10 women travelers who broke all the rules

Freya Stark

Before there was Lawrence of Arabia, there was Freya Stark, a solo female traveler who is best known for her forays into the inter-war Middle East. Stark grew up as part of an artistic family in Italy before joining the Red Cross during WWI – an experience which, coupled with the premature death of her sister, inspired her to take a carpe diem approach to life.

In the late 1920s, Stark set sail for Beirut and worked her way into Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and southern Arabia, travels she sometimes underwent in secret to avoid upsetting the delicate political climate. By 1933, she’d been honored by the Royal Geographical Society for her dispatches on destinations like the Valley of the Assassins (aka the Alamut Valley), a remote and romanticized corner of Iran even her male European contemporaries had yet to see firsthand. Stark went on to work during WWII in swaying Arab stakeholders in Egypt and Iraq to support the Allies’ efforts, before spending the rest of her life traveling throughout Asia and the Middle East.