Great explorers you’ve probably never heard of
A guide to epic adventurers that you ought to know better
The 12th-century Japanese poet and pioneer of lockdown travel
By renouncing normal life and holing up in a hut in the woods, the ruminative Kamo no Chomei mastered the art of travelling without moving
The dashing Russian adventurer who fought to save indigenous lives
Gertrude Bell: the Victorian bluestocking who helped found modern Iraq
Alexandra David-Néel, the first European woman to see Lhasa
The scholar and opera singer who sneaked into Tibet in the 1920s was also an anarchist, ran a casino and adopted a Buddhist monk
The samurai who charmed the courts of Europe
Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga dazzled the king of Spain, set up diplomatic links with 17th-century Europe and even met the pope
Florence Baker: the polyglot slave girl turned intrepid explorer
The Transylvanian-born orphan was sold to an English traveller, with whom she discovered the wonders of Africa, married and fought to abolish slavery
Matthew Henson: the pioneering African-American Arctic adventurer
This multi-skilled explorer may well have been first to the North Pole – in 1909. What’s not in doubt is his resourcefulness and love of the Inuit
Lady Hester Stanhope: meet the trailblazing Queen of the Desert
The aristocrat abandoned her privileged background for a life of Middle East adventure, dressing as a man, visiting harems and leading archaeological digs
Anton Chekhov's travels … the ‘greatest work of journalism of the 19th century’
The playwright’s arduous journey to a Pacific island in Russia’s far east resulted in a non-fiction masterpiece
Richard Francis Burton … dashing explorer of the exotic and erotic
This fearless Victorian flirted with several ways of dying while looking for the source of the Nile, entering Mecca illegally and exploring other cultures’ attitudes toward sex
Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir … the woman who found the New World 500 years before Columbus
In our new series on lesser-known adventurers, we shine a light on the Icelandic explorer who reached America long before big Chris
