What drew Annie Taylor and Alexandra David-Neal to Tibet, when it was still cut off from the world and so hostile to foreigners, and particularly female ones, that they had to wear male Tibetan dress for protection? What did Hester Stanhope and Gertrude Bell, two such different women, find so compelling about the desert life of the East? What possessed Mary, Duchess of Bedford, to take up flying at the age of 60 - or Naomi James to sail around the world, or Arlene Blum to climb Annapurna? These, and other, accounts of women travellers experiences around the world are included in this book.