I quickly learned that unlike horses, camels are not easy to ride. Their gait is uncomfortable. That adventure led to many other adventures. By then, I had become a photojournalist, writing about and photographing my explorations. Some of my stories were about the mud brick architecture of Yemen, the rock carvings of Saudi Arabia, and the hill tribes of Pakistan. I learned how to be a guide in the wilderness of Alaska. One expedition led to the next.
One day, someone asked me: “Because you are a woman, are you afraid, and not just because of the wild places you are going but because you are a woman?” I had never thought about that before. That question made me wonder: Where were the other women like me? I never really met any other women like me on my expeditions.
That started me on another type of exploration--into the history of women in exploration. Of course, I had been reading a lot about exploration and history all my life and realized I had rarely, if ever, read stories about women explorers. There had to be other women like me. I began reading the history books, closely scanning footnotes and bibliographies. I began slowly building my own library of books, first with references to women explorers, and finally finding books written by women explorers themselves. Now I have more than 1,000 books about women explorers. I know there are many, many more. I decided to write my own book called "Women of Discovery" on the history of women explorers, picking out about 90 stories that really interested me. What I found was that women were indeed exploring the world. They always have. It was just that their stories did not always find their way into the general books. You have to really look to find them.
