To travel is an adventure, some travellers had amazing escapades that paved the way for future travellers and inspired generations with the desire to travel.
Neil Armstrong
The first man to set foot on the moon was a modern adventurer who travelled to the moon which is 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 travel.
Freya Stark
Stark cemented her reputation to travel in the late 1920s, she was the first woman to enter Luristan in Iran. She mapped out the area for Westerners to see the ruined castles of history. Her adventures inspired other travellers and showed that a woman could be a traveller in an age when men dominated the field.
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway known as the manliest of manly travellers, travelled extensively. His journeys inspired many of his greatest stories; he was a fisherman, hunter and soldier 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!
Ibn Battuta
Battuta was a great Muslim explorer who travelled more than 120,000 kilometres through regions that, today, comprise 44 countries; from Italy to Indonesia, Timbuktu to Shanghai. He was mugged, attacked by pirates and held hostage. His travel writings provide a rare perspective on the 14th century medieval empire of Mali.
Marco Polo
Polo, the legendary Venetian set out with his father and uncle to travel 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 travellers with tales that provide fascinating insight into Kublei Khan’s empire, the Far East, the silk road, and China.
Sarah Marquis
Marquis, a Swiss adventurer and traveller walked 20,000 kilometres alone from Siberia to the Gobi Desert, into China, Laos, Thailand, and then across Australia. In 2014 she was named one of National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year.
Jean Batten
Batten became the best-known New Zealander of the 1930s, internationally, by making several record-breaking solo flights across the world. She made the first-ever solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.
Michael Palin
Palin started his career as a member of Monty Python and then reinvented himself as a traveller. He accepted the BBC’s challenge to travel around the world in 80 days, Jules Verne style. He finished the adventure in 79 days 7 hours (airplane-less), which became a television series; pretty much pioneering the concept of getting travel into people’s homes.
Kira Salak
Salak’s resume includes traveling solo to almost every continent including Madagascar, Borneo, Rwanda, Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo; named 2005 National Geographic Emerging Explorer; first to kayak solo 600 miles down West Africa’s Niger River; first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea; she has been called the ‘real-life Lara Croft.’
Santa Claus
The jolly old man has an army of ‘elves’ that trick out his ‘sleigh’ so that he can travel to every house in the world on Christmas. Imagine what the airline industry could save by way of fuel costs if they could employ a few reindeer.