Jacki has spent the last eight years travelling to some of the most remote places on earth, tracing the footsteps of adventurous women from the past. She has documented them through film and in her book, Adventuresses.

Her first adventure was tracing the heartbreaking tale of Isabella Godin, a woman who took on a 3,000-mile journey through the Amazon Basin to find her husband who was stranded in Ecuador. She didn’t know whether he was dead or alive.

During the voyage, her children died from smallpox and the 42-man crew she was travelling with perished from infected insect bites, leaving her as the sole survivor. She wandered alone in the jungle for nine days before she stumbled into an Indian camp. The tribal people took her to the ship where her husband was waiting – 20 years after she had last seen him.

You can talk about something forever but if you don’t do it, you could end up being trapped and unhappy for a long time

A year later, Jacki followed the path of Mary Kingsley, a Victorian explorer who led a group of men up Mount Cameroon, a 4,000m peak in Africa, in 1894. They were the first Europeans to do so. “Mary Kingsley was an incredible women. She went to West Africa when it was considered to be a white man’s grave. It flew in the face of everything that was going on in Victorian England at the time,” says Jacki.

“Women just did not do that sort of thing. Where did she get those skills to lead a group of men up Mount Cameroon? Going against convention was massively difficult in those days.” Today the Foreign Office tells us which countries are safe to visit but in Mary Kingsley’s day, that kind of advice just wasn’t available. “These women didn’t know if they would ever come back alive.”

Jacki specifically chose to uncover the stories of women who went on these extraordinary adventures on their own – without the support of a husband or male family member. “I also wanted to go through countries where there was a good chance nothing much had changed in 100 years,” says Jacki. “So I could compare how they coped with how I could cope.”

While times have changed since the Victorian era, prejudiced attitudes to female explorers still exist. “Ideas are constantly being pitched to TV companies about female explorers – and they all get rejected,” says Jacki who has tried numerous times to spread word about her expeditions across the media.

“I can’t get on TV whereas men like Levison Wood can. It’s a shame. I was never a feminist but I’m terribly interested in this. That’s the reason I wrote the book.”

Ideas are constantly being pitched to TV companies about female explorers – and they all get rejected

Jacki says she hopes this perspective of female explorers is changing. She now gives talks to primary school children because the national curriculum is starting to recognise achievements from female adventurers and explorers. “Every time I go into a school, those children are getting the message that women are just as important as men.”

She also believes events like the Women’s Adventure Expo, which took place for the first time in Bristol last year, marks a real shift in interest surrounding adventurous women. “There was an incredible buzz in the room from women of all ages,” says Jacki.

“They all wanted to do something different with their lives. I wonder whether it coincides with a feeling of entrapment among people, who are cooped up in small flats and office jobs, surrounded by lots of people and traffic.”

So what advice would Jacki give someone who is looking to take on an expedition off-the-beaten track under their own steam? Well, the hardest part is actually doing it,” she says. “You can talk about something forever but if you don’t do it and change your life, you could end up being trapped and unhappy for a long time.”

“It’s easier now with organisations like Explorers Connect because you can join in with somebody else’s adventure. It can be quite low key – a weekend away – and then build up slowly. You don’t have to launch yourself straight into the unknown.”

So, next time you’re sat with your friends late at night, nursing a glass of wine and pondering all the grand adventures you could embark on, take a leaf out of Jacki’s book – and make that dream a reality.

Jacki Hill-Murphy will be speaking at the Outdoor Adventure & Travel Show at London ExCeL, which takes place from February 11-14 2016 www.telegraphoutdoorshow.co.uk

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