the author is buried" (Pantheon, $17).

A House for Mr. Biswas

V. S. Naipaul (1961)

Naipaul's breakthrough book, and arguably his best, is a travel novel writ large in that it tracks a whole culture in diaspora. Naipaul's Trinidad "kept reminding me of the India I grew up in," says Manil Suri. "And yet, it was different in so many ways—a tantalizing new universe waiting to be explored, to see how Indian culture had taken root and evolved on this faraway shore" (Vintage, $16).

The Inheritance of Loss

Kiran Desai (2006)

Desai's Booker Prize-winning novel of two generations straddling continents struck Phillip Lopate for its scenes of New York kitchens, "the new melting pot" of the city where struggling immigrants rub soiled shoulders. "It's really about two places," he says—New York City and an Indian backwater. "And so she keeps going back and forth between these two, and she's really writing about globalization" (Grove, $14).

Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1934)

Wherever anti-hero Ferdinand Bardamu goes—World War I battlefields, French West Africa, the United States—Céline's unforgettably dark, caustic voice is there. Matthew Sharpe prefers the novel's less realistic moments: "There is, in Manhattan, a subterranean club where people go to defecate out in the open while conversing, smoking cigars, etc. Were some generous soul in real life to make the initial capital outlay for such a club, I would gladly be a founding member" (New Directions, $16).

D. H. Lawrence (1923)

Lawrence wrote this novel about a British émigré's encounter Down Under with a secret Fascist army after visiting for only a few weeks. "Lawrence is famously, furiously unfair at every turn—impatient, subjective, all over the place," says Pico Iyer. "Yet no writer had a keener nose or feel for place. Even now, when I return to Australia, the best guidebook I can find is this excessive and inflamed novel" (Cambridge, $60).

Banana Yoshimoto (1988)

Yoshimoto's interwoven family narratives make a new generation of Japanese life accessible to the rest of us. "If someone asks me if I've ever been to Japan, I have to think for a moment," says Jennifer Belle. "Thanks to Yoshimoto, I could swear I've been there. I could almost feel the tonkatsu between my chopsticks, see it sloshing into the dark brown sauce, taste it between my lips" (Black Cat, $13).

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D. H. Lawrence (1929)

Fernanda Eberstadt couldn't resist including Lawrence's novel, which, you must admit, goes places few others dare. She calls the author "the Van Gogh of travel writers, virulently moralistic, every nerve ending hallucinogenically receptive to light, landscape, vegetation, and the human characteristics forged by climate. It's not just a novel about anal sex: It's a great love poem to that most unloved of regions, the British Midlands" (Penguin, $14).

Life and Fate

Vasily Grossman (1959)

The dissident Soviet novelist's take on the Battle of Stalingrad—a book considered so dangerous that authorities destroyed the typewriter ribbons along with the manuscript—is "a very complex and ambitious novel," says Horacio Castellanos Moya, "but I think that the Volga River region itself is the main character." Reading it inspired him to find the Volga on Google Earth, "the first time I did that because of a novel" (NYRB, $23).

Little Infamies

Panos Karnezis (2002)

Karnezis, who moved from Greece to England 16 years ago, manages in these stories to skewer his homeland's inhabitants with a light touch. "He depicts the intricately and hilariously knitted world of a small Greek village so well," says Marisa Silver, "that it makes me want to find such a village and spend time there, meeting the priest and the doctor, the town whore and the barber" (Picador, $14).

The Little Sister

Raymond Chandler (1949)

California was an endless fount of "metaphors and parables" for Chandler, says Pico Iyer, but he likes this underrated caper because it's here that "his chivalric impulse leads him to Hollywood, and the ultimate palace of illusions and similes, which was for him an emblem of a grasping and seductive new world" (Vintage, $13).

Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Once you get over the shock and the word games and the descriptive genius of this masterwork, you're ready for its cross-country trip into a land as dazzlingly innocent to Humbert as his young charge. "We often forget that the second half of this book is a road-trip novel," says Darin Strauss, "with the old foreign perv and the young nymphet discovering America" (Vintage, $14).

Marguerite Duras (1984)

What is it with travel and age-inappropriate relationships? Duras's novel about a French girl's seduction of a gentleman in '30s Saigon was Marisa Silver's ultimate travel fantasy: "The sensual, palpable languor of a city filled with secrets makes me want to hunt for modern Vietnam's hidden seductions" (Pantheon, $10).

Jamaica Kincaid (1990)

This spare novel about an au pair from the West Indies in an unnamed city that's unmistakably New York made Jennifer Belle see her town "as if for the first time. Through fresh eyes we see an elevator, a bridge, the winter sun." And in Lucy's memories, Barbados shimmers too. "By showing us the artificial smell of lemon-scented shampoo in America, we experience the freshness of a real lemon in her native land" (FSG, $13).

The Makioka Sisters

Junichiro Tanizaki (1948)

"It has a last line so bad that it's amazing," Nathan Englander warns about Tanizaki's chronicle of a declining noble Osaka family on the brink of both personal and national disaster. "But in terms of Osaka, it's just gorgeous. A beautiful wooden city that you know is going to be bombed [during World War II]. . . . It's this idea of reading a book set right before the end of the world" (Vintage, $16).

The Man Without Qualities

Robert Musil (1930-1942)

Some trips are longer than others, but Musil's never-finished 1,700-plus-page masterwork is worth the slog for its deep (yet funny) study of a shallow world. "To Musil, nothing was as absurd as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Vienna was the whipped cream heart of its absurdity," says Fernanda Eberstadt. "A zany tour of turn-of-the-century Vienna's bluestocking suburbs, its imperial hunting lodges, its working-class beer halls" (Vintage, Vol. 1: $22; Vol. 2: $26).

James Galvin (1992)

Heavily based in fact, Galvin's description of what four men did to tame an inaccessible piece of wilderness on the Wyoming-Colorado border is "an extended ode to an American West that is by now largely gone," says Jonathan Burnham Schwartz. The land is the main subject, and "Galvin knows it with an intimacy so deep it can only be imagined; he knows it like family, all its buried pains and stories" (Owl, $14).

Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie (1980)

So many things are extraordinary about Rushdie's masterpiece of magical realism, in which fantasy and metaphor speak for a giant nation's post-colonial history, but Junot Díaz takes from it the lesson that the highest flights of imagination start with making places real. "Who can match Rushdie's fictional evocation of Bombay?" he asks. "In his lying is found much truth" (Random House, $15).

Martin Amis (1985)

Of all the writers to capture what was so very fast, exciting, and wrong about the eighties, Londoner Amis had one odd advantage: He was a self-styled outsider, like his ad-man narrator, John Self. Darin Strauss believes Self "understands New York in the eighties—and gets even those timeless qualities about the city's energy and indifference—in a way that only someone who's looking at it with a foreigner's peeled-eyeball curiosity could" (Penguin, $15).

André Breton (1928)

Breton's work of high surrealism, about a Parisian psychiatric patient with a serious identity crisis, has inspired many writers, including Jesse Ball. "Of books that circle Paris, that define it, that lay it on a thin spoon beside a dram of poison, there are a few," he says. "This book invests it with a great feeling of life, of chance—the whispering of curtains, footsteps, lights in the street, the calling out of voices in the night—in reply to what?" (Grove, $13).

Don DeLillo (1982)

DeLillo's first truly paranoid novel is also his first serious venture abroad—to Greece and the Middle East, where "businesspeople in transit" collude with intelligence services to make sure things go their way. Geoff Dyer calls it "a great and prophetic novel" but also "a fantastic travel essay, dense with amazed delight at the incidents and textures of this ancient and rapidly modernizing world" (Vintage, $15).

Joseph Conrad (1904)

Peter Hessler praises this book for giving "a remarkable sense of the Sulaco landscape"—its rocky peninsula and silent gulf ringed by mountains. It's an entirely made-up place, in a fictional South American country on the verge of revolution. But Hessler considers it "probably the most famous instance of how travel can inspire the creation of a place that feels more authentic than anything we see as tourists" (Penguin, $14).

The Odessa Tales

Isaac Babel (1920s)

The great Russian Jewish writer wrote fantastic war stories before he was killed by Stalin, but these tales of Jewish gangsters in Babel's birthplace make Nathan Englander feel almost certain he's been there. "I can see the overturned market or the guy in his wheelchair," he says. "The highest compliment a writer can get is when you recognize something in your memory but don't remember whether you've ever been to that place" (in Collected Stories; Penguin, $17).

The Odyssey

Homer (circa 750 B.C.)

Unsurprisingly, the book that made travel synonymous with literature when both were in their prehistory earns the most nominations from our writers. For Matthew Sharpe, it brings to mind a cascade of cultural successors: "Hansel and Gretel," E.T., and his favorite number by Steely Dan, which he quotes ("Still I remain tied to the mast . . ."). David Ebershoff simply calls it "the greatest work of travel literature. Period. Without this book, would we have any of the books on this list?" Also nominated by: Jonathan Raban, Marisa Silver (Penguin, $15).

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

Macondo, the fictional setting of García Márquez's magical-realist magnum opus spanning Colombian history, has become such a vivid location in the minds of millions of readers—"everybody's fictional place," as Francine Prose puts it—that García Márquez's hometown actually tried to add Macondo to its name two years ago. Colum McCann says, "The imagination feels awakened with every word" (Harper Perennial, $15).

On the Road

Jack Kerouac (1957)

Alexander McCall Smith calls Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness road novel "a book to read when one is about eighteen," but here's a good reason for another look: last year's release of the even more unbridled "scroll" version, drawn from the 120-foot roll of paper on which Kerouac originally wrote it out. "The physical manuscript came to stand for the journey itself—long and rolling," says Smith. "This novel goes to the very heart of American restlessness" (Penguin, $15).

The Passion

Jeanette Winterson (1987)

Napoleon's cook, not at all thrilled with his posting in bleak wintertime Russia, falls in love with a mysterious Venetian web-footed female gondolier in the British writer's surreal and dazzling second novel. Myla Goldberg says it "made me want to go to Venice more than anything, and once I got there, Winterson's fantastical version added invaluable, invisible dimensions to the experience" (Grove, $13).

John Steinbeck (1947)

Steinbeck's otherwise timeless and placeless fable, in which an impoverished Mexican pearl diver unwittingly brings ruin on his family after pulling up the largest pearl known to man, is grounded in its beautiful landscape. "Yellow, brown, orange, white—these are the colors of Baja California," says David Ebershoff. "Their purity, their earthiness, are reflected in Steinbeck's simple prose and simple, devastating tale" (Penguin, $14).

