Great travelers of all time in history
1. Ferdinand Magellan (about 1480 - 1521gg.)
Navigator, who made the first voyage around the world. In addition, he discovered the strait at the southern end of America, and proved that the earth is round.
Ferdinand Magellan is also known to have given name to the largest ocean - the Pacific. And he christened the ocean due to the fact that during all the voyage of his ship F. Magellan did not make it in a storm.
One of the world's most famous scientists and explorers. During his long life he was able to do a lot of discoveries, most important of which - the underwater world. While all of his underwater discoveries are accompanied by constant shooting of films. Discontinued by his team-fiction film "The World of Silence," "World Without Sun", the multi-television series "Hidden Odyssey team Cousteau" are popular and in demand worldwide. And for his first book "The World of Silence" and the scenario of "Goldfish" Cousteau received two Oscars.
Also, Jacques-Yves Cousteau was opened, many instruments, accessories and equipment for diving. For example, scuba, underwater camera for filming underwater lights, cameras.
Portuguese navigator, is known as the first European who has made a sea voyage to India. In 1501 the famous explorer, opened the Seychelles. As soon were discovered only seven of the central islands, they are called "cross walked", translated from the old Portuguese sounds like "seven sisters". In the future the number of new "sisters" has increased, but the name remained.
Also in honor of his city in the state of Goa on the west coast of India.
British Navy officer, explorer, cartographer and a pioneer, a member of the Royal Society and Royal Navy captain. He headed three expeditions to study the ocean, were all circumnavigations. During these expeditions, made a number of geographical discoveries. Explored and mapped the little-known and rarely visited part of it to Newfoundland and the east coast of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the west coast of North America, Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. Thanks to the attention that Cook gave cartography, many of them drawn up maps of their precision and accuracy were not surpassed for decades and served as Mariners until the second half of XIX century.
The most controversial explorer in history
Nominated by Bill Bryson: "Christopher Columbus didn't actually discover America, but he opened the door to the European exploration of two mighty continents."
Travelling style: Visionary, fearless, neurotic, ruthless. Stopped travelling only when mortally ill.
Places visited: Four voyages across the Atlantic, around the Mediterranean and, possibly, to Iceland.
Hardships suffered: Arthritis, flu, temporary blindness, fever, bleeding eyes, malnutrition, insomnia.
Changed-the-world rating: "He was head of the horde that introduced yellow fever, dengue, malaria, smallpox, measles, diphtheria, typhoid and a few others to the Americas," says the explorer Dr Jane Wilson-Howarth. "In exchange, they brought back syphilis." Columbus paved the way for Spain's global empire, genocidal conflict with the indigenous cultures, slavery and the European settlement of North America.
Spanish explorer and discoverer of new lands. Best known for his discovery of America (1492).
Columbus was the first authentically known to travel across the Atlantic Ocean in the subtropical and tropical zone of the northern hemisphere and the first European to walk in the Caribbean. He initiated the opening of South America and the Isthmus of Central America. He opened all the Greater Antilles - a central part of the Bahamas, Lesser Antilles (from Dominica to the Virgin Islands inclusive), as well as several smaller islands in the Caribbean island of Trinidad off the coast of South America.
First Englishwoman to make a living by the pen; possibly the world's greatest armchair traveller
Nominated by Dea Birkett, travel writer: "Aphra Behn was groundbreaking, claiming to have sailed to Suriname in the 1660s. Yet 300 years after writing Oroonoko, her powerful anti-slavery novel set in Suriname, we still don't know if she went to South America or not. She started the tradition of European travellers grossly exaggerating and lying about what they'd done. We've been fictionalising ever since."
Travelling style: mysterious, incognito - often travelled as a spy, and in the 17th-century equivalent of economy class.
Places visited: Suriname (probably), Antwerp, the Netherlands. Behn's plays suggest knowledge of Italy - though this may be the fruit of her stupendous imagination.
Hardships suffered: Rumour suggests she lost family members in Suriname and was once shipwrecked.
Changed-the-world rating: Helped to invent the English novel and the travel memoir. Oroonoko is fictional, one of the first great exotic travel narratives and an indictment of slavery. An unusual mix today, this must have seemed outlandish 300 years ago.
7. Michael Paliln (1943-)
Affable Python and actor who went from spoofing Alan Whicker to replacing him as TV's foremost traveller
Nominated by Charlotte Hindle, Lonely Planet author: "He's done more than anyone else to bring the world into everyone's living room."
Travelling style: Intrepid, good-humoured Englishman abroad, self-confessed dromomaniac - one who suffers from the compulsive urge to travel.
Places visited: Around the world in 80 days, pole to pole, full circle, across the Sahara and through the Himalaya.
Hardships suffered: Cracked ribs, altitude sickness, getting a cut-throat shave from a blind barber, being mistaken for Eric Idle, having his car rocked by an angry mob.
Changed-the-world rating: The surges in bookings that follow his televised travels are known as the "Palin effect". Travel on TV once meant Judith Chalmers wishing you were there; Palin turned travel into a prime-time attraction and made the world a more exciting, accessible, place.
8. Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968)
Starman - the first man in space - who became the man who fell to earth, dying in a crash on a routine flight
Nominated by Mark Ellingham, Rough Guide's founder: "He took the greatest leap into the unknown since Columbus - or at least since Laika, Sputnik 2's dog."
Travelling style: Focused and fearless. On 12 April 1961 Yuri was blasted into space in crude terms - in a seat on top of a tin can, which was itself on top of a bomb.
Places visited: Around the Earth and 315km above it.
Hardships suffered: In training he withstood 13Gs of force in the centrifuge and sat in a dark, silent room for 24 hours; being grounded after his historic flight drove him to drink.
Changed-the-world rating: Fuelled the space race. With space tourism still somewhere between a prophecy and a joke, we haven't seen the full impact of his heroism.
9. Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930)
Skier, oceanographer, humanitarian, godfather of polar exploration; has an asteroid named after him
Nominated by Pen Hadow, explorer: "Nansen was the first to cross Greenland's ice cap and the Arctic Ocean, and sailed further north than man had been before."
Travelling style: Brave but not reckless - he never lost a single man nor major piece of equipment.
Places visited: Skied across Norway, crossed Greenland and travelled 255km further north than any man had been.
Hardships suffered: Endured nine winter months with a colleague in a hut made of stones and walrus hides in Franz Josef Land, eating polar bear and walrus.
Changed-the-world rating: Technologically revolutionised polar exploration, inventing a cooker and water bottle still used today.
10. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Founder of evolutionary theory
Nominated by William Gray, TV presenter and writer: "Darwin discovered many species, while his observations during his voyage on the Beagle formed the bedrock of his theory of evolution through natural selection."
Travelling style: Argumentative, determined, blessed with an inexhaustible curiosity.
Places visited: Across the Atlantic, Pacific, both coasts of South America, remote islands such as the Galapagos and Tahiti; he also rode across the Argentinian plains, hiked up mountains and trekked through the Peruvian desert.
Hardships suffered: Stomach pains, vomiting, heart palpitations, boils, storms and revolution in Buenos Aires.
Changed-the-world rating: He changed the way we think.
