For over 16 centuries, women have been undertaking great journeys and writing about their experiences, yet the traditional image of them is still that of an intrepid Victorian lady vigorously prodding the ends of the earth with her parasol. But by their very nature, women travel writers are a non-conformist breed. The abbess Etheria's fourth-century account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land relates not only the religious significance of her journey, but also the difficulties of mountaineering on Mount Sinai. Mary Wollstonecraft, who is celebrated as a pioneer feminist, wrote of her secret voyage in 1795 to Scandinavia - all for the love of a cad. Isabella Bird was a meek and dutiful woman at home, but once let loose in "the congenial barbarism of the desert", she assumed an unladylike "up-to-anything free-legged air"; while her contemporary Mary Kingsley canoed herself serenely through the white waters of West African rivers impeccably dressed in black silk and bonnet.