Introduction: Women and travel, past and present

In the opening ditty above, published in the British Punch magazine in 1893, we see the satirical rejection of a woman traveling, and the notion reiterated of travel as a primarily masculine venture. During this era, well over 100 years ago, it was not socially acceptable for women to travel, and certainly not on their own, without family or husband. It was around this time, in the late 1800s, where debates were sparking regarding the admission of women as fellows into the Royal Geographic Society-a debate which raged for over 20 years until 1913, when the Society finally admitted women for the first time (Bell & McEwan, 1996). Despite the controversies among geographical societies, many (Western) women defied societal and gendered conventions by traveling, often solo, and both at home and abroad. They negotiated, resisted, found ways of doing so. And in doing so, they defied traditional ideologies of “woman,” and “woman at home” (Wilson & Little, 2005). © 2017 by Apple Academic Press, Inc.