Were Victorian women really as fragile as depicted? Take the case of Isabella Lucy Bird, who is described in her Wikipedia entry as follows:

From early childhood Bird was frail, suffering from a spinal complaint, nervous headaches, and insomnia. The doctor recommended an open-air life, and consequently, Bird learned to ride in infancy, and later to row. Her only education came from her parents: her father was a keen botanist who instructed Bird in flora, and her mother taught her daughters an eclectic mix of subjects. Bird became an avid reader. However, her “bright intelligence, [and] an extreme curiosity as to the world outside, made it impossible for her brain and her nature generally to be narrowed and stiffened by the strictly evangelical atmosphere of her childhood.”

So what did this proper lady do for kicks? She traveled around the world for several decades, writing a series of creditable travel classics. I am currently reading Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, amongst the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes (1874), which described her seven-month stay in the Hawaiian Archipelago.

Other books and articles describe her travels to Australia, the American West, Japan, Malaya, Greece, Persia, Tibet, China, Korea, and Morocco.

Isabella Bird was by no means the only woman solo traveler of her time. There was also Lady Florence Dixie (1855-1905), who wrote an excellent book about Patagonia; Frances Trollope (1779-1863), mother of novelist Anthony Trollope, who wrote of her travels in the United States; and Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839), who traveled extensively in the Middle East.

Somewhat later, there was Dame Freya Stark, who traveled by herself among the Arabs and lived to the ripe old age of a hundred. I have read several of her books, which are uniformly excellent.

I can only look upon these women travelers with wonder and admiration.