The world can seem vast and uncertain, yet most of us dream of exploring the great unknown. When is the last time you dared to explore unchartered territories? Join the ranks of some of the most courageous pioneers in travel listed below. Though some of these people below may have been the first to reach such heights or such distances, travelling is not about being the best – we hope this list of some of our favourite travellers will inspire you, too, to embark on great travels with a purpose.
Junko Tabei
Junko Tabei climbing Ismail Somani Peak, Tajikistan in 1985 © Jaan Künnap
From a small town in Fukushima, Japan to the sky-scraping peaks of Mount Everest, Junko Tabei proved that she was destined to big accomplishments. From an early age, Tabei showed interest in surpassing herself and her classmates on school outings and didn’t stop there. At 28, she formed a women’s only climbing club and a year later joined an all-women expedition to ascend Annapurna III in Nepal.
Five years later, the black and white peaks of Mount Everest greeted her but not without a struggle. Due to terrible weather and an avalanche, Tabei almost never made it, having to tend to a hip injury from being trapped in the snow. She persevered, and seven days after the accident, after a painstaking six-day hike via the South-Ridge route, she became the first woman to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.
The unstoppable Tabei conquered the Seven Summits, the seven highest mountain peaks in the world, including the soaring 5,895-metre high Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and the Carstensz Pyramid, Oceania’s highest mountain.
Read more: a guide to trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp
Michael Palin
“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.” Monty Python actor Michael Palin has more than just a few jokes up his sleeve and a few thousand kilometres under his belt. While continuing his acting career, Palin also focused on fulfilling one of his greater passions: travelling.
Writing and starring in his own travel documentaries, he attempted to circumnavigate the world in 80 days, inspired by the fictional character in Jules Verne’s similarly titled novel. Starting and ending in London, his misadventures brought him through the Arabian Desert and aboard the Indian Railways. Another novelist to inspire his travels was Hemingway, as Palin followed his footsteps, discovering the likes of Michigan where Hemingway liked to fish or Cuba, the author’s former home.
He mentioned in an interview that his favourite place in the world may be Pongo de Mainique in Peru, but as much as faraway lands beckon to Palin, his love for (re)discovering his own country resonates strongly in his work. An episode of his series Great Railway Journeys is dedicated to train travel from Londonderry to Kerry, his ancestral homeland. Wherever you choose to go to follow in his footsteps, the sky is the limit – an asteroid honouring his accomplishments in entertainment floats around space under the name 9621 Michaelpalin.
Karen Blixen
Karen Blixen at Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen on one of her many trips © SAS Scandinavian Airlines
Sometimes life gives you lemons, other times it gives you a coffee bean. Karen Blixen, born in Denmark in 1885, soon found her life in Scandinavia traded for the African sunshine in Kenya. Her husband and she embarked on an adventure in coffee cultivation founding the Karen Coffee Company. While her husband was often off on safaris, she worked hard on the farm and passed the time perfecting her English and writing about her experiences. Of this challenge emerged stories that would bring Blixen to international fame as an author.
Upon return to Denmark, she shared her first project, the Seven Gothic Tales (1934) – these stories of a poet living in a Danish town, life in the German region of Holstein, an impossible love story in Paris reflect her love for travel. Her most recognised work would be Out of Africa, a non-fiction book about her life in Africa. The book published in 1937, later adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1985, depicts the hardships of working on the farm, the failures that followed, and life as a white settler in 20th-century Kenya.
The nostalgic account was greeted with criticism for being so blunt in describing interactions with locals, to the point of being racist. Yet her memoir nevertheless is a glimpse into the perspective of a young woman derooted from her comfort zone, interacting with communities she knew little about, and bringing back her experiences for the rest of the world to know.
Sir David Attenborough
If you watch his documentaries with your eyes closed, you’ll recognise his British-accented voice, but don’t shut them for too long, or you’ll miss some of television’s best images of our planet Earth. Sir David Attenborough is a naturalist and broadcaster for BBC. In series such as Planet Earth, he scours deserts and mountains, crossing the Earth from pole to pole. Have you seen the Giant salamander, the largest amphibian in Japan? Have you mingled with the gorillas at Diane Fossey’s sanctuary in Rwanda? Attenborough has, and at 90 years old, there isn’t much he hasn’t already crossed off of his bucket list. In a recent interview, he mentions one place he has yet to explore – the middle of the Gobi desert.
