Meet The World's Most Famous Explorers, Hear Their Fascinating Stories

Explorers in extreme conditions

The world wouldn’t be what it is today without the fearlessness of its most intrepid explorers, who have gone beyond borders and faced abominable conditions to find out more about our planet. From legendary expeditioners who risked their lives in the name of adventure to modern-day voyagers who have broken seemingly impossible world records, here's a look at some of the world's most courageous explorers throughout the centuries.

Nellie Bly

When Jules Verne published his novel Around the World in 80 Days in 1873, it captured everyone's imagination including pioneering American journalist Elizabeth Cochrane. Writing under the name Nellie Bly, she decided to take on the challenge of beating the fictional world record. Her editor at the New York World newspaper declared a woman would not be able to travel with few enough items to make the trip, but Bly proved him wrong by taking just the clothes she was wearing plus a small bag.

Nellie Bly

On 14 November 1889, Bly took the Augusta Victoria steamship from New York to England and arrived in London seven days later. She went on to Paris by train and met Jules Verne himself who wished her luck. After, she continued by train to Brindisi in Italy and by ship through the Suez canal and to Sri Lanka. From Colombo, Bly sailed the 3,500 miles to Hong Kong via Singapore. Then on to Japan where she caught the White Star Line's Oceanic steamship, pictured here.

Nellie Bly

The Oceanic landed in San Francisco on 22 January 1890. Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the New York World newspaper, commissioned a private train, the Nellie Bly Special, to bring her back to New Jersey completing the 2,577-mile journey across America in just 69 hours. Nellie arrived back on 25 January 1890 having circumnavigated the globe in 72 days, six hours and 11 minutes, beating the fictional character Phileas Fogg’s time by more than seven days.

Robert Falcon Scott

The early part of the 20th century saw several countries vying to become the first to reach the South Pole. Former British Naval officer Robert Falcon Scott, known as 'Scott of the Antarctic,' was one of the key contenders and spent years fundraising for his attempt, eventually setting off in 1910 from Cardiff, Wales, UK on a ship called the Terra Nova. 

Robert Falcon Scott

However, the expedition was ill-equipped and the sledges, dogs and horses the team took with them were unable to cope with the temperatures. The dog team turned back, leaving just Scott and four other adventurers, Oates (pictured), Evans, Wilson and Bowers to press on. On 17 January 1912 they arrived at the South Pole, only to discover they’d been beaten to it by a Norwegian group led by Roald Amundsen.

Robert Falcon Scott

Scott’s team had to make the return journey and it was then that tragedy struck, with Evans dying in mid-February 1912 and Oates suffering from frostbite and gangrene walking out to his death in the cold to avoid holding the others back. The remaining three adventurers probably died of starvation in March 1912 and were discovered eight months later. Once considered a hero, Scott has been a controversial figure, with much criticism of his handling of the expedition in more recent years. 

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

While the legendary adventurer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton never achieved his goal of being the first person to reach the South Pole, his determination and bravery marks him among Britain’s most celebrated explorers. He undertook three expeditions to the Antarctic in the early 20th century, all while suffering from a hole in the heart, which often left him breathless, fatigued and feeling weak. But his calm leadership proved decisive in handling dangerous situations and saving the lives of his crew.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

Shackleton’s bravery knew no limits. In 1914, he set off on his third trip to the Antarctic on the ship Endurance (pictured), but in early 1915, the ship became trapped in the ice and, after 10 months, sank. Shackleton and crew were forced to live on floating ice but, eventually, they set off for the mountainous Elephant Island off the coast of Antarctica in five small boats. From Elephant Island, Shackleton chose five crew members and they set sail in one small boat to get help.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

The six men spent 16 days navigating 800 miles of ocean to reach the remote island of South Georgia. They then trekked across the island to a whaling station where they sought help. The remaining men marooned on Elephant Island were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of Shackleton's crew died. The expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley, took some of the most memorable pictures of the South Pole too. 

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Louise Arner Boyd

The wealthy American explorer Louise Arner Boyd broke the mold in a number of ways. Not only did she become the first woman in the world to fly over the North Pole in 1955, she was also the first female councilor of the American Geographic Society. Her intrepid exploits took her everywhere from Arctic Canada to Greenland and, of course, the North Pole, which she not only reached by plane, but previously, by ship and dog sled.

Louise Arner Boyd

Arner Boyd became fascinated by Greenland in the early 1920s after taking a cruise to the unforgiving landscape of Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Circle. In 1928, when the polar explorer Roald Amundsen vanished while flying over Greenland, Arner Boyd chartered a ship, The Hobby, and assembled a crew in an attempt to find him. Although she was unsuccessful, she found her calling in life as an Arctic explorer. She made many trips to the frozen north, took hundreds of photos, charted unknown areas and recorded new species.

