Five kick-ass women who will inspire you to set off on an adventure
The launch of the everywoman in Travel Awards has inspired Telegraph Travel to celebrate the successes of women in the industry and raise awareness of roles where women are still under-represented, including the board room, the bridge of cruise ships and commercial jet cockpits. The deadline for nominations for an award has been extended to September 18.
We thought it would be an excellent time to think about fearless female travellers who inspire others with their feats. Here, we present five fantastic female travellers who prove that, while every explorer must employ common sense and caution, your gender needn’t affect your propensity for adventure.
Cassie DePecol
Earlier this year, Connecticut native Cassie became the first woman to set foot in all of the world’s 196 nations, and by completing the whole journey in an impressive 18 months and 26 days, she also holds the title for the shortest time for any person, male or female, to complete this feat. Oh, and at 27, she’s also the youngest to have done it.
The adventurer, who spent between two and five days in each destination, documented her travels on Instagram, under the handle expedition_196, an account which now has more than 350,000 followers. She also filmed her journey, which she completed alone, for a documentary, while acting as an ambassador for the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism and collecting water samples around the world for Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation.
De Pecol, who knows the self-defence system, Krav Maga, and is also a triathlete, hopes her travels will encourage others to set off on their own adventures. On her website, she said: “It is my hopes that, through traveling alone as a blonde, American woman, I’ve been able to respectfully introduce you to a completely different perspective of the world and it’s people; the safety, kindness, and the similarities of 99 per cent of people around the world. In portraying this, I’ve had to let go of all of my fears and trust in people, trust in strangers, and trust in the unknown, and it’s proved to be an powerfully rewarding experience.”
Michelle Jana Chan
Michelle Jana Chan is a globe-crossing travel writer and broadcaster who, while regularly contributing to Telegraph Travel, has also found time to swim across the Bosphorus, summit the Gulap Kangri in Ladakh, compete in the Peking to Paris vintage car rally and pick up a private pilot’s licence along the way. She also, may we add, rides a motorbike to work.
Jana Chan caught the travel bug young, as her father’s job as a pilot for British Airways meant the family was often moving around, while a keen appetite for literature helped inspire her to visit far-flung destinations. Speaking to Telegraph Travel, she also said that her mixed heritage - “my father's from Guyana, my mother from the Czech Republic” - helped make her believe “I belonged to, and had permission to explore, the whole world.”
Her advice to women travellers? “Go anywhere. There are very few places I'd avoid as a solo woman traveller. In fact, being a woman is often an advantage”
You can read Michelle’s award-winning piece on revisiting Nepal a year after the 2015 earthquake here.
Juliana Buhring
Ultra-endurance athlete Julia Buhring became the fastest woman to circumnavigate the globe by bike in 2012, a journey she recounted for the autobiographical book This Road I Ride. She was born and raised in the notorious Children of God religious sect and her childhood was isolated and often confusing, an experience which she documented in bestseller Not Without My Sister. Buhring faced further hardship in 2010 when her partner, explorer Hendri Coetzee, died on an expedition - and it was through completing her extraordinary journey on two wheels was a “way of trying to pull myself out of the rut” when she “couldn’t find a way to continue on living”.
Speaking to Telegraph Travel last year, Buhring encouraged women to set off their own adventures. She told our writer: “Everyone kept telling me not to travel alone - that it was too dangerous. But I didn’t find that to be the case at all, in fact, quite the opposite. I think people were much more willing to help. I was overwhelmed by people’s generosity and the openness of strangers wanting to come up and help me or give me food.”
You can read more about Buhring’s extraordinary adventures here.
Sarah Marquis
Swiss explorer Sarah Marquis spent three years walking from Siberia to the Gobi Desert, into China, Laos, Thailand, and then across Australia, equipped with only the most basic kit and a satellite phone for emergencies (and the occasional call to her loved ones). The extraordinary journey is documented in her book Wild By Nature and she regularly hosts talks on what she learned, including a special recording for TED Talks.
Speaking to Telegraph Travel last year, Marquis said that though she travelled little as a child growing up in the Swiss countryside, she fostered a senses of adventure from a young age, and never felt constrained by being a girl.
“I was this wild kid running all over the place and, I’m still the same - a bit taller and older - but I'm the same. I was doing expeditions when I was a kid: one day I just ran away, trying to sleep in a cave with my dog and didn't tell anybody. My two brothers are really normal,” she told us.
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Lois Pryce
Almost fifteen years ago, Lois Pryce quit her office job and set off on an epic 20,000-mile motorcycle ride from Alaska to Argentina - and she hasn’t stopped. Since her first trip, she has travelled to more than 50 countries, usually alone and on her motorcycle, with the exception of a trip across the US in 2009 when her husband Austin joined in a sidecar.
Speaking to Telegraph Travel last year, Pryce, who has delivered a TED Talk on the importance of “vulnerable travel” urges women to to “get out there, ignore the naysayers and show that risk is a vital part of life, no matter what your gender”.
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