Trailblazers
August 2026

Sanctuary celebrates Ida Pfeiffer, a fearless, Austrian explorer whose unprecedented travels, writings, and collections of animal, mineral and plant collections proved she was a woman way ahead of her time.

Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858)
Photo: Franz Hanfstaengl

Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797-1858) was an Austrian explorer, travel writer, and ethnographer. She traveled through Southeast Asia, the Americas, Middle East, and Africa, including two trips around the world from 1846 to 1855. She was a member of both the Berlin and Paris geographical societies and one of the first female travelers to have their journals translated into seven languages.

Her father educated her like her brothers, but when he died, her mother made her focus on piano and knitting. When Ida was 22 years old, she was married, against her wishes, to Dr. Mark Anton Pfeiffer, a widowed lawyer in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine). He was 24 years her senior and had a grown son. She gave birth to two sons, one in 1821 and one in 1824. Her husband could not find work, so she taught music and drawing, but her family lived in poverty.

At the age of 45, once both of her sons found employment and she separated from her husband, she decided it was time to realize her dreams. As a woman during this time, it was unprecedented to travel to faraway lands solo, but she did so with courage and determination, documenting her experiences through writing, photography, and specimen collecting.

Ida’s final voyage was to Madagascar in May 1857. Her first stop was South Africa where she met a Frenchman who was involved in a plot to overthrow the Queen of Madagascar. She unwittingly became part of the conspiracy and was expelled from Madagascar after the queen discovered the attempted coup. During her passage to the coastal port of departure, she contracted a disease (potentially malaria) and was unable to fully recover.

Ida died on October 27, 1858, in Vienna at age 63.

---

Some interesting facts...

• She lied to her family about her travels so they wouldn’t be worried.
• She was a frugal traveler, using local transport, getting free tickets, and riding camels and boats.
• She was a fearless voyager. There are countless examples of her being told she couldn’t cross certain mountains or go to places that were known to be inhabited by “savages,” but she would do it anyway.
• When Ida returned home from her first travel experience, she published the diary she’d kept. It wasn’t a tale of a scientific expedition. A Vienna Woman's Trip to the Holy Land was full of tips for travelers about the kind of voyage she’d done.
• Before her second journey, she taught herself how to take daguerreotype photographs and how to collect animal, mineral and plant specimens. She then sold her specimens to European museums to help fund her next trips.
• She climbed Mount Vesuvius.
• She was kidnapped by a Cossack and imprisoned overnight.
• On her 50th birthday, she rode camels through Iran.
• A travelogue describing her final voyage, Reise nach Madagaskar (Trip to Madagascar), was published in 1861 in two volumes and included a biography written by her son Oscar Pfeiffer.
• In total, she journeyed an estimated 20,000 miles by land and 150,000 miles by sea.

Learn More About Ida
Click cover for book information.

---

Archives

---