Albert Camus (1947)

The Oran of Camus's novel, whose inhabitants are tested in the worst ways by a gruesome epidemic, is an actual Algerian city but feels so archetypal that Nathan Englander originally thought it was fictional. "It's a holy place to me, it's in my pantheon," says Englander, despite the horrors Camus depicts. "To literally lock the gates of the city—that's wonderful to me as a reader, and an excellent education as a novelist" (Vintage, $13).

The Professor's House

Willa Cather (1925)

Jane Hamilton treasures Cather because she "doesn't know another writer who has that power to transport us to the natural world," in this case America's great prairies. But it's the setting of Colorado's Mesa Verde in her melancholy seventh novel, "before it was discovered, before it was a destination," that appeals most. "She makes plain the grace of solitude in a place that is at once the loneliest spot and yet so strangely peopled" (Vintage, $13).

The Quiet American

Graham Greene (1955)

Greene's prescient Vietnam novel "captures the beauty, loneliness, and moral complexity of the expat experience," says Myla Goldberg, "and presents pre-war Vietnam as a fascinating and terrifying triangle of geography, politics, and history." Pico Iyer believes the place "brought out the heartbroken poet" in Greene, who "caught much in the country that might move a traveler today. Saigon, for all its new-generation motorbikes and frenzy, in its shadows and corners remains part of the Greene zone" (Penguin, $14).

The Raj Quartet

Paul Scott (1966-1974)

One way to understand India would be to look back at how it was constructed—and deconstructed—on the eve of independence, and Paul Scott's four epic novels fix and dramatize the lost world of British India like no others. "They provoke interest in a culture that no longer exists but in a place that does," says Ann Packer (Everyman's; each two-volume set, $33).

Redburn, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick

Herman Melville (1849-1851)

In three years, Melville produced possibly the world's three greatest seagoing novels. But aside from Bartleby, his work isn't generally associated with his home port of New York. Phillip Lopate finds astonishing detail in the Manhattan-based openings of both Moby-Dick and his lesser-known novel, Redburn, which has the added bonus of "great scenes in Liverpool" (Library of America, $40).

The Savage Detectives

Roberto Bolaño (1998)

Like W. G. Sebald, Bolaño died in middle age on the verge of enormous international acclaim. But his equally mind-bending fictional journeys are shaggier and more exuberant. Here, a radical group of Mexico City literati calling themselves Visceral Realists threaten the social order before scattering across the world—to Barcelona, Perpignan, Nicaragua—and later returning to their native country. Francine Prose says that she can no longer visit Mexico City without seeing writer-revolutionaries everywhere (Picador, $15).

The Sheltering Sky

Paul Bowles (1949)

One of the three books our authors cited most, Bowles's hallucinatory novel is "a journey into the primeval heart of Morocco, but really into the furthest reaches of the Other, the Unknown," says Manil Suri. Despite the book's being "not exactly a call to tourism," Suri was moved to travel there six months after reading it. Anthony Doerr believes that "Bowles explores, perhaps as well as Conrad or Camus, what it means to be a stranger," while Pico Iyer calls him "the greatest poet laureate of a traveler's dissolution" (HarperPerennial, $15).

The Shipping News

Annie Proulx (1993)

The writer of hard, spare modern-day Westerns (e.g., "Brokeback Mountain") may be at her best on entirely different terrain. Lara Vapnyar always marvels at "her ability to endow a place with the most complex personality," but slightly prefers her Newfoundland: "cold and gloomy, where the weather is dangerous and the best delicacy is the seal-flipper pie" (Scribner, $15).

Snow Country

Yasunari Kawabata (1948)

The northern reaches of Japan sometimes get as much wintertime snow as Buffalo, but there the comparisons end. In Kawabata's classic, the region's lonely beauty is the third party in a doomed love affair between a sophisticated Tokyo dilettante and a lowly backwater geisha, who stands in for Japan's neglected but enduring native culture. Nominated by: Michael Ondaatje (Vintage, $13).

A Sport and a Pastime

James Salter (1967)

Shades of Lolita (the erotic road-trip part) pass over what Salter has said is his best novel, the charged chronicle of an affair between a privileged Yale dropout and a French shopgirl, consummated in motels dotting the French countryside and observed by an admittedly unreliable voyeur. Nominated by: Michael Ondaatje (FSG, $13).

Cormac McCarthy (1979)

McCarthy's fourth novel is inextricably rooted in its place, namely the roughest parts of fifties Knoxville, seen by an ex-con drinking his life away. Anthony Doerr finds it "a funny, tragic, shocking, beautiful, and dirty portrait," one that "traces the collisions of industry and countryside, privilege and poverty, goatmen and policemen, humidity and snow, drinking and witchcraft—and the Tennessee River twists through all of it" (Vintage, $15).

Patrick Chamoiseau (1992)

Junot Díaz praises this "brilliant blaze of a novel" for encompassing the tangled history of Martinique (as Díaz did for the Dominican Republic in his recent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel). "In these pages and through these words," he says, "you can taste the shark, smell the burning fields of cane, wince under the sun, and feel the black riptide of Caribbean history, pulling, pulling. All that plus the finest evocation of Caribbean shantytown life ever put to paper" (Vintage, $16).

To the Slaughterhouse

Jean Giono (1931)

Better known for his best seller The Man Who Planted Trees, the French writer created some of the most horrific scenes of World War I ever seen in print and contrasted them with evidence of a subtler deterioration back in arid Haute Provence. Fernanda Eberstadt says, "This wildly poetic evocation of a pastoral people about to get decimated makes you love every rocky field and antiquated ram of his chosen homeland" (Peter Owen, $24).

The Tree of Man

Patrick White (1955)

A pioneer of literature from his pioneer country—and a winner of the Nobel Prize—White set the tenor of Australian literature as a constant clash between Western culture and the barren landscape beyond its shores. His saga of one family's attempt to domesticate the bush (only to later see it become suburbs) is "surely Australia's Book of Genesis," says Colin Thubron, and "has the rich sweep of a nineteenth-century Russian novel" (out-of-print).

James Joyce (1922)

How did a chaotically layered, almost impenetrable modernist masterpiece become the book that launched a thousand pub crawls? " Ulysses is an encyclopedic map of human nature, but it also maps Dublin in a perfect way," says Dubliner Colum McCann. Thus, McCann's ambivalence toward the "James Joyce tours and pubs and towels and snow globes": They're hokey but "better than the alternative of silence" (Vintage, $17).

Tony D'Souza (2006)

The most recent novelist to approach the well-trod terrain of Western aid work, D'Souza complicates his narrative by having do-gooder Jack Diaz, marooned on the Ivory Coast, sleep with a succession of natives. Peter Hessler praises D'Souza's handling of "the long-familiar relationships that shape a village, the way an outsider feels when he tries to penetrate this world, and the interplay between traditional folk beliefs and elements of modern city life" (Harcourt, $13).

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami (1995)

Murakami's vacillations between realism and fable are generally aimed at making sense of contemporary Japan, but this essential novel also encompasses the atrocities of a previous generation. Those are the parts Peter Hessler likes best—"beautifully written set pieces of the Japanese occupation of China and northern Asia. They are really the most haunting chapters of the book" (Vintage, $16).

A Woman in Jerusalem

A. B. Yehoshua (2006)

Yulia, the woman in question, has died in a terrorist bombing, and the quest to clear her name and bury her properly sends characters through traumatized Jerusalem streets and later to the forlorn former Soviet republic where she was born. "I love people who can draw Israel for me," says Nathan Englander, who lived in the same Jerusalem neighborhood during that troubled period. "This book captured a very hard time really well" (Harvest, $14).

Zeno's Conscience

Italo Svevo (1923)

Svevo's comic study of a morally compromised man's Freudian rationalizations—and urban discoveries—was rescued from obscurity by James Joyce. So, thanks to this novel, was decrepit Austro-Hungarian Trieste, which Nathaniel Rich says "feels like a living organism" in this novel: "neurotic, conniving, sophisticated, and deranged—a mirror image of Zeno himself" (Vintage, $15).

50 greatest travel experiences on the planet right now

--> BY Megan Arkinstall & Carla Grossetti

Last updated . 13 June 2024

For International Traveller ’s 50 th  issue, we bring you the 50 greatest travel experiences to have on the planet right now, from new hotel openings to adventurous tours with community at heart to destinations that eternally hover at the top of our bucket lists.

Great travel experiences can be the sum of a whole trip or can boil down to a smaller moment, so when we considered what to include on this list, we focused on the micro – such as thought-provoking museums , unique hotels that offer sleep-focused programs or the world’s best bar – as well as the macro – epic railway journeys across Europe , a private jet expedition and an adventurous tour through Mongolia and Kazakhstan . We looked at shiny, new experiences: the first cruise down Colombia’s Magdalena River and the return of Hong Kong ’s most luxurious hotel. And experiences that will leave our world a better place: a community-owned wildlife conservancy in Kenya and Paris ’s hurtle towards being the greenest city in the world . Enjoy and happy travelling!

1. Stay at Kenya’s first community-owned wildlife conservancy

At the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro and in the heart of Kimana Sanctuary, intimate new lodge Angama Amboseli is Kenya’s first community-owned conservancy. The safari lodge is a haven for herds of East Africa’s Super Tuskers, the elephants that saunter through the sanctuary some 45 minutes from Amboseli National Park. There are just 10 suites at the lodge, which all have uninterrupted views of Kili from every corner.

Angama Amboseli is Kenya’s first community-owned wildlife conservancy. (Image: Brian Siambi)

2. Ride the rails through Malaysia onboard the relaunched Eastern & Oriental Express

One of the world’s most luxurious trains, The Eastern & Oriental Express , A Belmond Train, Southeast Asia, has been relaunched to include even more elevated onboard experiences. In addition to the appointment of Taiwanese-born chef André Chiang as culinary curator, the Belmond brand has announced a new Wild Malaysia route for 2024, which captures the country’s history, opulence and natural beauty from rice plantations to sparkling beaches. Its bespoke Veuve Clicquot Journey will include a series of tastings, events and special inclusions.

The Eastern & Oriental Express is one of the world’s most luxurious trains.

3. Join an expert-led art tour for cultural immersion

Scratch below the surface of a destination with Renaissance Tours , whose 2024 expert-led program is curated by special interests and packed with immersive experiences. The French Impressionism Art Cruise is a highlight for arts lovers, exploring the cities and landscapes that inspired greats such as Monet and Van Gogh with a former university art history lecturer and gallery curator. Design buffs can tour Japan with a lens on contemporary arts, architecture and design on the More Than Meets the Eye tour. While budding historians can join an Egyptologist on the Eternal Egypt tour, which includes special access to dig sites and artefacts normally hidden to the public.

Discover the life and works of French Impressionists like Claude Monet with Renaissance Tours.

