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The Adventures of the Female Indiana Jones
Aloha Wanderwell — the Amelia Earheart of the open road
What were you doing at the age of sixteen?
I am willing to bet that whatever it was, it doesn't stack up to the feats of Idris Welsh. At sixteen, Idris was starting her journey to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. It took her five years to travel 380,000 miles across forty-three countries in a Model T Ford.
That was only the start of a truly inspirational life that included living with a Brazilian tribe, fighting in the French Foreign Legion, a shootout with angry elephants, and directing and appearing in eleven films.
It is quite the LinkedIn profile, and her life sounds like the plot of a fantastical Hollywood movie. Her story was full of adventure, and, unfortunately, isn't as widely known as it should be. I thought it would be worth it to share it and hopefully inspire readers.
‘Brains, beauty and breeches — world tour offer for lucky young woman.’
Idris Welsh was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1906 and was a student in a convent school in Paris in 1922 when she saw an advertisement in the Paris Herald. The advertisement (which had the same headline that I…
