Pre-Modern Travelers to the Americas
While only Viking explorers such as Gudrid have been widely accepted by mainstream scholars to have reached the coasts of the Americas, other medieval travelers have caught the attention of scholars and novelists as potential New World explorers. We are interested in all travelers, real or fictional, for what they tell us about what travel was like and how the world was imagined prior to 1600.  We are aiming to compile a full list; below are the travelers whose lives and feats we are treating in the first phase of this project. Coverage is linked to contributor interest– contact us if you can help add a new traveler to the list!

• Anonymous, Ancient Egypt
• Anonymous, West Africa
• Anonymous, multiple Muslim navigators
• St. Brendan (Irish, 6th century, legend)
• Leif Ericson (Norse, 10th century)
• Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir (Norse, early 11th century)
• Zheng He (China, 14th century, contested)
• Christopher Columbus (Portugal, 15th century)
• Jacques Cartier and Jean-François Roberval (France, 16th century)
• Hernando de Soto (Spain, 16th century)
• Madoc, or Madog ab Owain Gwynedd (Wales, 12th century, legend)

Other Influential Medieval Travelers (not to the Americas)

• Gan Ying (Chinese, 1st century CE, Han dynasty)
• Zhang Qian (Chinese, 2nd century CE, Han dynasty)
• Xuanzang (Chinse, 7th century CE, Tang dynasty)
• Marco Polo (Italian, late 13th-early 14th century)
• Odoric of Pordenone (Italian, late 13th-early 14th century)
• John of Mandeville (British, fictional, mid 14th century)