The World's Female Explorers

Today is “March 8, International Women's Day.” March 8 is not just a day of celebration; it is a powerful symbol embedded in our collective memory of the struggle for equality, justice, and freedom that women have waged throughout history. With roots tracing back to the labor movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, today serves as a historical reminder of the process by which women have gained visibility in social, economic, political, and cultural spheres.

Women, who have made countless contributions to the common heritage of humanity from science to art, and from politics to daily life, have played an indispensable role in the progress of societies. In this sense, International Women's Day is not only a commemoration of achievements; it is a universal call reminding us that women's rights must be protected and strengthened to build an egalitarian, inclusive, and fair future.

I salute the labor, resilience, and creativity of women with respect; I want to emphasize our shared responsibility for a more equal world once again, and for this reason, I dedicate this day to the women who explored the world.

 In fact, in my previous articles (Trans-Caucasia), I mentioned one of the most famous female explorers, Madame Carla Serena, and told the story of this Belgian-born female explorer who was the first to pursue Trans-Caucasia.

So, who were the other female explorers? Especially those women who lived in an era when travel writing and, in particular, travel to exotic regions were dominated by men, and who traveled, observed, asked questions, and listened bravely and largely independently? Women who traveled to geographies far from where they lived to see and explore, during times when even Western male travelers were not accustomed to the conditions regarding food, hygiene, and personal safety?

Although exploration and travel narratives throughout history have mostly been associated with men's names, many female travelers and explorers in different periods of the world have made great contributions to the recognition of distant geographies with their courage and the travelogues they penned. These women were not just travelers who saw new places, but also observers, writers, and at times scientific researchers who left their mark on history by building bridges between cultures. Their writings offer an alternative and rich perspective to the male-dominated narrative of the ages of discovery.

A female name who shared the travel tradition of the same period as the 13th-century Venetian traveler Odoric of Pordenone (a Franciscan friar and missionary explorer who lived in Italy) but who often remained in the shadows is Margery Kempe. Setting out from England in the 15th century, Kempe described her journeys extending to Jerusalem, Rome, and the Middle East in detail, and these narratives provided early testimonies regarding the religious and cultural life of distant lands in Europe.

In the 14th century, one of the most striking female examples of the spirit of discovery is seen in the German naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian. Merian traveled to Suriname in 1699 to study tropical ecosystems and made significant contributions to the history of scientific discovery with her work documenting the life cycles of insects. Her travels demonstrated that women could exist not only as travelers but also as scientific explorers.

In the 15th century, French traveler Jeanne Baret went down in history as the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Baret, who joined Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition disguised as a man, made significant contributions to the science of botany by collecting plant specimens in the Pacific and South America. Her story is a striking example of how women participated in the production of knowledge despite the obstacles they faced during the ages of discovery.

The 16th century became one of the brightest periods for female travel writing. Swiss traveler Isabelle Eberhardt traveled alone in the deserts of North Africa and attracted great attention in Europe with the texts she wrote about Algeria and the Sahara. Her writings reflect not only geographical discoveries but also personal and intellectual relationships established with different cultures. In the same century, Austrian traveler Ida Pfeiffer became one of the pioneering names in travel literature by circumnavigating the globe twice. Publishing her journeys from Iceland to Indonesia and from Madagascar to South America as books, Pfeiffer reached a wide readership in 19th-century Europe and showed that women could also undertake global voyages of discovery.

Another important name is the English explorer and writer Gertrude Bell. During her extensive travels to the Middle East in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she penned detailed observations about Arab societies, desert geography, and archaeological sites. Although known as a spy, Bell, who is also remembered as a famous female traveler, made significant contributions to the better recognition of the region in the Western world through her writings and maps. Also in the early 20th century, English traveler Freya Stark gained fame with her journeys to little-known regions of the Middle East. Her travel books on Iran, Yemen, and Anatolia drew attention with both their anthropological observations and literary narrative power, enabling readers to imagine these geographies.

Although European names have often been highlighted due to the Western-centric historiography of exploration and travel narratives, there were also women who traveled, wrote, or engaged in exploration activities in Asia, the Middle East, and the Ottoman geography. However, some of these names were not sufficiently visible in academic literature for a long time. For example, in the famous work *Seyahatnâme* (Book of Travels) by Evliya Çelebi, who lived in the Ottoman world in the 17th century, there are narratives about some female dervishes and women who went on pilgrimages traveling in Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Although they did not write individual travel books, these narratives show that women in the Ottoman world participated in long-distance journeys.

One of the early modern period figures who stands out among Eastern female travelers is Leyla Saz from the Ottoman aristocracy. Traveling from Istanbul to Europe in the 19th century, Saz conveyed her observations about different cultures and cities in her memoirs. These writings are considered among the important texts documenting the travel experience of Ottoman women.

In the early 20th century, Ottoman writer and journalist Halide Edib Adıvar penned both political and cultural observations during her journeys to Europe, America, and the Middle East. Her writings, especially on India and England, contain remarkable comments on the social structure of different societies.

In Japan, one of the early examples of modern travel writing is seen in the travel observations of names such as the traveler and feminist writer Fusae Ichikawa. Journeys made to Europe and America in the early 20th century created a new travel literature in which Eastern societies observed the West.

In the Middle East, one of the most remarkable female travelers of the 20th century is the Syrian writer Salma al-Haffar Kuzbari. The writings she penned during her travels between Europe and the Arab world are important in terms of containing cross-cultural comparisons. In addition, female writers who emerged in China during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republican years also produced travel writing. One of them, Sanmao, became one of the most popular female travel writers of the 20th century, especially with the books in which she recounted the years she spent in the Sahara Desert.

Therefore, the idea that there were historically no Eastern female travelers is not correct; the problem is more that these stories were left out of the Western-centric history of exploration for a long time. Today, historians and cultural researchers are re-examining these narratives and trying to reveal a more inclusive map of world travel literature.

All these pioneering women were not just individuals who traveled; they also became narrators who introduced the world to one another through the books they wrote, the articles they penned, and the maps they drew. Travel writing created an intellectual space that expanded the role of women in the public sphere while describing the nature, people, and cultures of distant lands.

Today, modern travel journalism and travel writing largely proceed along the paths opened by these brave women. Their stories remind us that exploration is not only a geographical but also a cultural, intellectual, and social journey. Every traveler who is curious about the world, wants to cross borders, and shares what they see through writing is, in a sense, continuing the legacy of these pioneering female explorers.