4. See Italy in a new light on an agriturismo walking tour of the Amalfi Coast

The best way to explore Italy ’s Amalfi Coast is on foot. Cover plenty of ground on Explore Worldwide’s Amalfi Coast Walking – Agriturismo itinerary. Keep your carbon footprint low on the Walk of the Gods, experience generous Italian hospitality at a rustic agriturismo and walk ancient stone stairways that link seaside villages such as cliffside Ravello and picture-postcard Positano.

Explore the beautiful Amalfi Coast on foot. (Image: Getty/Tommasolizzul)

5. Discover Rwanda from a new luxury expedition vessel on one of Africa’s great lakes

See Africa from one of its great lakes onboard l uxury houseboat Mantis Kivu Queen uBuranga , which is now cruising on spectacular Lake Kivu, which forms Rwanda’s western boundary. The new eco-friendly vessel has 10 berths, a deck with a plunge pool and separate lounge and bar. Mantis stands for Man and Nature Together is Sustainable and guests onboard will experience this mantra first-hand by seeing diverse wildlife such as the country’s gorillas, chimpanzees and exotic monkeys and engaging with local fishing communities.

Embark on an unforgettable adventure onboard luxury houseboat Mantis Kivu Queen uBuranga .

6. Cruise the African continent

Culture, nature and wildlife collide on a Norwegian Cruise Line voyage that loops around the diverse shores of Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar and South Africa. A 12-day cruise from Port Louis, Mauritius, on Norwegian Dawn includes a game-drive safari in Richards Bay, a visit to a traditional Zulu village and a wine-tasting tour outside Cape Town.

You’ll visit countries such as Mauritius on an Africa cruise with NCL.

7. Live out your pop-star dreams on a luxury private jet expedition

Make like a pop star and circle the globe by private jet as part of the new 2024 partnership between Aman and luxury tour operator Remote Lands. Aman Jet Expeditions offers small private jet trips that include multi-night stays in a selection of spiffy Aman properties scattered around the globe. The itineraries on offer include the Aman Japan Culinary Journey (14–23 May) and A Mindful and Cultural Journey from Nepal to Sri Lanka via Bhutan and India (14–28 October).

Visit luxurious Aman properties via private jet. Talk about travelling in style.

8. Take a wildlife and wine safari in South Africa

Combine community tourism, adventure and comfort on a Geluxe Collection tour, the new roster of small-group itineraries from G Adventures . Offering travellers a more premium experience, these 45 tours have comfort at their core, with OMG Stays (aka unforgettable accommodation) and OMG Days (unforgettable experiences) while providing meaningful interactions with local communities. The South Africa: Kruger Wildlife Tracking & Vineyards itinerary, for example, is a perfectly paced adventure that includes e-biking through vineyards in Franschhoek and tracking wildlife on foot.

G Adventures’ Geluxe Collection combines wine and wilderness on their South Africa itinerary.

9. Be the first to cruise along Colombia’s Magdalena River

Be one of the first to sail Colombia’s Magdalena River when AMA Waterways ’ new ship, AmaMagdalena , launches on the river in November. Sister ship AmaMelodia will also explore the inland waterway between Cartagena and Barranquilla when it sets sail for its inaugural voyage in June 2025. Both ships, which will accommodate just 60 and 64 passengers respectively, boast a sun deck pool, al fresco dining and Colombian-inspired decor. Itineraries include walking tours and jazz performances.

Be one of the first cruise passengers to travel Colombia’s Magdalena River with AMA Waterways. (Image: Getty/Benedek)

10. See the northern lights at their most dazzling in Norway

The remote Arctic Circle Region is a picturesque melange of fjords, glaciers, mountains and islands, and one of the top places on Earth to see the northern lights – which will reach their solar maximum this year, making it your best chance in a decade to see them. The occurrence of aurora borealis depends on solar activity, geomagnetic conditions and atmosphere; so leave the solar seeking up to the experts at Up Norway , which has curated journeys to deliver unforgettable polar light experiences designed to have a net-positive impact on society. Aside from this cosmic phenomenon, the year-round itineraries showcase the diverse destination of Norway, from an epic rail journey through the Arctic Circle to skiing in the Sunnmøre Alps and a sustainable foodie journey in and around Trondheim, a European City of Gastronomy.

Many people flock to Norway to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. (Image: Getty/SJO)

11. Hike, bike and kayak through southern Greece on an adventure tour

Kayak along Kefalonia’s coastline, meander along the Menalon Trail and cycle to a historic castle while on the Southern Greece: Hike, Bike & Kayak tour with Intrepid Travel . The seven-day active adventure is one of 100 new itineraries the B-Corp small group tour operator launched for 2024. It takes in a diverse landscape that includes everything from gnarled olive trees to rugged coastlines and ancient archaeological sites. This trip supports World Bicycle Relief, which supplies school kids, health workers and farmers in far-out areas with bicycles that provide access to education, healthcare and income.

Chase the sun in Southern Greece. (Image: David C Tomlinson)

12. Explore Antarctica with a boutique operator passionate about protecting it

The best time to see Antarctica is now. And the way to see it is with a company such as HX or Aurora Expeditions , which are passionate about caring for its delicate ecosystems. Likewise, luxury operator Ponant  remains dedicated to protecting our poles and oceans. The Ponant Foundation has pledged an annual grant to the Macquarie Island Conservation Foundation aimed at raising awareness about climate change and the sub-Antarctic ecosystem. Macca, as it is affectionately known, is one of the ‘wonder spots of the world’ and is home to 3.5 million seabirds.

Antarctica is a once-in-a-lifetime destination. (Studio Ponant/Morgane Monneret)

13. Have a fairy-tale European Christmas

Experiencing a white Christmas is a festive dream for many; make it a reality with Albatross Tours in 2024. The Australian-owned Europe specialist has carefully curated a premium itinerary that revolves around wintry wonderlands in Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Be it wandering around the snow-covered streets of a Christmas market, finding frozen waterfalls in a magical forest or visiting historical castles, the fully escorted tours are designed to enchant.

Nowhere does Christmas quite like the wintry wonderlands of the northern hemisphere.

14. Take a sleep-focused holiday

Come away from your holiday feeling rested with a Maldives resort stay that is focused on catching up on much-needed sleep. JOALI BEING has jumped onboard the global sleep tourism trend by offering personalised programs that include everything from guided meditation and yoga to sound healing remedies. JOALI BEING’s Tranquil Sleep program is tailor-made for guests with sleep concerns who want to feel rejuvenated after a dreamy getaway to this tropical paradise. Hitting snooze on a sun lounger is also an option.

JOALI BEING is a centre for rest and rejuvenation.

15. Join a new women, whales and wellness tour in Tonga

Majestic Whale Encounters has launched a new female-focused tour in Tonga for 2024. The Women, Whales & Wellness Tours are tailored towards solo female travellers who want to experience a chilled-out week of yoga, kayaking, snorkelling and an enchanting underwater encounter with humpbacks. The eco and wellness tours are scheduled for July, August and September.

Whales and wellness go hand in hand at Majestic Whale Encounters.

16. Go island-hopping in Fiji

Fiji is recognised the world over for its unparalleled golden beaches. But those of us who visit time and again know its true drawcard: the people who call it home. Find the kind of meaningful connection we are all craving in the world right now by island-hopping your way across the country, from Marriott’s Sheraton Resort & Spa on Tokoriki Island to Likuliku Lagoon Resort on Malolo Island. And from Turtle Island , where each day in paradise is crowned by communal cocktails at golden hour and the chance to get to know its passionate team, to a culturally-enriching expedition cruise through the Yasawa Islands with Captain Cook Cruises Fiji .

Fijian hospitality is world-renowned.

17. Discover New Zealand’s hottest new dining destination

Sandwiched between Arrowtown and Queenstown on New Zealand ’s South Island, Ayrburn is a must-visit swanky new food and wine hub. The 160-year-old, 60-hectare estate is the brainchild of developer Chris Meehan (formerly of Australia’s Belle Property) who has thrown a cool $184 million at the precinct since he bought it in 2018. Spend the morning drinking coffee and eating bakery treats. While away an afternoon on the sun-drenched terrace eating pizza. Or hole up in The Manure Room drinking wines from the exclusive Ayrburn range.

Ayrburn is New Zealand’s swanky new wine hub.

18. Cruise the Nile

Exploring Egypt’s most wondrous sites and sights via the Nile remains an eternal fixture on bucket lists. And you can sail in luxury onboard Uniworld ’s S. Sphinx and River Tosca ships on a Splendors of Egypt & The Nile cruise. This captivating adventure-filled itinerary starts and ends in Cairo and includes a visit to the famous Egyptian Museum. Follow in the footsteps of pharaohs at the Temple of Karnak, venture into the Valley of the Kings and journey to Giza to gaze upon the ancient Pyramids on the 12-day cruise.

Encounter wonders of ancient history as you cruise down the Nile. (Image: Uniworld).

19. Have the ultimate family holiday onboard Icon of the Seas

Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas is considered one of the most family-friendly cruise ships for a reason. This record-breaking 20-deck vessel sleeps 5610 guests, has eight neighbourhoods, six waterslides, seven pools, nine whirlpools and the largest pool at sea. The cruise company is renowned for its family-focused facilities, including a huge range of staterooms that can fit up to eight guests – making it the ultimate holiday for families with young kids to multi-gen groups.

Icon of the Seas is the biggest cruise ship ever built.

20. Put the endlessly alluring country of Türkiye on your radar

Türkiye is being billed as a key destination to set your sights on this year (not that it ever went away) and the best way to immerse yourself in this exotic destination is with Abercrombie & Kent , known for curating thoughtful itineraries with expert guides and behind-the-scenes experiences. Its Treasures of Turkey journey takes guests on a magic carpet ride around the country, which lays claim to being one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world. Highlights include a visit to the hidden world of Istanbul’s Basilica Cistern, a behind-the-scenes tour of Topkapi Palace and an excursion to Ephesus, one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the world.

Immerse yourself in Türkiye, one of oldest continually inhabited regions in the world.

21. Find space on a new Camino in northern Spain

The ever-popular Camino de Santiago is a link that tethers us to our wayfaring, wandering past. But with the trail reaching cult status and beckoning nearly half-a-million pilgrims each year, hikers seeking serenity should set their sights elsewhere. Galicia’s Camiño dos Faros (Lighthouse Way) is a new trail, relatively speaking, that overlaps sections of the iconic Camino but sticks to pristine, secluded beaches and pretty fishing towns. Self-guided walking company On Foot provides luggage transfers, itinerary planning and a local contact to provide intel – such as the best seafood restaurants for a post-hike feed.

There are plenty of pretty vistas along the Lighthouse Way. (Image: Jeremy Zafiropoulos).

