Books by women adventurers worth reading
Adventure writing has long been shelved as a man’s genre: expedition reports, summit diaries, polar epics. The books below show how much of the best of it was written by women. All of them are nonfiction, and every one was written by the woman who did the climbing, walking, riding, sailing or swimming.
This domain once featured short profiles of individual adventure books. This guide replaces them with a single, broader list. For each title we checked the author, the exact title, the original publication year and the subject against a publisher page, a library catalog or a published review. Where a book is hard to find in the US, we say so.
Quick picks
| If you want… | Start with |
|---|---|
| A modern trail memoir | Wild, Cheryl Strayed (2012) |
| A mountaineering classic | Annapurna: A Woman’s Place, Arlene Blum (1980) |
| A cycling classic | Full Tilt, Dervla Murphy (1965) |
| A desert epic | Tracks, Robyn Davidson (1980) |
| Something about water | Why We Swim, Bonnie Tsui (2020) |
Mountaineering and climbing
Annapurna: A Woman’s Place by Arlene Blum (1980)
Blum led the 1978 American Women’s Himalayan Expedition to Annapurna I. On October 15 that year, Vera Komarkova and Irene Beardsley Miller reached the summit with two Sherpas, the first Americans and the first women to stand on top. Days later, Vera Watson and Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz died on a second summit attempt. The book is both an expedition account and a frank look at what it meant for an all-women team to take on an 8,000-meter peak at a time when many doubted they could.
- Read it if… you want the expedition that changed who gets taken seriously in the Himalaya. Annapurna: A Woman’s Place
Honouring High Places by Junko Tabei with Helen Y. Rolfe (2017)
Junko Tabei was the first woman to reach the summit of Everest, in 1975. Honouring High Places: The Mountain Life of Junko Tabei is her first book in English, translated from her Japanese memoirs and published by Rocky Mountain Books. About a third of it covers Everest; the rest moves through her childhood, other major climbs, her environmental work, her support for young people after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and her cancer diagnosis.
- Read it if… you want a quieter, generous voice from one of mountaineering’s true pioneers. Honouring High Places
Climbing Free by Lynn Hill (2002)
Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World, written with Greg Child and published by W.W. Norton, follows Hill from her early days at Joshua Tree and Yosemite through big-wall climbing, stunt work and the European competition circuit. It builds toward her free ascents of the Nose on El Capitan, the climb that made her name far beyond the climbing world.
- Read it if… you climb, or want to understand why the Nose still matters. Climbing Free
No Ceiling by Heather Swan (2009)
Swan, an Australian, describes how she went from corporate single mother to high-altitude climber and wingsuit BASE jumper alongside her partner, Glenn Singleman. The story builds to their wingsuit jump from Mount Meru in the Indian Himalaya, which set a world record for the highest wingsuit BASE jump. It was published in Australia by The Five Mile Press and is out of print, so look for a used copy.
- Read it if… you started your adventures later in life and want proof that the ceiling is self-imposed. No Ceiling
Long-distance walking
Wild by Cheryl Strayed (2012)
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail is the trail memoir most people have heard of. In her mid-20s, after her mother’s death and the end of her marriage, Strayed set out alone and with no backpacking experience to walk more than a thousand miles of the PCT. Grief, blisters and an overloaded pack carry equal weight in the story. It was an Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 pick.
- Read it if… you are walking away from something and toward something else at the same time. Wild
Becoming Odyssa by Jennifer Pharr Davis (2010)
Before she set speed records on the Appalachian Trail, Pharr Davis hiked it as a fresh college graduate with little experience. Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail tells that first thru-hike, and how a nervous beginner turned into “Odyssa,” her trail name. It is especially good on the trail’s subculture and its odd sense of family.
- Read it if… you are planning your first thru-hike or wondering whether you could. Becoming Odyssa
Tracks by Robyn Davidson (1980)
In 1977, Davidson walked about 1,700 miles (2,700 km) from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean with four camels and her dog. The book began as a National Geographic article and won the first Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. It is sharp, unsentimental and often funny about solitude, the Australian desert and the attention a lone woman attracts. The 2013 film with Mia Wasikowska is based on it.
