101+ FREE Books About Women Traveling the World

This is the first of several posts linking to various public domain books on interesting topics! Public domain books are ones that have fallen out of copyright, and so they’re available for free to download and read.

This specific post focuses on the following:

• Women traveling to various countries, either solo or with their partner/family
• Women’s memoirs about specific places in specific time periods, which usually have an element of travel to them
• Books available through the amazing website Project Gutenberg, which releases them in various formats

I’ve put this list together myself (no AI!!) by going through many (MANY) pages of books within the various travel-related subject pages. I even hand-coded the links myself!

While you can find a lot just going through the main “travel” genre page, I noticed that some books get sorted under specific location subjects or even just a general nonfiction tag, so my hope is that putting these lists together will help you discover some new-to-you books and authors you might not’ve seen before.

Each link goes to the book’s main page on the Project Gutenberg website. To download a copy for yourself, select the format you’d like and it should download to your device.

Note: Some links here are affiliate links, which means if you click on it and buy something, I get a small percentage. This money goes towards running the blog. Thank you for your support!

Book List

1. Through Finland in Carts by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie (1913)
2. A Girl’s Ride in Iceland by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie (1894)
3. In Château Land by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (1911)
4. Italian Days and Ways by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (1906)
5. A Wayfarer in China by Elizabeth Kimball Kendall (1913)
6. A Woman who went to Alaska by May Kellogg Sullivan (1902)
7. A Bird-Lover in the West by Olive Thorne Miller (1894)
8. Upon The Tree-Tops by Olive Thorne Miller (1897)
9. In and Around Berlin by Minerva Brace Norton (1889)
10. Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California by Mary E. Anderson (1865)
11. A Woman’s Journey through the Philippines by Florence Kimball Russel (1907)
12. Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole (1857)
13. Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon, and California by Caroline C. Leighton (1884)
14. Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Vol. 2
15. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella L. Bird (1905)
16. Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume 1 (of 2) by Isabella L. Bird and Vol. 2 (1891)
17. Korea and her neighbors by Isabella L. Bird (1897)
18. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird
19. The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither by Isabella L. Bird (1883)
20. The Englishwoman in America by Isabella L. Bird
21. The Yangtze Valley and beyond by Isabella L. Bird (1899)
22. The Hawaiian Archipelago by Isabella L. Bird (1875)
23. Among the Tibetans by Isabella L. Bird
24. Chinese pictures: notes on photographs made in China by Isabella L. Bird (1900)
25. Notes on Old Edinburgh by Isabella L. Bird (1869)
26. The South American Tour by Annie S. Peck (1913)
27. Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule by Almira Stillwell Cole (1893)
28. Our Hawaii: (Islands and islanders) by Charmian London (1922)
29. Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie
30. By Desert Ways to Baghdad by Louisa Jebb Wilkins
31. Syria, the Desert & the Sown by Gertrude Lowthian Bell (1907)
32. Amurath to Amurath by Gertrude Lowthian Bell (1911)
33. To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise by E. B. Soane (1914)
34. Béarn and the Pyrenees: A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre by Louisa Stuart (1844)
35. West African studies by Mary Henrietta Kingsley (1899)
36. Travels in West Africa: Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons by Mary H. Kingsley (1897)
37. Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent (1886)
38. Newfoundland to Cochin China by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent (1892)
39. The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin (1903)
40. Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 by Dorothy Wordsworth (1874)
41. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Dorothy Wordsworth and Vol. 2 (1897)
42. Travels in Western Australia by May Vivienne (1901)
43. A Journal from Japan: A Daily Record of Life as Seen by a Scientist by Marie C. Stopes (1910)
44. Jinrikisha days in Japan by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1891)
45. Java: The garden of the East by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1897)
46. Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1884)
47. Japan: A Record in Colour by Dorothy Menpes (1901)
48. Venice by Dorothy Menpes (1904)
49. Brittany by Dorothy Menpes (1905)
50. An English girl in Japan by Ella M. Hart Bennett (1904)
51. Brittany & Its Byways by Mrs. Bury Palliser (1869)
52. Southern Arabia by J. Theodore Bent and Mrs. Theodore Bent (1900)
53. Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North by Ida Pfeiffer (1853)
54. A Woman’s Journey Round the World by Ida Pfeiffer
55. A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy by Ida Pfeiffer
56. The Last Travels of Ida Pfeiffer: Inclusive of a Visit to Madagascar by Ida Pfeiffer
57. Up the Country by Emily Eden (1867)
58. Wanderings of a pilgrim in search of the picturesque, Vol. 1 by Fanny Parkes Parlby and Vol. 2 (1850)
59. Life and Travel in India by Anna Harriette Leonowens (1897)
60. The English Governess at the Siamese Court by Anna Harriette Leonowens (1870)
61. An English Girl’s First Impressions of Burmah by Beth Ellis (1899)
62. A Journey to Ohio in 1810, as recorded in the journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight (1912)
63. A tour in Mongolia by Beatrix Manico Gull (1920)
64. Alaska, the Great Country by Ella Higginson (1908)
65. A Pacific Coast Vacation by Mrs. James Edwin Morris (1901)
66. A Woman’s Impression of the Philippines by Mary H. Fee (1910)
67. An Ohio Woman in the Philippines by Emily Bronson Conger (1904)
68. An Englishwoman in the Philippines by Mrs. Campbell Dauncey (1906)
69. Outposts of Asia by Morilla Maria Norton (1909)
70. Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them by Mrs. Archibald Little (1899)
71. A Woman In China by Mary Gaunt (1915)
72. A Broken Journey by Mary Gaunt (1919)
73. Alone in West Africa by Mary Gaunt (1911)
74. The Californiacs by Inez Haynes Gillmore
75. A year in China by Mrs. H. Dwight Williams (1864)
76. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 by Dame Shirley (1922)
77. The Backwoods of Canada by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill (1836)
78. 14000 miles, a carriage and two women by Frances S. Howe (1906)
79. Romantic Canada by Victoria Hayward (1922)
80. Canada, the Spellbinder by Lilian Whiting (1917)
81. Italy, the Magic Land by Lilian Whiting (1907)
82. The Land of Enchantment: From Pike’s Peak to the Pacific by Lilian Whiting (1906)
83. A summer journey in the west by Eliza R. Steele (1841)
84. Wau-Bun: The “Early Day” of the North-West by Mrs. John H. Kinzie (1901)
85. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 by Margaret Fuller (1844)
86. At Home and Abroad; Or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe by Margaret Fuller (1869)
87. American Life by Mrs. Felton (1843)
88. First impressions of the New World on two travellers from the Old, in the autumn of 1858 by Isabella Strange Trotter (1859)
89. Seeds of Pine by Emily F. Murphy (as Janey Canuck) (1922)
90. Dragons and Cherry Blossoms by Alice A. Parmelee Morris (1896)
91. Camps and Trails in China by Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews (1918)
92. Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway by Effie Price Gladding (1915)
93. My Impressions of America by Margot Asquith (1922)
94. By motor to the Golden Gate by Emily Post (1916)
95. It Might Have Been Worse: A Motor Trip from Coast to Coast by Beatrice Larned Massey (1920)
96. Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 1 (of 2) by Harriet Martineau and Vol. 2 (1838)
97. Society in America, Volume 1 (of 2) by Harriet Martineau and Vol. 2 (1837)
98. Westward hoboes: ups and downs of frontier motoring by Winifred Hawkridge Dixon (1921)
99. Across the Plains to California in 1852: Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell (1915)
100. Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 by Sarah Raymond Herndon (1902)
101. A Woman Tenderfoot by Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson (1900)