22. Explore Mongolia and Kazakhstan with a trailblazing Aussie tour company

Traverse nomadic frontiers of vast empty plains, snow-capped peaks, shimmering lakes and ancient cities with trailblazing Aussie company Crooked Compass . The one-off Inaugural Founder’s Tour: Mongolia’s Golden Eagle Festival & Kazakhstan (departs 11 September 2025) celebrates the company’s 10-year anniversary and will be hosted by founder Lisa Pagotto. It includes culturally immersive experiences such as golden eagle demonstrations and Kazakh games at Mongolia’s famous Eagle Festival, Charyn Canyon and its ancient Valley of Castles, and dining with local families in their homes.

The yurt is an iconic dwelling found primarily in Mongolia.

23. Dive into the heart of Old Delhi at a new boutique stay

Even getting to the front door of The Golden Haveli in Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi is a magical Exotic Marigold kind of experience. The 20th-century haveli, hidden amid a maze of narrow streets and colourful alleys (and just a few doors down from sister stay Haveli Dharampura), has been lovingly restored to provide a peek into the neighbourhood’s past and future. The 12 rooms at the boutique hotel are filled with Mughal motifs and built around a central courtyard. Stay in the Gandhi Suite named in honour of the revered Indian leader, who was a regular guest at the many influential family havelis of Old Delhi.

Explore Old Dehli from the comfort of The Golden Haveli. (Image: Bharat Aggarwal)

24. Stay at a reimagined grand dame ahead of Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary

The very essence of Amsterdam will be distilled when grand dame Hotel De L’Europe unveils ‘t Huys ahead of the city’s 750th-anniversary celebrations in October 2024. ‘t Huys translates to ‘house’ as well as ‘at home’, a nod to the fact this dynamic new Dutch hub will be a place where art, style, luxury and craftsmanship come together. The hotel’s glitzy new wing will feature 16 unique ‘t Huys suites filled with priceless art from the private collection of the Heineken family, who have owned the Hotel De L’Europe Amsterdam since the 1950s.

The Hotel De L’Europe is set to get a glitzy new wing for Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary celebrations. (Image: Andy Tan)

25. Check into the first vertical urban resort in Dubai

One Za’abeel is the perfect example of how Dubai is taking the concept of an urban resort and elevating it to another level. The one-of-a-kind One&Only vertical resort features the UAE’s longest sky infinity pool, 11 unique wining and dining concepts and a three-storey health and wellness centre. The new landmark building also reaches for the sky with its sustainable practices by using passive architecture principles and aiming to use natural resources more efficiently.

Experience this one-of-a-kind One&Only vertical resort in Dubai.

26. Stay in sustainable style in Siem Reap

A stay at the luxe and eco-conscious Jaya House River Park in Siem Reap – Cambodia ’s first single-use plastic-free hotel – is all about giving back to the local community. The stylish boutique hotel donates a portion of its turnover to local NGOs and is known for initiatives such as tree-planting, a Refill Not Landfill program and for launching Jaya Organics, the natural skincare range offered as an in-room amenity.

Jaya House River Park in Siem Reap delivers a luxe, eco-conscious stay. (Image: John W McDermott)

27. Discover the latest in Mexico’s wave of design-led, community-minded hotels

Mexico is well known for attracting a certain type of tanned traveller who likes to stay poolside while clad in a billowing kaftan. And while the latest wave of Design Hotels in Mexico might check a lot of the boxes for rest, relaxation and adventure, the portfolio brings together a new kind of conscious hospitality. Both Hotelito at MUSA and Boca de Agua offer opportunities to connect and support local artists through workshops, retreats and artist-in-residence programs.

Boca de Agua is one of Mexico’s sparkling design-led hotels. (Image: Bookings via designhotels.com)

28. Head to a new culinary hub in the Swiss Alps this season

The iconic Hotel Kulm St. Moritz has reimagined its culinary program to include a roster of gourmet experiences. Diners will find comfort at the new Peruvian eatery Amaru (formerly K) led by Claudia Canessa , with interiors by artist Luke Edward Hall, and enjoy a tribute menu by Michelin-starred chef Tom Booton at Sunny Bar . The reimagined Kulm Country Club is elevated by Mauro Colagreco’s three Michelin star experience, complemented by a soundtrack curated by famous music director, Arman Naféei .

Inside the reimagined Kulm Country Club at the iconic Hotel Kulm St. Moritz. (Image: Gia Giovanoli)

29. Eat your way around Vancouver, Canada’s new foodie capital

There’s a bold new food scene flourishing in British Columbia where Vancouver is vying for attention as Canada ’s new foodie capital. All up, the 2023 Michelin Guide to Vancouver includes 77 restaurants; 17 were awarded Bib Gourmands and nine have Michelin stars. Okeya Kyujiro , led by chef Takuya Matsuda, is the latest eatery to receive the honour in Canada’s third-largest city. Book a table and order the theatrical omakase experience. Chef Andrea Carlson has also put Michelin-starred eatery Burdock & Co on the map for epicureans.

Vancouver is fast becoming a foodie haven thanks to offerings like Michelin-starred eatery Burdock & Co. (Image: Hakan Burcuoglu)

30. Sip a drink at the world’s best bar in Barcelona

There is perhaps no better place to say ‘bottoms up’ than at Sips in Barcelona , which topped the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2023. Surrender yourself to the whim of the bartender in the drinkery house where sipping cocktails is immersive and interactive and akin to performance art. Plump for the Primordial (a blend of 12-year-old Scotch, Ruby Port and pera nashi) so you can enjoy the eccentric concoction served in a metal cast of two hands, rather than a glass.

Order up a drink at the World’s Best Bar for 2023 at Sips in Barcelona.

31. Eat at the best restaurants in the world in Peru

Peru is considered one of the great gastronomic capitals of the world thanks in part to the inclusion of its eateries Central (#1), Maido (#6), Kjolle (#28) and Mayta (#47) on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023. Peruvian chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino (ex-Malabar, ámaZ) is also credited with fusing Amazonian ingredients with traditional techniques. The award-winning chef will showcase the Peruvian cuisine he is so proud of as part of  Aqua Expeditions’ series of Chef Hosted Departures onboard Aqua Nera from 14–18 May and 17–21 September.

Peru’s Central landed in at number one of the World’s Best 50 Restaurants for 2023.

32. Experience a meal like no other in Copenhagen (and no, it’s not Noma)

Expect all kinds of wizardry at the aptly named Alchemist in Copenhagen where diners are whisked away to a whimsical world of culinary craftsmanship. Cutting-edge chef and chief alchemist Rasmus Munk has reclaimed the kitchen as a place for art; every element of his 50-course feast demands the full attention of diners. The restaurant sits at #18 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for 2023.

Expect to be blown away by culinary craftsmanship at Copenhagen’s Alchemist. (Image: Kim Holtermand)

33. Dine at Josh Niland’s new restaurant in Singapore

Merimbula rock oysters. Grilled Abrolhos Islands scallops. Shark Bay scampi. Charcoal-grilled Aquna Murray cod. Dry-aged Mooloolaba swordfish. The menu at FYSH at EDITION in Singapore features an impressive array of sustainably sourced Australian seafood. It’s restaurateur and chef Josh Niland’s first foray overseas and, like everything the visionary seafood butcher does, the menu is anchored in sustainability and much greater than the sum of its parts.

Josh Niland makes sustainably sourced Australian seafood the star of the show at FYSH at EDITION. (Image: Josh Niland)

34. Drink Champagne at the source

A bottle can only be labelled Champagne if it is produced in the appellation of Champagne in France .  It’s made in the traditional method, méthode Champenoise , which is a time- and labour-intensive process – hence the price tag. Famous Champagne houses in the region such as Veuve Clicquot and Bollinger offer consistency of style and quality for the price. But you can find nuance, excitement and value by looking for lesser-known ‘grower’ Champagnes, where the grape grower also produces the wine.

Sip your way around France’s famous Champagne houses. (Image: Getty)

35. Get the insider’s view on Shanghai

Shanghai ’s past and present is divided by the Huangpu River: Old Shanghai on one side, where the historical Bund district is filled with a melange of architectural styles from Art Deco to Baroque, and New Shanghai on the other with its shimmering, futuristic skyline. On a half-day tour with Wendy Wu Tours , you can bounce between the parts that shout and the pockets that whisper led by an expert local guide, including 400-year-old temples, neon-lit East Nanjing Road, shikumen (stone gate) houses and bustling markets where you can queue for dumplings.

Let a local tour guide show you the hidden parts of Shanghai.

36. Tap into the cultural heart of London

In iconic Leicester Square, in the thick of the West End, The Londoner   is emphatically London . This five-star hotel was billed as the world’s first ‘super boutique hotel’ for its level of intimacy at a mighty scale. Here you’ll find a style that nods to London’s eclectic character, works by Britain ’s greatest artists, and pinch-yourself panoramas of the city’s icons from Big Ben to Westminster from the comfort of your Corner Suite. The hotel is also a two-minute walk from the newly reopened National Portrait Gallery , which has been completely reframed for the 21st century and tells the history of Britain through portraiture.

The Londoner truly epitomises what the city is all about. (Image: Andrew Beasley Photography)

37. Spend 48 hours in the up-and-coming cultural capital of Manchester

Manchester was at the heart of Britain’s industrial revolution and is home to its most successful football team. And while history buffs and sports fanatics will have the northern city on their radar, Manchester is going through a cultural renaissance that will appeal to all manner of travellers. From award-winning gin distilleries and Michelin-starred restaurants to a multi-million-dollar Aviva Studios art space that hosts immersive theatre and a tour that visits filming locations for Peaky Blinders, Coronation Street and Captain America .

Meander along historic buildings in Castlefield, Manchester. (Image: Chris Curry)

38. Go green in Paris ahead of the Summer Olympics

The French capital has made incredible progress towards reaching its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has made it her mission to transform the City of Light into a cleaner and healthier place since she came into office in 2014. Almost a decade on, Paris was named The Greenest City in Europe – with 530 parks, gardens and squares, 30 urban farms, some 1500 beehives, and more than 300 new green spaces planned alongside the planting of 170,000 trees. Add to that the already laid 100 kilometres of cycling trails, a multi-billion-dollar clean-up of the Seine, 1200 fountains and water-filling stations, a car-free day every month and more, and the 2024 Olympic city proves that being green is possible.

Paris lives up to its title as the greenest city in Europe. (Image: EoNaYa via Getty Images)

39. Explore Seattle through its grunge and coffee scenes

Seattle has never followed the mainstream. It’s the birthplace of grunge and the coffee revolution, both of which represent a generation seeking authenticity and raw expression and were born in an era that valued the underground and alternative. Nowadays these cultural enclaves reside well beyond the fringe, with baristas upping the ante with their pedigreed beans all around town, while local institution, non-profit KEXP radio station  – where Nirvana and Pearl Jam got their start on the airwaves, continues to accept demo tapes and hosts live sessions where bands play mini concerts for free.

