Some of these women’s reasons for traveling included pilgrimage, the love of travel, to take care of family, adventure, and business. There were few women travelers who recorded their journeys in Ancient times, however, because those women who could write were often nuns and didn’t travel. Acccording to Women on the Road, the women who did travel usually accompanied their husbands but often could not write. Many were not confined by domesticity but were instead brave, bold travelers, launching into the wilderness with a few guides; climbing mountains; riding horses, camels, or elephants; carrying large packs; and wading through swamps (Old Maids Travel Alone).
Some of the earliest documented women travel writers—often wealthy —wrote of their pilgrimages and travels with their husbands. One of the pioneers of the genre was Margery Kempe (1373 – after 1438), who was known for writing The Book of Margery Kempe and was said to have chronicled her extensive pilgrimages to various holy sites in Europe and Asia (Margery_Kempe). Additionally, Katharine Evans (d1692), a Quaker missionary imprisoned with a friend for three years in Malta by the Inquisition, recounts in writing their experiences and illustrates how they tolerated such adversity.
17th Century Travel for Pleasure
In the 17th century, early travel writing changed when women were portrayed as traveling solo or just for their enjoyment. Although, it should be noted that even though a large number of female travelers were married, many were not, a situation different from most women in the world where singleness and the right to live and travel alone would not be permissible.
One such travel writer who simply found traveling a pleasure was the Frenchwoman Marie Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy (1650-1651), who traveled extensively in Spain and England and wrote her most popular works— Les Contes des Fees (Tales of Fairies) and Contes Nouveaux, ou Les Fées à la Mode—based on these trips. However, less exotic travel is described by Celia Fiennes (1662-1741) in her posthumously published Through England on a Side-Saddle, in which she describes a journey she made in 1680. She is known to have laid the foundation for the guidebook as we know it.
18th Century Travel, Writing, and Feminism
In the 18th century, more women were learning how to write, which led to an increase in travel writing by women. Also, travel itself was becoming more common for leisure as well as business. During this period, many English women travelers secured a place for themselves in literature. For example, one such travel writer was Elizabeth Craven (1750-1828); although an author, playwright, traveler, and socialite, she was perhaps best known for her travelogues which employed an editorial versus descriptive style of writing.
At this same time during the late 18th century, feminism was born and women began to demand equal rights that liberal revolutionaries had claimed for men. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), an English writer and philosopher, was one such passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica Online, during her brief career, her writing included novels, treatises, and a travel narrative (she had traveled to Scandinavia and described the spectacular scenery and her connection to it).
Industrialization and Women Travel Writers
The mid to 19th and early 20th centuries experienced a vast number of European and American female travelers who wrote of their adventures, and because industrialization had increased women’s mobility, they could now travel more easily by train or steamer. One of these novelists was Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904), a French adventuress who was known to dress as a man during her explorations in order to obtain a more authentic experience. In addition, Elizabeth Cochrane (1864-1922)—a writer going by the pen name of Nellie Bly and employed by a newspaper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania dubbed “The New York World”—explained her impetus for traveling: “I need a vacation; why not take a trip around the world?” which gave birth to the novel Around the World in 72 Days (1890).
Each of these travelers, as well as the multitude of others who have come before or after them, had a mission, a vocation or avocation that contributed in some way to society. These women believed their travel writing played a part in their nation’s understanding of the world. Although it took some time to take off, early women’s travel writing smoothed the way for the 21st century women who now comb the world and then write about it.
Source:
Leyla. (c. 2007-2009). Women on the road. Retrieved from http://www.women-on-the-road.com/early-womens-travel-writing.html on February 14, 2009
CEA Forum. (Winter 2000). Retrieved from http://www.as.ysu.edu/~english/cea/travel.html on February 14, 2009
Margery Kempe. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Kempe
Adam Matthew Publications Ltd. (© 2009). http://www.ampltd.co.uk/collectionsaz/Col-Disc-1-1/description.aspx retrieved February 14, 2009
Madame d’Aulnoy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_d’Aulnoy
Mary-Wollstonecraft. (n.d.) In Encyclopedia Britannica online. Retrieved February 14, 2009, from www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/539744/Mary-Wollstonecraft-Shelley
A Celebration of Women's Writers (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2011, from http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/world/world.html
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