Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt was a Swiss traveller and orientalist. He wrote his letters in French and signed Louis. He is best known for rediscovering the ruins of the city of Petra in Jordan. During h...

General Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish soldier, adventurer and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to ru...

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a...

Sacagawea, also Sakakawea or Sacajawea, was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition achieve each of its chartered mission objectives exploring the Louisiana Purchase. With the expedition, between 1804 and 1806, she...

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer, naval officer and rear admiral, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. In honour of his many valuable chartings, the D'Urville Sea...

Colonel Sir George Everest was a Welsh surveyor, geographer and Surveyor-General of India from 1830 to 1843. Sir George was largely responsible for completing the section of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India along the meridian arc fro...

Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold was a German physician, botanist, and traveler. He taught some pupils Western medicine in Japan. He achieved prominence for his study of Japanese flora and fauna, and was the father of female Japanese doc...

George Catlin was an American painter, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Following a brief career as a lawyer, Catlin produced two major collections of paintings of American Indians and pu...

Frederick Catherwood was an English artist, architect and explorer, best remembered for his meticulously detailed drawings of the ruins of the Maya civilization. He explored Mesoamerica in the mid 19th century with writer John Lloyd Stephen...

James, Rajah of Sarawak was a British adventurer whose exploits in the Malay Archipelago made him the first White Rajah of Sarawak. Born in India and briefly educated in England, he served in the Bengal Army, was wounded, and resigned hi...

Captain Sir Alexander Burnes, was a Scottish traveller and explorer who took part in The Great Game. He was nicknamed Bokhara Burnes for his role in establishing contact with and exploring Bukhara, which made his name. At the age of six...

John Lloyd Stephens was an American explorer, writer, and diplomat. Stephens was a pivotal figure in the rediscovery of Maya civilization throughout Middle America and in the planning of the Panama railroad. Stephens read with interest...

Kit Carson was an American frontiersman. He was a mountain man (fur trapper), wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. Carson became a frontier legend in his own lifetime via biographies and news articles. Exaggerated versions...

Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection. The fact that evolution o...

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Perhaps one of the most popular nat...