Non-profit KEXP radio station in Seattle has paved the way for the greats of grunge to take centre stage. (Image: Nataworry Photography)

40. Recharge and reset at a luxury wellness resort in Ubud

Hidden in the lush, emerald jungle outside of Ubud, COMO Shambhala is a stay that allows guests to choose their own path. Simply escape the hubbub of Bali’s beloved beaches in luxe and tranquil surroundings or partake in one of the resort’s famed wellness programs tailored to individual needs. With breathwork, yoga, spa treatments and wholesome nutrition doused in Southeast Asian flavours on the agenda, guests come away from this stay with a health reboot that lasts longer than a tan.

Craft your own wellness journey at COMO Shambhala in Ubud.

41. Check into one of Marrakech’s new wave of riads

Be it traditional, ultra-luxe or one of the many new design-led digs around the city, a stay at a riad is a quintessential Marrakech experience. These traditional Moroccan homes are often hidden in a maze or souks and alleyways in the medina, and offer respite to the bustle outside, with garden courtyards, water features, rooftop terraces and fine craftsmanship. Take El Fenn , for example, a vibrantly hued riad where Madonna celebrated her 60th birthday; L’Hotel , a discreetly designed riad featuring six romantic suites; and La Sultana , a restored former palace with decorative flourishes. Or Rosemary and IZZA , the city’s newest (and coolest) boutique stays.

El Fenn riad embodies style and sophistication. (Image: Igor Demba)

42. Travel Europe by rail

Traversing Europe by rail is a rite of passage for all travellers: criss-crossing between ever-changing landscapes and cultures from the comfort of a railcar. Travel from Paris to Portofino on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express , a Belmond Train, which recalls the romance of a golden age of travel. Step aboard ‘the slowest train in the world’ – The Glacier Express – to soak up the beauty of the Swiss Alps. Or journey through the French Riviera , an enduring muse that owes much of its prowess to the iconic Blue Train that carried wealthy socialites and artists here in the 20th century.

Spacious suites onboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express evoke the golden age of rail travel.

43. Contribute to the community with a Northern Thailand farm stay

Family-operated Ahsa Farm Stay , in the foothills of Doi Mae Salong in Northern Thailand , is set amid 14 hectares of organic working farmland and offers guest cottages to travellers. Its aim is to introduce visitors to hands-on experiences such as rice harvesting, gathering fruit and rubber-tree tapping, as well as cooking Lanna (North Thai) cuisine and trekking to nearby hill tribes. The farm stay creates employment for young people and a sharing of authentic cultural knowledge; a win-win for visitors and locals.

Rice planting at Ahsa Farm Stay, an important farming tradition in Thailand. (Image: Ahsa Farm Stay)

44. See an iconic hotel reborn in Hong Kong

The reimagining of l egendary five-star hotel Regent Hong Kong – which opened last year after a two-year, multi-million-dollar refresh – is a balance between legacy and modernity, unlocking new levels of luxury in Asia. Its enviable position on Victoria Harbour is complemented by a formula of quietude, decadence and function. Not simply a return home of the hotel brand’s Asian flagship, the reopening of Regent Hong Kong is a return of the city itself, after years of lockdowns, political ambiguity, mother country pressures and economic upheaval.

The Presidential Suite at Regent Hong Kong is regarded as one of the best rooftop penthouses in the world. (Image: Courtesy Regent Hong Kong)

45. Help Maui’s recovery with the ultimate Hawaiʻi holiday

The Hawaiian island of Maui is rich in natural beauty and a strong community spirit , which came into sharp focus following last year’s wildfires. Locals are inviting mindful travellers to put Maui back on their itineraries and bring their aloha. Engage with local businesses such as Trilogy Excursions , known as Maui’s best snorkel tours; dine at family-owned restaurants such as Mama’s Fish House ; shop in small boutiques like in Pa‘ia, which exudes a yogic surfer vibe; and tip generously to make a huge difference to this community that is still in recovery mode.

Snorkelling Maui’s reef, where monk seals and turtles can be found. (Image: Hawai’i Tourism Authority/Tor Johnson)

46. Find an alternative side of Austria in the 2024 European capital of culture

Covering the Austrian states of Salzburg, Styria and Upper Austria, the region of Salzkammergut blends the ageless beauty of limestone mountains, cobalt lakes and timber A-frame houses with agrarian tradition and – surprisingly – cutting-edge art. The Great Space Walk, which is part of the program for Bad Ischl Salzkammergut’s designation as one of the European Capitals of Culture 2024, guides travellers up the isolated karst landscape of the Totes Gebirge while listening to recordings along the way that touch on everything from arts to agriculture and Buddhism. Traditional dress is also making a resurgence as well as craftsmanship, with watchmakers, bookbinders, coffee roasters and mustard makers as relevant today as they once were.

The Trisselwand is a mountain in the region of Saltzkammergut which has long inspired Austria’s most famous writers. (Image: Karl Steinegger)

47. Walk Japan’s remote and under-the-radar Kunisaki Peninsula

Of the some 25 million international tourists that visited Japan last year, only a fraction of them made it beyond the major urban areas. And even fewer regional areas, such as Kunisaki, a bucolic peninsula that’s the setting for the 73-kilometre Self-Guided Kunisaki Wayfarer walk by Walk Japan . This trail follows the historic footsteps of monks and ascetics in search of solitude as it traces Kyushu’s rural peninsula along raised paths between rice fields, overgrown trails linking long-neglected shrines and country lanes that pass by family homes, with each day ending with multi-course dinners and steam-filled onsens .

 48. Explore an up-and-coming Italian neighbourhood with young local guides

In the 20th century, the Naples precinct of Rione Sanità gained notoriety as a Camorra stronghold labelling the pretty neighbourhood a no-go zone. But change is afoot, and artists, historians and travellers alike are being lured in by classically Neapolitan streets adorned in flags and laundry and bustling with pasticcerias and pizzerias, its famous catacombs and grandiose basilica.

Find out why Rione Sanità is about to be the place to visit in Naples. (Image: Alamy/Laura Di Biase)

49. Watch the solar eclipse

Astronomy fans in North America will huddle around their telescopes on 8 April to catch the solar eclipse when it passes over the United States , Canada and Mexico. Travel publication Atlas Obscura is throwing a festival that extends the three-minute 36-second solar event into four days of music, science, art and cosmic wonder, with a line-up that includes astrophysics pros and indie psych-rock.

Make your way to North America in April to be treated to a solar eclipse. (Image: James Sprankle)

50. Visit Washington DC’s National Museum of Women in the Arts

In 1987 it was the first museum of its kind, and now, after a US$66 million renovation completed by female architects, the National Museum of Women in the Arts is an even grander stage for female creatives to shine. Located in the heart of Washington D.C. the museum is housed in a former Masonic Temple, which was notoriously exclusive of women, and boasts a powerful display of works by women spanning six centuries, from Frida Kahlo to Australian Aboriginal artist Audrey Morton Kngwarreye.

Find artworks by Frida Kahlo inside the National Museum of Women in the Arts. (Image: Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky , 1937)

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Absolutely love this list! I’m glad to see so many unique and unheard-of activities that make for an exciting and immersive cultural experience. Perfect for truly diving into local cultures. Looking forward to ticking all these one by one.

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Mysterious Time Travelers With Convincing Stories

Nearly everyone has heard a completely ludicrous time travel story at least once in their life, like the internet-famous Backwoods Home magazine ad which read, " Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before." It was, of course, a hoax, as many similar stories are. But what about real time travelers? Do they exist?

That's something you have to decide for yourself, as no time travel stories can be conclusively proven. But there are some convincing stories of people who may have actually traveled through time and other mysterious figures . So strap in, because this list is going to take you through some of the most credible time travel stories.

Two Professors See Marie Antoinette At Versailles - In 1901

• Adolf Ulrich Wertmüller
• Wikimedia Commons
• Public Domain

In 1901, two professors from St. Hugh's College in Oxford, England, went to visit the Palace of Versailles. Versailles was, of course, the French royal home until the monarchy was abolished in 1792. Marie Antoinette, one of the last royals to live there, was executed in 1793.

So on that day in 1901, when professors Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain were walking the grounds of the palace, it's pretty safe to say they did not expect to see Marie Antoinette in the flesh just chillin' on a stool outside the Petit Trianon - a private retreat built for Antoinette by her hubby Louis XVI. And yet, there she was, sitting and sketching and completely oblivious to the fact that two women were gaping at her and all the other people in 1780s period attire who had appeared just as suddenly as Antoinette.

Antoinette and everyone else disappeared when a tour guide approached Moberly and Jourdain. Together, they wrote a book, An Adventure , about their experience, and the story gained notoriety because of how grounded it seemed. These were two highly educated and well-respected women; they wouldn't just make up a story like that. So what was it, then? Did they actually travel through time? It's one of the most thoroughly reported, compelling, and famous time travel stories that can't be explained.

Pilot Sees A Futuristic Plane

• Gaius Cornelius

Air Marshall Sir Robert Victor Goddard was sent to inspect an abandoned airfield in Edinburgh in 1935. It was dilapidated, of which he made note. He got back in his plane and took off, but heavy rain and low visibility prevented him from going too far. So, he turned around and headed back to the airfield to wait out the storm.

As he approached the landing strip, though, something very strange happened. The clouds cleared, the sun shone brightly, and he saw that the previously abandoned land was now bustling with mechanics in blue jumpsuits. There were four yellow planes on the tarmac, and one of them was a kind he had never seen before. Keep in mind, this guy was a military pilot. He was pretty familiar with all the different plane models available at the time.

Goddard was totally confused. Had he imagined it? Was he hallucinating? Was it a dream? It couldn't be real, certainly. But four years later, he was sent back to the airfield. Far from being abandoned, it was now in full use, complete with blue-jumpsuit-wearing mechanics and yellow planes. And sitting on the runway was the plane he couldn't identify in 1935: a Miles Magister. The Magister was first manufactured in 1938, three years after Goddard initially saw it.

Goddard's story is convincing because he wasn't even trying to travel through time - something unexplainable just happened to him. 

Journalist Experiences Air Raid 11 Years Before It Occurs

• Royal Air Force/Dowd J

Journalist J. Bernard Hutton and photographer Joachim Brandt were sent by a German newspaper to do a story on the Hamburg shipyard in 1932 . It was an uneventful visit - until the bombs began raining down on them.

