“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore.”

— Ferdinand Magellan

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

— Henry Miller

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

— Mark Twain

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seafaring explorers from Scandinavia, the Vikings traveled to Africa and Asia during the Middle Ages, and around the year 1000 they were the first Europeans to discover North America—though they didn’t establish a permanent colony. The Vikings relied on the position of the sun and the stars to guide them across the seas. They even learned how to determine their points of latitude.

While sailing west from Spain in 1492 in search of a faster route to Asia, Christopher Columbus reached San Salvador, an island in the Bahamas. The Italian explorer was credited with discovering the New World and launching Europe’s settlement of the Americas, though many people today condemn the impact his discovery had on the millions of Native Americans already living in North America.

In September 1513, after trudging through the jungle of what is now Panama, this Spanish explorer became the first European to spot the Pacific Ocean. Claiming the ocean and the land it touched for Spain, Balboa helped open up present-day Central and South America for conquest.

In 1805, this Native American woman served as a guide and interpreter for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, explorers sent by President Thomas Jefferson to explore what is now the northwest United States. Together they crossed the uncharted wilderness from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, and Lewis and Clark later said they probably couldn’t have completed their mission without Sacagawea’s help.