The original travel guide, crossing impossible terrain under impossible circumstances
Cover photo: H. Seymour Squyer, about 1885. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, public domain
When we talk about travel pioneers, we have to begin with Harriet Tubman. Long before passports and airlines, she understood that movement is freedom, and that freedom is worth everything.
How many people did Harriet Tubman lead to freedom? By the National Park Service's count, about 70 people, mostly family and friends, on roughly 13 trips out of Maryland between 1850 and 1860. She gave instructions to about 70 more who escaped on their own. The often-repeated figure of 300 is a myth, and she never lost a passenger.
Key facts
- Born: around 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland, as Araminta Ross.
- Her own escape: 1849, nearly 90 miles on foot by night to Pennsylvania.
- Underground Railroad: about 13 trips between 1850 and 1860, guiding about 70 people.
- Civil War: nurse, cook, spy and scout for the Union, and guide of the Combahee River Raid, which freed more than 700 people.
- Later life: Auburn, New York, where she founded the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She died in 1913.
She traveled by the North Star and read the land like a sacred text. By the National Park Service's count, she never lost a single passenger.
Born Into Bondage
Araminta Ross, later known as Harriet Tubman, was born into slavery around 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland. From childhood she was hired out for brutal labor and beaten in ways that left permanent scars.
As a teenager, she suffered a severe head injury when an overseer threw a heavy metal weight at another enslaved person and struck her instead. For the rest of her life she had seizures, headaches and vivid dreams, visions she understood as messages from God guiding her mission.
In 1849, facing the threat of being sold further South, Tubman escaped. She traveled nearly 90 miles on foot, moving by night and following the North Star to Pennsylvania and freedom.
But for Harriet Tubman, freedom was never only about herself.
The Conductor of the Underground Railroad
Photo: Luca Nicoletti / Unsplash
The Underground Railroad was a network of safe houses, secret routes and brave people who helped the enslaved escape to the North and to Canada. Harriet Tubman became its most famous "conductor."
On about 13 trips between 1850 and 1860, she went back to Maryland again and again, risking capture, torture and death. She led family members and friends to freedom, about 70 people in all. (The often-repeated figure of 300 comes from an 1868 biography's estimate, and the National Park Service treats it as a myth.)
Her methods were meticulous:
- Wayfinding: she traveled by night, using the North Star and natural landmarks
- Timing: she is said to have favored Saturday-night departures, since runaway notices often couldn't run in the papers until Monday
- Security: she carried a pistol on the road
- Disguises: she used costumes and personas to move through hostile territory
Stories of a giant bounty on her head are a myth, but the danger was real. She was never caught.
Beyond the Railroad
Photo: Harper's Weekly, July 4, 1863 (after McPherson & Oliver). Library of Congress, public domain
Her courage reached far past the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War she served the Union Army as a nurse, cook, spy and scout. She became the first woman to lead an armed assault in the war, guiding the Combahee River Raid that freed more than 700 enslaved people.
After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she cared for elderly and poor African Americans and eventually founded the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She stayed active in the fight for women's suffrage until her death in 1913.
Photo: National Park Service (NPGallery), public domain
The Ultimate Travel Legacy
Photo: Unknown photographer, about 1911. Library of Congress (NAWSA Collection), public domain
Harriet Tubman was a guide, a strategist, a soldier, a caretaker and an activist. Above all, she understood something fundamental: the right to move freely is the foundation of every other freedom.
Every Black traveler who boards a plane, crosses a border or explores somewhere new carries forward what she fought for. She proved that no law and no amount of violence could contain the need to be free.
When we travel today, we honor her, and we claim the world she helped make possible. Her story sits beside two more explorers I love: Matthew Henson, first to reach the North Pole, and Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman pilot.
Harriet Tubman opened the first paths to freedom. Learn about Harriet and other Black history pioneers, then explore our upcoming trips and claim your place in this ongoing story.
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