Besides being knighted Sir David Attenborough in 1985, Attenborough counts among his accomplishments the production of series such as Life On Earth, Life in the Freezer (about the cycle of life in Antarctica), and The Blue Planet (about life in the water). In honour of his efforts as a wildlife expert, several species of plants, arthropods, and vertebrates carry his name – look out for the carnivorous Attenborough’s pitcher plant! From London to the Galapagos Islands, Mozambique, and the Bahamas, he can almost say he’s seen it all.
Attenborough has also been one to encourage environmental sustainability and awareness: “our planet is still full of wonders. As we explore them, so we gain not only understanding but power. It’s not just the future of the whale that today lies in our hands: it’s the survival of the natural world in all parts of the living planet. We can now destroy or we can cherish. The choice is ours.” So travel well and travel smart, admiring your surroundings and respecting them as you go.
Read more: visit amazing places from BBC’s Planet Earth
Amma
You get a hug, and you get a hug! Hundreds get a hug from Amma at her event in California
Travelling sometimes doesn’t have to be the discovery of a city or country, but can be a spiritual journey with the people we meet. India-born Mata Amritanandamayi “Amma” travels the world to share love and physically embraces people of all religious and cultural backgrounds.
Recognised as a self-realised spiritual leader, called Amma (meaning “mother”) by her devotees, she has been on worldwide tours offering 10-hour hugging sessions at times and bringing compassion to over 30 million strangers over the years. Preaching not just love, but also teaching others to help and serve each other, Amma dedicates her time to global charities, fighting hunger, providing health care and empowering women through the funding of charitable organisations in more than 40 countries around the world.
Her ashram in Kerala, India, also known as “God’s own country”, is where you can find her while she’s not hugging the world. Devotees settle in at the village of Parayakadavu, participate in meditation, eat the Prasad lunches (a religious meal offering) and explore the peaceful Kerala backwaters of one of the most beautiful regions in India.
Read more: reasons why you should travel to India
Matthew Henson
Matthew Henson holds a portrait of Robert E. Peary, his partner in the North Pole expedition © New York World-Telegram/Roger Higgins
The Arctic had no idea what was going to hit them when Maryland-born Matthew Henson set out to explore the icy frontier. As a skipper, trained while working aboard a ship, he had already fuelled his desire for discovery, travelling to Asia, Africa, and Europe. A chance encounter with explorer Robert Edwin Peary led to a two-decade long expedition to the North Pole from 1891 to 1909.
Embracing local Eskimo culture in Greenland, learning the natives’ language and survival skills, and charting the ice-cap were all in a few years’ work. Between returns to Nicaragua, where he and his wife at the time lived, Henson continued to push further on several separate expeditions having to abandon more than once due to the risk of starvation, leaving the North Pole always just out of reach. The April of 1909, Peary and Henson, accompanied by their team of Eskimos and dogs, finally reached their destination and planted proudly the American flag.
Unfortunately, the current political scape in North America in the early 20th century didn’t bring Henson the well-deserved praise for being the first African American to reach the North Pole. It wasn’t until 1937 that his remarkable journey was acknowledged as he was accepted into the Explorers Club in New York, and in 1944 he was awarded a Congressional Medal. You may want to follow in his footsteps, confronting bone-chilling winds with a pack of snow dogs, or you can recount his trials and triumphs in his 1947 biography, Dark Companion.
Karl Bushby
To walk the world is no simple feat (no pun intended), yet that is the mission Karl Bushby, ex-paratrooper for the British Army, set for himself in 1998. However, his trek, known as the Goliath Expedition, is as challenging as it sounds. Although he set out to accomplish a 58,000-kilometre trek in 8 years, from Punta Arenas, Chile to his home in England, he is still out walking today.
After walking through South, Central, and North America, Bushby tried to cross the Bering Strait, from Alaska to Russia, on foot but was detained by border control for not using a correct port-of-entry. The following years became an arm-wrestle with the Russian government to obtain the correct visas and appeal bans to continue his walk.
Bushby progressed by a few thousand kilometres almost every year – his treks punctuated with trips away to Alaska and Mexico to respect visa restrictions and an unfortunate ban from visiting Russia due to lack of correct paperwork. In an attempt to get the ban revoked, Bushby set on a 4,800-kilometre protest walk from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington. The ban was revoked after two years, and Bushby continued his trek, having to accept the terms of a 90-days visa each time he returns to Russia.
In September 2016, Bushby rejoined the Kolyma Highway, aka the Road of Bones (in reference to the skeletons of the deceased construction workers used in the foundation), a paved road that lead him out of Russia. As of March 2017, he was heading west through Mongolia, progressing on his way back home to England. He regularly posts images on his social media.
