10 women travelers who broke all the rules

Zora Neale Hurston

Most famous for novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston was also an avid traveler and anthropologist. She was born in Alabama and raised in Florida in an age when many Black people relied on guides like the Green Book to travel with even a small modicum of safety. Hurston eventually got into college and began a career of literary and academic achievement that included trips through the Caribbean and Jim Crow American South learning and writing about the culture and folklore of the post-slave-trade African diaspora.  

Throughout the mid to late 1930s, Hurston spent time in Jamaica and Haiti as a Guggenheim fellow researching Tell My Horse, a deep dive into the world of genuine voodoo and obeah spiritual practices. She writes beautifully about the landscapes of the British West Indies, bringing literary flare to what could easily have been a more straightforward, academic text or travelogue. But Hurston’s perspective as a Black American gives readers glimpses into worlds that not all travelers can access.