How was the travel experience for the world's first solo female travel writer?

In an era when women were expected to stay tethered to home and hearth, Ida Laura Pfeiffer , an unassuming Viennese housewife, defied convention to become the world’s first solo female travel writer. Born in 1797, Pfeiffer didn’t embark on her remarkable journeys until her mid-40s, after her children were grown and her husband had passed. What followed was a 16-year odyssey spanning 150,000 miles by sea and 20,000 miles on land, including two circumnavigations of the globe. Her travels, chronicled in bestselling books like Journey of a Viennese Lady to the Holy Land and A Lady’s Voyage Round the World, offered a window into a world few dared to explore—especially alone, and especially as a woman.


Pfeiffer’s travel experience was a blend of grit, curiosity, and sheer audacity. Her first major trip in 1842 began with a steamer down the Danube, ostensibly to visit a friend in Constantinople. But her true destination was far bolder: the Holy Land. She sailed the Black Sea, trekked through Istanbul and Jerusalem, and rode horseback across the Egyptian desert—alone, without a male escort, in a time when such independence was unthinkable.



Her journeys were anything but cushy. Pfeiffer faced perilous conditions—river rapids, desert heat, and stormy seas. On one voyage, she famously asked a ship’s crew to tie her to the mast, Odysseus-style, so she could feel the full force of a storm without being swept away. She plowed through jungles, outpacing exhausted guides, and endured mobs who gawked at or grabbed her, a lone woman in foreign lands. Attacks and barred entries to male-only spaces were not uncommon, yet she often found kindness too.


Pfeiffer’s petite, plain appearance belied her stamina. She moved with purpose, covering continents—South America, Asia, North America, Africa—on a shoestring budget. She wasn’t after luxury; she slept in basic lodgings, ate local fare, and collected specimens of plants and insects, many now housed in European museums. Her fame grew with each trip, earning her free passage on ships and honorary memberships in the geographical societies of Berlin and Paris, a first for a woman.

Also read: What does the world's oldest island look like?

Her writing broke norms too. Initially published anonymously due to societal taboos, her books soon bore her name, offering vivid accounts of distant cultures and landscapes. They weren’t just travelogues—they challenged the idea that women couldn’t explore or narrate the world with authority. Her final trip to Madagascar and Mauritius in 1856 ended tragically; caught in a coup, expelled, and possibly stricken with malaria, she died in Austria in 1858 at 63.


Pfeiffer’s travel experience was raw, exhilarating, and transformative. She didn’t just see the world—she reshaped how it saw women, proving that courage and curiosity could carry one further than any ship. To all the solo female travel writers , we continue to learn from this extraordinary adventurous travellers.

Also read: Why are airplane windows round instead of square?