Hutton and Brandt realized they were caught in the middle of an air raid and high-tailed it out of there, but not before snapping some photographs. When they got back to the center of Hamburg, no one believed their story. They developed the photos they took, intending to prove to everyone that they weren't crazy. In fact, they proved the opposite: the photos showed no signs of an air raid.

Eleven years later, Hutton was living in London when he opened up a newspaper and probably nearly spit his coffee across his desk. There was a story about Operation Gomorrah , an air raid on Hamburg. The accompanying photos looked exactly like what he experienced in 1932.

The Green Children Of Woolpit

• CC BY-SA 2.0

In the 12th Century, a young boy and girl were found alone in Woolpit, England . They didn't speak English (or any other identifiable language, for that matter) and their skin was green. That's right, green.

They were taken in by a local villager, and though the boy died soon after, the girl survived and eventually learned to speak English. Finally, she was able to tell someone where she came from. She said she had come from a twilight-covered place called St. Martin's Land and that she and her brother were taking care of their father's sheep one day when they found a cave. They went into the cave, and after walking for what felt like a very long time, they emerged in Woolpit. 

Maybe it's just a folk tale. Or maybe they came from the future. After all, their story does sound suspiciously like a time slip. Unfortunately for them, they were never able to get back to where - or when - they came from.

Charlotte Warburton Travels Through Time Without Even Realizing It

• via Pixabay

In 1968, Charlotte Warburton entered a cafe she had never seen before. Nothing seemed amiss, but when she tried to go back a few days later, it had vanished. Charlotte later learned that there was, in fact, a cafe in that spot - many years ago.

It had been replaced by a supermarket long before Charlotte claims to have walked in and visited it.

A Police Officer Travels To The 1950s From 1996

• G.Th. Delemarre/Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed
• CC BY-SA 4.0

In 1996, a police officer and his wife were shopping in Liverpool . His wife went into a bookshop while he took off for a CD store down the street. As he walked away from the bookstore, he noticed that everything was suddenly quiet. Then, a van that looked like it was from the 1950s honked and swerved around him. Somehow, he was standing in the middle of the street, and stranger than that, everyone around him was dressed in '50s-style clothing.

Confused, he tried to go back to the bookstore, but it wasn't there. In its place was a women's clothing shop named Cripps. So he went into the clothing shop, but as soon as he did, it was a bookstore again. He was back in 1996, but couldn't figure out what happened to him - until he learned that Cripps hadn't existed since the 1950s.

The Man From Taured

• Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

In 1954, a man trying to get through customs at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan, had a bit of trouble with the customs agents. It wasn't because he "forgot" to declare something on his customs form, but because he claimed to be from a country that didn't exist - and he had a passport and stamps to prove it.

His passport was from a country named Taured , which he claimed was in between Spain and France. When customs officials pulled out a map and asked him if he meant Andorra, he became angry. He said that yes, the location was right, but Taured had existed for at least 1,000 years. He had never heard of Andorra.  

He was given a hotel room for the night while the police tried to figure out what was happening. Even though there were armed guards posted outside his room, the man had vanished by the next morning. His passport, which had been stored in the security office at the airport, was also gone. Officials never figured out the mystery of the man from Taured.

Jophar Vorin Claimed To Be From Laxaria

In 1850, a man named  Jophar Vorin was found in  Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Germany, and questioned. He spoke very broken German, which made his claims even more difficult to understand. He said he was from Laxaria, and spoke the languages Laxarian and Abramian. He said he was in search of his long-lost brother, but he was shipwrecked on the way to his destination.

Vorin didn't recognize any of the maps or globes that were presented to him. He claimed that the world as he knew it had five sections:  Sakria, Aflar, Aslar, Auslar, and Euplar. In the Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art ,  John Timbs reports Vorin was taken to Berlin to be questioned and studied. There's no doubt that Vorin existed; the question is, was he crazy? Or was he from a very distant future?

Four Friends Travel From 1979 To 1905

• Charles Delort

In 1979,  Geoff and Pauline Simpson and Len and Cynthia Gisby were traveling through France. When it became late, they decided to find a hotel for the night. They found a place not too far down the road they were traveling. It was an odd place; the doors to the rooms only had wooden latches, no locks. And the windows only had thick shutters, no glass. 

In the morning, they had breakfast at the hotel and encountered two gendarmes (armed French policemen) that were wearing old-looking uniforms, complete with capes. The whole experience at the hotel seemed strange, not least because their stay only cost 19 francs - other hotels in the area cost over 200 francs. Still, they happily went on their way, and on their return journey, tried to stop and stay at the hotel again. Except it had seemingly vanished into thin air. And the uniforms those gendarmes were wearing? They were from around 1905 .

A 20th Century Doctor Finds Himself In The 1800s

• PublicDomainPictures

In 1935, Dr. EG Moon was leaving the residence of one of his patients in Kent, England when he realized his car was not where he had left it. Both the driveway and the road seemed a lot rougher than he remembered. Dr. Moon spotted a man walking by the house, and he realized that the man was wearing several capes and a top hat and carrying a long-barreled gun. He looked to Moon like he was from the 19th century, not the 20th.

Dr. Moon turned to go back to the house, but as he did, he saw that the driveway was paved again, and his car was once again parked in it. He turned back towards the road to look for the man, but he had vanished.

In 2000, A Mysterious Man Named John Titor Claimed To Come From The Year 2036

• CC BY-SA 3.0

In November 2000, the Time Travel Institute forums saw a spike in unusual activity. Nestled among the usual conspiracy theories and far-fetched UFO sightings were a string of posts from a man who called himself John Titor . He claimed to be from the year 2036, saying the government sent him back in time to 1975 to retrieve an IBM computer, which they needed in order to debug some computer programs. He hopped off his time machine in 2000 for personal reasons, and since he was already there, he decided to warn everyone about how crappy the future was going to get.

He claimed that civil unrest would begin in the United States in 2004 and there would be a full-blown civil war by 2012. By 2015, he said, a quick World War III would have come and gone. Of course, none of these things have happened, so you're probably wondering: why did people believe this wingnut?

It's because his posts about time travel were so detailed, the description of its mechanics and his machine so thorough, that it seemed almost impossible that he wasn't telling the truth. 

Two Men From 1969 Drive Straight To The 1940s

• catchesthelight
• CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

In 1969, two men were having lunch in a Southwestern Louisiana town. Afterward, they got in their car and headed back to work along US Route 167, a highway that spans much of the state. In the distance, they saw an old car . As they got closer to it, they realized it was moving very slowly and they could see the year "1940" printed on its license plate. The two men pulled up alongside the car and peered in to see if everything was okay; they were greeted by the sight of a woman, done up in full 1940s regalia, and a small child, both of whom looked very confused and even, they thought, frightened.

They gestured to the woman, indicating that she should pull over and they would help her. As she began to pull onto the side of the road, the two men stopped a few yards in front of her. When they turned around to make sure she had parked safely, the whole car had vanished into thin air.

Preston Nichols And Al Bielek Claim They Were Part Of The Alleged 'Montauk Project'

At an Air Force base in Montauk, NY, at the eastern tip of Long Island,  Preston Nichols claims  some top-secret government time travel experiments took place. Nichols writes in The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time that, in the 1980s, he recovered repressed memories of working on the project. And his claims seem outlandish: they experimented on children; one child had psychic abilities; they created a time portal to 1943. But not just any moment in 1943: the portal opened up onto the USS Eldridge , the subject of another famous alleged government project, the Philadelphia Experiment. 

Proponents of the Philadelphia Experiment conspiracy theory purport that, at the height of World War II, the US conducted a series of tests to try and cloak its warships. They wanted their ships to be invisible and undetectable. In October 1943, they reportedly succeeded, but there was a side effect: the Eldridge traveled back ten minutes in time and the experience drove the crew mad. They were brainwashed afterward, their memories wiped of the whole incident. A film about these alleged events, The Philadelphia Experiment , was released in 1984. And wouldn't you know it, that film triggered some repressed memories in one Al Bielek.

Bielek began discussing these memories with the press, which brought him to the attention of Nichols. The two got in touch and together told a story that linked the Montauk Project and the Philadelphia Experiment. Bielek had traveled through the time portal from the USS Eldridge to Montauk. The scientists at Montauk pushed him back through to the Eldridge . 

It's easy to dismiss Nichols's and Bielek's claims as pure science fiction, but the tale is so compelling, so detailed and unbelievable, don't you almost want it to be true? 

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As they say in well-written scripts, "You mean... like time travel?" + also a few bizarre stories about real people who have claimed, despite every law of physics, they have traveled through time.

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10 Greatest Fictional Travelers

Lists:  From La Mancha to Lilliput, Jim Benning and Michael Yessis track down the world's finest made-up globetrotters

08.23.07 | 1:23 PM ET

F ictional travelers have inspired our travels just as much as real-world travelers. To pay tribute, we’ve searched the corners of our English major brains to come up with the foremost fictional travelers: characters new and old whose travels are central to who they are, and whose journeys have helped shape and enlighten the world we live in. Here are World Hum’s 10 greatest fictional travelers.

10) Dora the Explorer

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• Comments (43)

Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.

Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.

Related on World Hum:

audio-slideshow:  Abbie Kozolchyk traveled the globe to research a National Geographic book on romantic travel. That's when she discovered her inner stalker.

Travel Stories:   Jeff Biggers hadn't written anything original in months. The joy was gone. Then he and a friend went for a stroll in Bologna.

Travel Blog:  I'll be teaching with the Los Angeles Times' Chris Reynolds

Travel Interviews:  Twenty years ago, Frank Bures chatted with a young Alex Garland about his travel novel, The Beach . Bures recently unearthed the interview--a time capsule from the dawn of global backpacking.

43 Comments for 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers

Eva Holland 08.23.07 | 2:49 PM ET

For me it was definitely the four Walker children - John, Susan, Titty and Roger - from Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series. They sailed, camped and hiked in England’s Lake District, but they also moved in and out of imaginary worlds filled with explorers and pirates, treasure islands and uncharted waters, and natives both friendly and hostile. (Yeah, fair warning, there’s some pretty un-PC stuff in there.)

In later books they made it to the Norfolk Broads, the coast of Suffolk, and the far northern islands of Scotland, as well as more exotic locations like China - again, presumably in their imaginations, although Ransome doesn’t always say exactly what’s really happening to the children and what is fantasy.

Those books were single-handedly responsible for me pestering my parents to sign me up for sailing lessons when I was 11.

J WIlliamson 08.23.07 | 3:14 PM ET

I lean towards Jake Barnes and crew in The Sun Also Rises. Often over shadowed by the bull fighting, the drinking, and Lost Generation notions, Hemingway’s scenic description and characters who desperately grasp at the culture and land before them while struggling to come to terms with themselves inspire both the inward and outward journey.

TambourineMan 08.23.07 | 4:10 PM ET

Dora the Explorer???