- Read it if… you like your adventure writing prickly and honest. Tracks
A Long Trek Home by Erin McKittrick (2009)
In June 2007, McKittrick and her husband set off from Seattle and spent about a year traveling 4,000 miles to the Aleutian Islands on foot, by packraft and on skis. A Long Trek Home: 4,000 Miles by Boot, Raft, and Ski, published by Mountaineers Books, mixes the physical journey with conservation questions along the coast: logging, salmon, mining and climate change.
- Read it if… you want a human-powered epic with a conservation backbone. A Long Trek Home
Cycling and travel
Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy (1965)
In 1963, Murphy rode a bicycle she called Roz from Ireland to India, through an exceptionally harsh European winter and on across Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle is built from the diary she kept along the way. It is often listed among the best cycling books and the best travel books, and it reads as fresh today as any blog.
- Read it if… you have ever thought about a long solo bike tour. Full Tilt
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird (1879)
Bird traveled alone through the Colorado Rockies in the autumn of 1873 and described it in letters to her sister, published as a book in 1879. She describes the landscape, the settlers and frontier life in a territory that was still barely governed. She later became the first woman admitted as a member of the Royal Geographical Society.
- Read it if… you hike in Colorado and want to see the same peaks through 19th-century eyes. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains
Water
Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox (2004)
Long-distance swimmer Lynne Cox tells the story of her swims, including the first swim across the Strait of Magellan, the Bering Strait and a mile in 32°F (0°C) water off Antarctica. Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer is about cold, endurance and the strange calm of open water, and also about using swims to build bridges between countries. It received an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2005.
- Read it if… you swim in open water, or wonder how anyone survives it. Swimming to Antarctica
True Spirit by Jessica Watson (2010)
In May 2010, at 16, Watson sailed back into Sydney Harbour after 210 days alone at sea, nonstop and unassisted around the world. True Spirit covers her dyslexia, years of preparation and the voyage itself: sleep deprivation, storms and knockdowns that put her mast in the water. The US edition carries a longer subtitle than the Australian one.
- Read it if… you want to give a teenager proof that age is not the limit. True Spirit
Modern voices
Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart by Carrot Quinn (2015)
Quinn’s account of her first Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike, Mexico to Canada, is written in the present tense, close to a trail journal. It is less about scenery than about the people, the hunger, the trail romance and the odd intensity of living outdoors for months. If Wild feels too polished, this is the raw version.
- Read it if… you want to know what a thru-hike feels like day to day. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart
Take the Lead by Sasha DiGiulian (2023)
Take the Lead: Hanging On, Letting Go, and Conquering Life’s Hardest Climbs is the professional climber’s first memoir, published by St. Martin’s Press. She writes about growing up in a male-dominated sport under the scrutiny of social media, a difficult relationship with her father, her hardest climbs and the hip surgery that gave her time to write.
- Read it if… you want a current, candid look at life as a pro climber. Take the Lead
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui (2020)
Journalist and lifelong swimmer Bonnie Tsui explores why humans keep going back to the water: for survival, health, competition, community and flow. Published by Algonquin, it moves from an Icelandic fisherman who survived hours in winter sea to swim clubs, elite athletes and scientists. It is more essay than expedition, and an easy gift for anyone who loves a lake.
- Read it if… you want a thoughtful book you can dip into a chapter at a time. Why We Swim
How to choose your next read
- Start with the trail you know. Hikers often connect most with Wild, Becoming Odyssa or Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart; climbers with Climbing Free or Take the Lead.
- Mix eras. Reading Isabella Bird next to Carrot Quinn shows how much the gear has changed and how little the feeling has.
- Check the edition. Several of these books carry different subtitles in the US, UK and Australia.
FAQ
What is the best adventure book written by a woman for beginners? Wild is the most accessible entry point. If you prefer something shorter and lighter on emotion, try Full Tilt.
Are these books suitable for teenagers? True Spirit was written by a teenager and suits younger readers. Wild deals with grief and drug use, so it is better for older teens and adults.
Our verdict
If you only read one, make it Wild for the trail, or Annapurna: A Woman’s Place for the mountains. Then go back in time with Full Tilt: six decades on, it is still the book that makes people want to go.