Louise Arner Boyd

In 1938 she was awarded the Callum medal by the American Geographical Society. She said: “The charm of the Arctic, its infinite diversity, its aloofness from the rest of the world, made it a field which gives its own reward. Only those who have seen the magnificent sunsets over the ice can appreciate the spell which always draws us back there.” A fjord in Eastern Greenland was named after her and when she died in 1972, her ashes were scattered over the Arctic in accordance with her wishes.

Dame Freya Stark

Her gift for languages, tenacious character and long life spanning 100 years led the Anglo-Italian Freya Stark to become one of the foremost authorities on the Middle East. She studied Arabic at the London School of African and Oriental Studies and in 1927 made her way to Lebanon and Damascus and on to the unexplored and dangerous Druze Territory. Determined to chart the area, she undertook drawing classes so she could create her own maps.

Dame Freya Stark

In 1930, she learned Farsi and traveled to the Valley of the Assassins in Persia – an area that hadn't been mapped before. A dangerous place, as the name suggests, Stark set off on a mule with a local guide carrying a camp bed and a malaria net. Further trips to Iraq, Egypt and India enhanced her reputation. Aged 76 she was in Persia again, at 86 she traveled to the Annapurna in the Himalayas. In 1972, in recognition of her pioneering explorations, she was made a Dame.

Jacques Cousteau

Prime time TV for millions during the late 1960s and 1970s was watching The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. The French explorer enthralled viewers with images of life below the ocean waves that had never been seen before. Cousteau started his love affair with the water in 1936 when he took up swimming as therapy after a car crash. Then, in 1942, he traveled to Embiez, an island in the Mediterranean and made his first underwater film 18 Meters Deep, which won an Oscar.

Jacques Cousteau

Cousteau invented an improved aqua-lung and in 1950, from his ship The Calypso, he made an award-winning movie The Silent World. He led expeditions under the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and in 1961 received the National Geographic Society medal from President Kennedy and in 1985 the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1974, he founded the Cousteau Society dedicated to marine conservation to highlighting the damage being done to the oceans. Cousteau continued to work until his death in 1997.

Sir Edmund Hillary

No list of intrepid explorers could be complete without mentioning Sir Edmund Hillary. Born in New Zealand, the adventurer became the first person to stand on top of Everest, along with Nepalese mountaineer Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953. Before climbing Everest became a tourist activity, Sir Edmund and Norgay had to battle exhaustion, low oxygen levels, bitterly cold temperatures and strong winds to complete the dangerous challenge.

Sir Edmund Hillary

The pair, pictured here, made history succeeding where many others had failed before them. While Hillary, who died in 2008, is best remembered for his mountaineering, he also made an expedition to the Antarctic. In 1958 he led the New Zealand team of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE) to become the first person to see the South Pole since Scott in 1912 and the first to get there by vehicle.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Described by the Guinness World Records as “the world’s greatest living explorer,” Sir Ranulph Fiennes has seemingly done it all. From braving the blistering heat of the Sahara to becoming the oldest Briton to run the infamous endurance race Marathon des Sables, to dealing with freezing temperatures to complete the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic continent, this famous English adventurer has undertaken countless perilous adventures.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Less than four months after a huge heart attack, double bypass and a three-day coma, Fiennes achieved the first 7x7x7, completing seven marathons in seven consecutive days on all seven continents. He’s also won world records for being the first to reach both Poles, the first to cross the Antarctic and Arctic Ocean, the first to circumnavigate the world along its polar axis and the oldest Briton to conquer Mount Everest (despite being afraid of heights).

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Along the way, Fiennes has had to summon incredible courage to deal with the natural obstacles he’s met, such as dealing with frostbite on an expedition to Antarctica during the polar winter, which he nicknamed "The Coldest Journey" due to temperatures dropping to as low as -180°F. During a previous Arctic adventure, he cut off his fingertips and the top of his thumb after experiencing painful frostbite. As his expeditions were also fundraisers, he has donated millions to many charities.

Junko Tabei

With people commenting that she should concentrate on raising children instead, Japanese adventurer Junko Tabei ignored the detractors she encountered as a young female mountaineer. As the first woman to conquer Mount Everest, Tabei sealed her name in the history books forever, but it was no easy feat. In 1975, during her Everest climb, Tabei was woken by an avalanche and, along with her team, would have been killed were it not for the fast-acting Sherpas, who dragged them out by their ankles.

Junko Tabei

Tabei didn’t stop at Everest: she tackled summits in over 70 countries, and earned the title of the first woman in the world to ascend the highest summit on each of the seven continents. Despite being diagnosed with cancer, Tabei never stopped climbing, with her last ascent Mount Fuji, accompanied by students affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. She was also a campaigner for sustainable mountaineering, saying of Mount Everest: “Everest has become too crowded. It needs a rest now."

