With spring in the air, March is the perfect time to plan a weekend getaway to somewhere new. Why not look for inspiration in Women’s History Month?

You could visit a site connected with one of the most famous women in American history, like the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, Amelia Earhart’s birthplace, or Helen Keller’s home. You could even take a women’s rights road trip through upstate New York, seeing places connected with the suffrage movement.

We have a few more ideas for Women’s History Month travel. Here are unique travel experiences celebrating female achievements in unexpected fields: cryptology, photography, banking, and dogsledding. Or, create your own itinerary: browse the 1,200+ places in the Where Women Made History collection, created by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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Geneva, Illinois: Home of Codebreaker Elizebeth S. Friedman

Elizebeth S. Friedman’s career in cryptology began by accident. She was recruited for an unusual project: an effort to find a secret code in Shakespeare’s work that proved it was really authored by Sir Francis Bacon.

Friedman went to work with a team of researchers at Riverbank, a grand estate in Illinois. They never found the proof they sought. But Riverbank became the nation’s first cryptologic laboratory, where Friedman and her husband William developed new ways of breaking sophisticated encryption. Friedman later joined the U.S. Treasury Department, where she led efforts to decode radio messages from international smugglers and drug runners.¹ During World War II, she worked for the FBI to break German codes and disrupt Axis spy rings.²

Itinerary: See where Friedman worked by visiting the old Riverbank estate, now known as the Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva, about 42 miles west of Chicago. Tour the Fabyan Villa Museum, a 1907 farmhouse that was redesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright, and learn about the Friedmans’ achievements. Visit the Geneva History Museum to discover more notable local women, then get dinner and hear live music at Preservation.

Staten Island, New York: Home of Documentary Photographer Alice Austen

Alice Austen, born in 1866, was one of America’s first women photographers. In her youth, she photographed the “larky life” (as she called it) of high society in the Gilded Age: charity balls and sailing regattas. Then, she began documenting less traditional subjects: New York City’s street sweepers and messenger boys, as well as newly arrived immigrants in quarantine at Ellis Island.

Austen also photographed intimate friendships and relationships between Victorian women. She spent 55 years in a committed relationship with her partner, Gertrude Tate. Austen and Tate lived in Clear Comfort, Austen’s ancestral home on Staten Island, for 30 years.

Austen’s work was overlooked for most of her life before being rediscovered in 1950. She had the first public showing of her work at age 85, two years before she died.

Itinerary: Today the Alice Austen House is a museum that honors her contributions to photography, immigrant rights, and women’s and LGBTQ+ history. Make a full day of it by visiting Snug Harbor, a collection of four cultural and arts institutions: the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden, Noble Maritime Collection, and the Staten Island Museum. The perfect end to this women’s history month trip? Dinner at Nonnas of the World, the celebrated restaurant that features menus from a rotating cast of global grandmothers.

Richmond, Virginia: Home of Bank Founder Maggie L. Walker

Maggie L. Walker was born in poverty to parents who had been enslaved. Walker’s father died when she was a child, and so at a young age she began helping her mother with her laundry business. “I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but with a laundry basket practically on my head,” she later said.³

Walker believed financial independence was the key to empowerment—not only for herself, but for her community. She led the Independent Order of Saint Luke (a mutual aid society for Black Americans) and then in 1903 founded a bank for its members, the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank. Thus Walker became the first woman bank president in the United States.

“Let woman choose her own vocation just as man does his,” Walker said. “Let her go into business, let her make money, let her become independent, if possible, of man.”

Itinerary: Take a tour of the Maggie L. Walker National Historical Site and learn more about her remarkable life. Walker hosted many famed Black activists and writers in that house, including Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Langston Hughes.⁴ A few blocks away stands a 10-foot bronze statue of Walker. Then, spend some time strolling through Jackson Ward, once known as the Harlem of the South, which is known for its elaborate iron porches and fences. Have lunch at soul-food favorite Mama J’s.

Juneau, Alaska: Home of Alaskan Adventurer Mary Joyce

In 1929, a young nurse named Mary Joyce befriended a patient: Leigh Hackley “Hack” Smith, a handsome, wealthy, and troubled World War I veteran. She became his personal nurse, accompanying him on adventures in remote Alaska.

They were planning an epic 1,000-mile journey by dogsled when Smith died suddenly. His mother gave Joyce the Taku Glacier Lodge, the family’s rustic retreat. In 1935, Joyce was invited to be Miss Juneau in the Fairbanks Ice Carnival. That was all the reason she needed to embark on that thousand-mile journey herself. It was “three months of perfect happiness,” she later said.⁵ Joyce later became Alaska’s first female radio operator and one of the first female Alaskan bush pilots.

Itinerary: Today, the Taku Glacier Lodge is primarily a day-trip destination for cruise ship excursions and tours. Take a floatplane from Juneau to the lodge, where you can hear stories about Joyce’s adventures. Dine on freshly caught salmon grilled over an open alderwood fire. You’ll get a spectacular view of Hole-In-The-Wall Glacier (and maybe spot a few black bears meandering around.)

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