My nominations:

�The Time Traveler� (he doesn�t have a name) in HG Wells� The Time Machine. He travels through time, parties with the docile, hippie-like Eloi, fights the hairy Morlocks and eventually witnesses the end of the world. And you give the man no props?

Philleas Fogg. This cat traveled Around the World in Eighty Days, for chrissake. With the state of today�s airline industry, let�s see you try to do it.

And finally. Dudes, you should know better than this. It�s not Trekkies�it�s Trekkers. You�ll be lucky if some Spock-eared computer hacker doesn�t vaporize your website by tonight.

Michael Yessis 08.23.07 | 5:23 PM ET

Jake Barnes and Phileas Fogg are strong candidates, certainly. Going into this, we knew we’d have to leave out a lot. I had a few favorites that didn’t make the cut—Frodo, Richard from “The Beach,” Dorothy from Kansas, to name a few—and so did Jim.

Thanks, too, TambourineMan for trying to save us from vaporization. We went with Trekkies after consulting Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekkie

Kyle 08.23.07 | 7:24 PM ET

To me this was the first person who came up in my mind as a fictional traveler: James Bond. International spy for the British Secret Service. A Jack of all trades. Another name that came to mind is Indiana Jones.

TambourineMan 08.23.07 | 10:57 PM ET

I second the 007 nomination.

Mike wrote: “We went with Trekkies after consulting Wikipedia:”

Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when a Photon Torpedo lands in your living room.

ScreenwriterGuy 08.24.07 | 8:00 AM ET

My vote is for Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock.

Soja 08.24.07 | 2:26 PM ET

What about my childhood fave “Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller”.... lol

Don Hackett 08.24.07 | 7:47 PM ET

Tom Jones (not the singer.)  His journey was short in distance, but socially (from the country to the big city) and personally (from innocence through adventures to beginnings of maturity) he covered a great distance—and a rollicking good time was had by all.

Catfish 08.24.07 | 9:17 PM ET

C’mon, how ‘bout Ford Prefect from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?! Now there’s a traveler!

sidetrips 08.25.07 | 12:36 AM ET

An outsider’s view of the legacy of the Beats and “On the Road” is being blogged at http://kerouac2007.blogspot.com/

Michelle 08.25.07 | 4:04 AM ET

what about Alice in Through the looking Glass?

The children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

The Joads in Grapes of Wrath?

Ed 08.27.07 | 2:20 PM ET

Tintin. C’mon. He should be the undisputed number 1.

Also, of course, the most famous duck to ever earn his fortune in the world, who raised generations of future archaeologists + rockhounds, Scrooge McDuck of the clan McDuck.

Nelle 08.27.07 | 6:39 PM ET

Charles Marlow from Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness —man, did he see some horrible things.

Kyle 08.27.07 | 10:50 PM ET

Check out Harry Flashman.  He gets around,  if you know what I mean.

Harry 08.28.07 | 3:30 PM ET

I would suggest Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin from Patrick O’Brian’s series of novels.

Marilyn Terrell 08.28.07 | 4:26 PM ET

Sir Harry Flashman of George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman series certainly merits consideration:  his adventures span China, Afghanistan, India, America, Borneo, Africa, Europe, Madagascar… And always in the right place at the right time, like a swashbuckling Victorian Forrest Gump.

James 08.28.07 | 6:18 PM ET

Phileas Fogg was robbed.

Rebecca Lewis 08.29.07 | 4:48 PM ET

Don’t forget Doctor Who, who travels through time and space having the most amazing adventures!

Chris (Amateur Traveler podcast) 09.01.07 | 12:28 PM ET

I would have to include Phileas Fogg on such a list.

Delacy 09.04.07 | 7:18 PM ET

Definitely Bilbo Baggins and Ford Prefect.

Michelle 09.04.07 | 9:45 PM ET

As a child Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock was the first traveler I met along the road. In my youth, Sal Paradise was #1 to me too. However, I cannot forget Sam Beckett from “Quantum Leap.” He traveled through time and space as he lept into people different decades from the 1950s to the 1980s. They even did episodes where he met Jack Kerouac and preformed in the musical “Don Quixote.”

hedgeguard 09.11.07 | 11:02 PM ET

Milton’s Satan in “Paradise Lost” manages to cover a good deal of territory, crisscrossing the universe.  So, for that matter, does Dante in “The Divine Comedy.”

Jeff 09.12.07 | 9:01 AM ET

Jim and Michael, good topic.

I would have added Allan Quartermain to the list, and the Hardy Boys.

And I’m wondering, could a real author recounting fictional travels be included? Someone such as Dante?

shelli 09.12.07 | 12:00 PM ET

What an absolutely marvelous read!  Just terrific!

Sarah 09.24.07 | 3:43 PM ET

Gosh, there are so many - I like Sydney Fox from Relic Hunter, and, of course, Lara Croft. From novels? I’d have to say Daine Sarrasri and Numair Salmalin from Tamora Pierce’s ‘Immortals’ Series.

~S (and if anyone knows where I can get Relic Hunter seasons on DVD, email me!!)

Jake 09.25.07 | 4:06 AM ET

Ford Prefect & Bilbo Baggins HAVE to be on this list!

Elly 12.28.07 | 10:46 PM ET

Travelers! Good call on Odysseus; my first choice, actually. Then there’s Bilbo, Gandalf, Frodo, etc. from Tolkien of course. Ender Wiggin from Speaker for the Dead traveled a fair distance. So did Herge’s Tintin. What about Bastian Balthazar Bux? Fantastica was a vast, indeed Neverending, land. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis, is exactly what the title declares: a voyage. And does anyone remember Jules Verne? :)

HS 05.06.08 | 6:55 PM ET

I know I’m posting a little late, since I prefer non-fictional travel, especially my own.  I must say that the more recent travel fiction you mention is not as worthy as the classic.  What about Sterne’s _A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy_?  Or Jules Verne’s works, other than _80 Days_?  Or the _Satyricon_ of Petronius?  That has a great journeying theme in it.

Rex 05.07.08 | 1:29 AM ET

I would say Phineas Fogg, and how about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World. And Candide of course. And the Joads. Now for non-fiction there is Marco Polo, Thor Heyerdahl, Columbus, Leif Ericson, Abraham,and Lehi and family.

Brian Leverenz 06.10.08 | 4:19 PM ET

James Bond gets my vote, he’s wreaked havoc, destruction, frolicked with beautiful women, plundered, pillaged, and killed with great style at every exotic locale, all in a tuxedo.

Aiakos 07.03.08 | 4:28 AM ET

Hi everyone. Great blog. Hold on.

Ava 07.11.08 | 10:51 AM ET

Larry Darrell in The Razor’s Edge may be more of an expat than a traveller; still, he did make it to 20’s Paris, the Dalai Lama and through WWI unscathed,unlike poor Sophie.

Health Care 09.10.10 | 10:54 AM ET

pam 09.10.10 | 11:54 AM ET

I love you guys, you know that. But I’m with commenter Michelle. Where’s Alice? She went down the rabbit hole AND through the looking glass and as a girl, solo! THAT was a trip.

Austin Beeman 09.12.10 | 10:02 AM ET

I don’t know of any fictional character that has driven the desire to travel as much as James Bond.  The most interesting places, exotic women, and a little bit of danger.  Whenever I step out into a new town and see the world swirl around me, at that moment I hear a little bit of the James Bond theme play.

Billy Hatfield 09.14.10 | 2:40 AM ET

Don’t forget Fievel Mousekewitz!

Grizzly Bear Mom 09.15.10 | 12:07 PM ET

What about Laura Ingalls WIlder’s books on pioneering through the American Mid West?  She and Huckleberry Finn tempted me to hop boxcars for a year (As a 110 pound woman, it was wise to resist that one.) Surely there are some great immigrant stories other than my grandparents’, but I can’t recall any.  I’ve been to England, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hawaii, Italy, Korea, Japan, Okinawa and most states and “ready for more.” 

By the way Travel channel, paging through articles like the above is painful for individuals with carpel tunnel, and difficult for individuals with visual limitation because we have to continually refocus on each page.  Please limit articles presented in this mann.er.  Thank you for your consideration.

Nery 09.17.10 | 7:13 PM ET

I’d add Ishmael (i.e. “Call me Ishmael”).  The novel begins with what I thought was a hilarious, but also powerful description of wanderlust/cabin fever:  “...whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.  This is my substitute for pistol and ball.”

He also promotes cultural and religious plurality, trying to get past his own uncomfortable first impressions of different cultures—like that of his roommate, Quequeg, at the whaler’s inn.

Ryan 09.20.10 | 1:54 PM ET

Larry Darrel, Candide, Dante, and any hobbits ever to point their hairy hobbit feet away from the Shire get my vote.  Great list, great discussion.

Kevin Capp 09.20.10 | 7:34 PM ET

Glad you guys selected The Sheltering Sky.  I’d also recommend travelers read Bowles’ Let It Come Down and Up Above the World, if for no other reason than that their wanderings probably won’t end as badly as it does for the characters in those novels.

Rory Moulton 09.21.10 | 4:55 PM ET

Stephen Maturin from the Aubrey-Maturin novels (“Master and Commander”)! Particularly in “HMS Surprise” when he and Jack travel to India.

Donald Wilson 09.23.10 | 7:44 AM ET

Three of the greatest travelers ever:

Odysseus (Ulysses) from Homer’s Odyssey Aeneas from Aenied Don Quixote

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Road Trip USA: 12 Most Famous Routes To Travel In America

• Famous routes in the USA offer adventure, quirky roadside stops, and iconic diners for road trip enthusiasts craving exploration.
• Route 66, the Pacific Coast Highway, and the Florida Keys Scenic Highway are some of the most iconic road trips in the US, with breathtaking sights and delicious food stops.
• The Loneliest Road, the Alaska Highway, the Grand Circle, and the Oregon Trail provide unique and scenic routes through untouched wilderness, historic landmarks, and stunning landscapes.

From East to West and North to South, the United States is lucky to have numerous scenic highways and iconic roadways that are beckoning to be explored and perfect for road trips. Whether searching for breathtaking desert mountain ranges or vast misty forests, adventure, quirky roadside stops, and iconic American diners await travelers on these routes. Here are some most famous routes in the USA to travel for those with wanderlust, a yearning for exploration, and the desire to visit some of the best destinations in the US by road.

UPDATE: 2023/11/15 08:44 EST BY SUNIL PURUSHE

Two More Incredible Road Trips To An Already Outstanding List

America is truly a land of never-ending possibilities as far as epic road trips are concerned, and this list is richer by two more. From the East Coast to the Wild West, the United States of America is one of the best countries on Earth for a road trip. Drive safe!