Alan Chambers MBE

Adventurer, Arctic survival specialist and motivational speaker, Alan Chambers led the first British team to walk unsupported from Canada to the geographic North Pole. This ambitious expedition saw his team walking in temperatures as low as -85°F while dragging a sledge weighing several hundred pounds. Battling severe weather and exhaustion, the team fought extreme weight-loss and malnutrition to achieve their goal. 

Alan Chambers MBE

Chambers was also a member of the first winter expedition to traverse Iceland by ski, and has also sledged across Greenland, Canada’s Northwest Territories, and Norway. He now leads expeditions to demanding places, such as the Everest Base Camp, the deserts of Oman and the Arctic. 

Ed Stafford

British explorer Ed Stafford became the first man to walk the length of the Amazon, earning him a Guinness World Record. After retiring from the Army in 2002, he began leading charity expeditions to the jungles of Belize. That was only the beginning of a catalog of perilous explorations, which included being dropped off alone on an uninhabited island in the Pacific with no food, water, or tools to see if he could survive for 60 days. He filmed his experience for the Discovery Channel.

Ed Stafford

On walking the Amazon River, Stafford tells us: “No one had done it before and most people told me I would surely die. I actually did get held up at gunpoint several times by drug traffickers and at arrow-point by angry local tribes, and once I even got arrested for suspected murder. But I managed to stay alive and completed the journey in August 2010 after 860 days of walking.”

Ed Stafford

In Stafford’s explorations through countless places, from Patagonia and Siberia to the Namib and the Gobi Desert (pictured), he’s experienced all sorts of weather, but he says the worst he's ever faced was in northern Thailand on the border of Laos. “From a sunny morning I remember cowering below my makeshift bamboo shelter mid-afternoon as a hailstorm smashed into the forest above,” he says. 

Ed Stafford

“By nighttime the tropical storm had grown and the rain was tearing at my skin and stinging my eyes. I didn't have any clothes, as it was a survival experiment, so it was impossible to sleep," Stafford adds. "I just had to keep singing at the top of my lungs to keep my spirits up and wait for morning. A lot of Robbie Williams was sung that night."

Sarah Outen MBE

British athlete and adventurer Sarah Outen has achieved more in her 35 years than most people could hope to in a lifetime. Her four-and-a-half-year "London2London: via the World" trip saw her kayak, row and cycle 25,000 miles around the Northern Hemisphere, battling tropical storms, blizzards, hurricanes, post-traumatic stress disorder, pneumonia and even capsizing five times.

Sarah Outen MBE

As the first woman to row solo across the North Pacific Ocean, Outen encountered sharks, violent storms and even hallucinations as she made the journey of over 4,000 miles, which was just one leg of her epic trip. Freezing temperatures, thick fog and poor light meant that at times she was confined to her cabin for days, and that her life was in very real danger at the hands of the elements.

Sarah Outen MBE

During one particularly harrowing three-day episode, Outen was hit by a tropical storm and had to lie strapped to her bunk in the cabin of her boat while the seas raged around her. The boat was so badly damaged that she needed to be rescued afterwards. Outen said: “For me this expedition has always been about the adventure, the challenge and importantly about the learning."

Jessica Watson

There’s no wrong age for adventure as far as Jessica Watson is concerned. At the age of just 16 in 2010, the Australian sailor defied critics to spend seven months at sea navigating some of the world’s most challenging oceans in her 30-foot yacht, Ella’s Pink Lady. Her parents endured criticism for allowing her to attempt the treacherous journey, but her success ensured she became the youngest person ever to sail solo non-stop and unassisted around the world.

Jessica Watson

Now aged 27, Watson was named Young Australian of the Year 2011, a well-deserved accolade for the challenges she faced on her journey, including colliding with a 63,000-ton ship, ferocious waves reaching up to 50 feet, prolonged isolation, seven knockdowns and fierce winds. Watson filmed her epic journey and the story is now being adapted into a TV film. A truly remarkable story of a remarkable young woman.

Alex Honnold

El Capitan is a rock face that nearly all climbers would take a few days to scale. After all, it’s a sheer granite wall that looms 3,000 feet in California’s Yosemite National Park. But in 2017 adventurer Alex Honnold made it to the top in just under four hours – and what’s more he did it ‘free solo,’ with no ropes or specialist equipment, save for a pair of climbing shoes. 

Alex Honnold

One wrong move and Honnold would have plunged to his death, all while being filmed too, as the incredible story was being made into a movie, Free Solo, that won best documentary feature at the 2019 Oscars. For the film, Honnold’s brain was scanned and it was discovered he doesn’t compute fear in the same way as the rest of us. It must run in the family as Honnold's mum, Dierdre Wolownick, is the oldest woman to scale El Capitan too. 

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