Pretty awesome woman and massively inspirational in my life.

She was almost 5' tall, just skin and bone, business woman then independent traveler from retirement until death.

Why am I posting this? The last time I was back in England I collected her passports and tonight I found them and had a look through the stamps and visas.

I'll post up some photos or scans some other time but she basically circumnavigated the globe 3.5 times after retirement and mostly alone.

So what? The passport stamps include Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Russia (during the cold war)! etc etc etc.

Nans are brilliant.

they are indeed

You are lucky that you had a Nan you loved. She sounds awesome! an adventurer (or maybe a spy ) how exciting.

Cool, especially travelling solo.

Pages 8 and 9 from the passport that expired in April 1971.

I see:

Jordan, possible arrival, could be 27 Aug

Iraq, visa date, 30 Aug 1966

??Northern Greece (EYZΩNOI, EIΣOΔOΣ) near border with Macedonia, or Athens? 9 Sep 1966. But this date and location doesn't seem to fit.

Departed Calcutta, 6 Nov 1966

I'm guessing the one starting "ZEEVAART...", 27 Apr, could be Holland / tulip festival related

What a lovely story . My G'ma was pretty cool too, but her travel story is nothing compared to your Nan's!

Your Nan sounds like quite an adventurer. It's amazing how little we know of our grandparents and parents. I've mentioned before that we have met an amazing couple (both 86) and have become firm friends with them, some of the things they have done sends shivers through me. They prompted me to ask my 84 year old Dad to tell me his story and surprisingly he is complying. So far we have got almost to the end of the War, there was a brother I knew nothing about and I have learned of the poverty he was born into. Real eye opening stuff. Old people are fab.

My nan, born in Newcastle, never travelled further south than Durham.

Good for her.

My Granny was one of the first women to fly out of Manchester airport when it first opened and was called "Ringway"

As youngsters, we always thought g'ma had never ventured further than Huddersfield -> York, via Sheffield.

Late in her (very long) life, it emerged that not only had she been educated in Belgium & France, but also that she had worked in Spain...

It then transpired that Great-g'ma, who *really had* never left Yorkshire until well into adulthood, took a trans-continental train & went off to find & repatriate one of her sons who Laurie Lee'd to the Spanish Civil War. It took her 2 years to get back to the UK. With Great-Uncle B in tow .

Not my nan though. She also lived long (died at 94). She never had an interest in the world at large and never had a driving licence, let alone a passport.

Come to think of it, I can't remember her ever buying a bus ticket.

My Nan and Grandpa with mum and Uncle Otto fresh off the boat from Russia in 1930 in front of the sod house they built onto the old granary where they spent their first year in Canada, just in time for the Depression.

There are quite a few unheralded brave ladies, young and not so young, who have braved journeys that most people would not consider. They defy the stereo types of our grandmothers.

Being a keen touring cyclist, one of my inspirations was Dervla Murphy, an Irish lady who related her experiences in her book, Full Tilt-Ireland to India With a Bicycle. She travelled through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India nearly 50 years ago.

Her book ranks with the likes of travel writer Eric Newby.

Neither of my Nans ever held a driving licence either, although grannyMM could & did drive farm machinery, & drove on the road occasionally until the local constabulary (NI) couldn't ignore the legalities anymore.

I'm not sure that either of them ever bothered with bus tickets ..,

Wonderful picture!! I have 2 great-uncles who came over in 1921 & 1928; unfortunately we have no photos pre-1948 ish.