Related: 10 Best Road Trips You Can Take Through The Scenic State Of Texas

Route 66: A Driving Adventure Along The Most Famous Road In The World

Over 2,400 miles across eight states, from Chicago, Illinois, to the Pacific Coast in Santa Monica, California.

Route 66 is one of the most famous road trips in the United States and a classic choice for travelers hoping to soak in Americana culture. Spanning from Chicago to California, Route 66 covers eight states and takes drivers through many historic landmarks and quirky roadside attractions, including the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri; the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas; and the Santa Monica Pier in California.

• Popular sights: Ozark Mountains in Missouri, the Painted Desert in Arizona, and the Pacific Coast in California
• Popular food stops: Lou Mitchell's in Chicago, Illinois; the Ariston Café in Litchfield, Illinois; and the Midpoint Café in Adrian, Texas

Before traveling on the most famous road trip in the US, plan to add the best stops along Route 66 to visit on a road trip to the itinerary.

The Pacific Coast Highway: A Rocky Coastline, Striking Cliffs, And Unspoiled Beaches Make PCH One Of The Most Scenic Highways

650 miles on an epic west coast road trip from the north to the south of california..

The Pacific Coast Highway, also known as California State Route 1, is probably the most famous route in America to drive and stretches more than 600 miles across the California coast. The Pacific Coast Highway offers lots to see on the way and is a must-drive route for anyone seeking gorgeous ocean views, sunny weather, and carefree California vibes.

From the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to Bixby Bridge in Big Sur, this route takes roadtrippers through some of California's most stunning and breathtaking sights.

• Popular sights: Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Point Lobos State Reserve, Big Sur State Park, and Pfeiffer Beach
• Popular food stops: Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur, Hog Island Oyster Company in Tomales Bay, and The French Laundry in Yountville

The Florida Keys Scenic Highway: 110 miles Across The Islands Of The Florida Keys

Scenic images of dolphins swimming, manatees floating in the waters, and endangered birds gliding through the brilliant blue sky..

The iconic drive along the Florida Keys Highway is perhaps one of the most beautiful road trips in the US in terms of tropical scenery and sea views. The route takes travelers from Miami to Key West with incredible ocean sights all along the way. This road also takes roadtrippers through friendly small towns filled with quirky beach bars and laid-back Florida charm.

Outdoor lovers can spend the day swimming, kayaking, snorkeling, and scuba diving in Florida's pristine waters or exploring some of the beautiful parks in the area, which include the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo and the Bahia Honda State Park in Big Pine Key. The Florida Keys are known for their fresh seafood, and travelers with a sweet tooth must try the area's famous specialty: Key Lime Pie.

• Popular sights: Key West Lighthouse, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, and the Indian Key Historic State Park
• Popular food stops: Hogfish Bar and Grill in Stock Island, the Conch Republic Seafood Company in Key West, and the Fish House in Islamorada

Related: The History Of Route 66, And Why You Should Be Visiting Its Museums

The Blue Ridge Parkway: "America's Favorite Drive," Through The Appalachian Mountains

469 miles of breathtaking scenery through shenandoah national park and the great smoky mountains national park..

Spanning 469 miles from Virginia to North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the most famous road trips in the US, as it takes drivers through the majestic Appalachian Mountains. Blue Ridge Parkway is filled with beautiful stops , and outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy camping, hiking, and fishing in the beautiful state parks found along the route, including the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The region is filled with plenty of wildlife, and nature lovers might stumble upon black bears, deer, and birds of prey native to the area.

• Popular sights: Shenandoah National Park, Pisgah National Forest, Oconaluftee Visitor Center in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Mabry Mill in Virginia, the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park in North Carolina
• Popular food stops: The BBQ Exchange in Gordonsville, Virginia; the Tupelo Honey Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina; and the Woodlands Barbecue in Blowing Rock

The Loneliest Road: Most Desolate, Yet Most Interesting

A road trip that touches colonial-era landscapes while passing through the wild west up to high-tech silicon valley..

The Loneliest Road is a perfect road trip route for lovers of the American Southwest and has become one of the most famous roads in America. This route belongs to the portion of U.S. Route 50 that runs through Nevada. The Loneliest Road got its name in 1986 when a travel magazine proclaimed there was absolutely nothing interesting along this route, conjuring up images of desolate landscapes and barren wastelands.

This route, however, is filled with captivating desert landscapes, historic ghost towns from Nevada's famed Gold Rush, and quirky roadside attractions.

• Popular sights: The Ruby Mountains, the Great Basin National Park, the Eureka Opera House, and the Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park
• Popular food stops: Middlegate Station in Fallon, Grandma's in Austin, and Racks Bar and Grill in Ely

The Alaska Highway: A Work In Progress For 75 Years

A magnificent road trip through the epic northern scenery, two-thirds of which lies in canada..

Running from British Columbia to Alaska, the Alaska Highway offers travelers a unique opportunity to explore some of North America's most untouched parts of wilderness. Nature lovers can marvel at epic mountain ranges, sparkling lakes, and vast forests filled with beautiful wildlife and flora.

Visitors can hike or camp in Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve. The Alaska Highway also offers travelers one of the best places in the entire world to see the surreal beauty of the Northern Lights during the winter months.

• Popular sights: Mile 0 Cairn in Dawson Creek, the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake, and the Big Delta State Historical Park in Delta Junction
• Popular food stops: The Salty Dawg Saloon in Homer and Fast Eddy's in Tok

The best time of year to drive the Alaska Highway is from late spring to early fall when the weather is warmer, and there are plenty of daylight hours. Travelers who are determined to travel the route in winter can still make the drive as long as they take extra precautions to keep warm and safe.

The Grand Circle: Some Of The Most Stunning Scenery Imaginable

An epic journey through five states and nine national parks..

The Grand Circle loop takes drivers through some of the most iconic national parks in the American Southwest. Visitors will be able to see the stunning views of Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, and the Grand Canyon. A popular place to start this loop is in Las Vegas, where visitors can rest and refresh after a long road trip spent hiking, camping, and exploring some of the most beautiful views in the US along the way.

• Popular sights: Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Valley of Fire
• Popular food stops: The Rocking V Cafe in Kanab, Utah; Red Iguana in Salt Lake City, Utah; and El Tovar Dining Room at Grand Canyon National Park

Related: Blue Ridge Parkway Vs. Skyline Drive: Which Is More Scenic?

Maine's Route 1: Over 500 Miles Of Pavement That Snakes Its Way Through New England

A perpetually evolving panorama of coastline, historic landmarks, and charming towns..

Route 1 takes travelers along Maine's rugged coastline, rustic seaside towns, and some of the best lobster shacks in the country. From Kittery to Fort Kent, this route features some of the most charming views of this New England state, including the Acadia National Park, Maine Maritime Museum, whale-watching tours, and some of the most famous lighthouses in America.

• Popular sights: Acadia National Park, Maine Maritime Museum, Portland Head Light, Pemaquid Point Light, and West Quoddy Head Light
• Popular food stops: Red's Eats in Wiscasset, Moody's Diner in Waldoboro, The Whale's Tale in Boothbay Harbor

The Great River Road: A National Scenic Byway And All-American Road Following The Mississippi For 3,000 miles

A collection of state and local roads that take the course of the mississippi river through 10 states of america..

The Great River Road is also among the most famous road trips US states have to offer; it follows the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana and features charming river towns, breathtaking views of the epic Mississippi River, and historic sites related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the American Civil War. This route is also one of the best road trips in the US for foodies, offering everything from Tennessee barbecue to New Orleans gumbo.

• Popular sights: Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi; the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri; and the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana
• Popular food stops: The Frostop Drive-In in New Orleans, Louisiana; The Blue Owl in Kimmswick, Missouri; and Fitz's Root Beer in St. Louis, Missouri

Related: Here's What Roadtrippers Should Know About The Loneliest Road In America

The Oregon Trail: America's Historic Road Trip Where 400,000 Pioneers Traveled From 1840 To 1880 In Wagons

Nearly 2,000 miles through mountains, valleys, and wild prairie on the historic route of america's first settlers..

Exploring The Oregon Trail is one of the most famous roads in America; it's a road trip made for history buffs and adults who spend their childhoods playing the popular video game. This historic route follows the path of the 19th-century pioneers who settled in the West, offering a fascinating glimpse into America's frontier past. There are plenty of museums on the route that tell the story of westward expansion, such as the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon.

Tourists can even visit pioneer cemeteries scattered along the Oregon Trail that shed light on just how grueling this journey was. Some of these cemeteries include the Whitman Mission National Historic Site in Walla Walla, Washington, and the Blue Mountain Cemetery in Prairie City, Oregon.

• Popular sights: Independence Rock in Wyoming, Chimney Rock in Nebraska, and Fort Laramie in Wyoming
• Popular food stops: The Oregon Trail Restaurant in Baker City, Oregon, and Fort Laramie Bed and Breakfast Cafe in Fort Laramie, Wyoming

Mighty 5: A Ride Into The Heart Of America's Red Rock Country

Driving through 5 national parks of utah for the most epic adventure..

Known to many as "The Utah National Parks Road Trip" or "Mighty 5 Road Trip", this famous US route is often considered the best road trip in America and, by some, even the best in the world. Drive through Utah's national parks with canyons stretching as far as the eye can see, soaring sandstone cliffs, fire-colored rock hoodoos, and thousands of dramatic arches, like the famous formations in Arches National Park .

• Popular sights: Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Parks
• Popular food stops: Hell's Backbone Grill and Farm in Boulder, Capitol Burger in Torrey, Arches Thai in Moab, I D K Barbecue in Tropic

Olympic Peninsula Loop: a 300 Mile-Long Odyssey Through Stunningly Gorgeous Landscape

Winding around the perimeter of olympic national park, passing rugged mountain peaks, pristine alpine lakes, lush green forests, and scenic beaches..

Although packed with famous US highways that are seemingly made for road trips, few Washington drives are as iconic as the Olympic Peninsula Loop. The Olympic Peninsula Loop is 330 miles long and studded with countless sites to explore.

Although the loop can be covered in one day, to justify this road trip, travelers on the route can break the journey along many stops, such as the glassy Lake Cushman inside Olympic National Forest, Port Townsend known for its Victorian architecture, Lavender farms in the town of Sequim (pronounced “Squim”) and a historic lighthouse from 1857 inside Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. Seattle and Portland are two major cities accessible from the Olympic Peninsula Loop.

• Popular sights: Lake Cushman, Lighthouse inside Dungeness Refuge, Hoh Rain Forest, La Push, Ruby Beach, Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent
• Popular food stops: Pellegrino's Italian Kitchen in Tumwater, Jean-Pierre's Three16 in Tumwater, Gardner's Restaurant in Olympia

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