A bicycle and an atlas were gifts for her 10th birthday. She thought she could get to India if she pedaled long enough.
She wrote in her memoir, "Wheels Within Wheels," that she saw how she could travel alone and with little money. It gave me a better outlet for imaginings than my usual escapist fantasies, because I was given material for dreaming about something that I knew could be attained.
In her 30s, Ms. Murphy turned her wild imaginings into reality. In her first book, she described her journey from Ireland to India on a bicycle, which took her through Europe, France, and Iran.
She became a leading travel writer, a fearless and curious solitary who filled her backpack with pens, a notebook, a light but warm sleeping bag and a change of clothing. She traveled by bicycle, mule, Jeeps and buses for months at a time in Ethiopia, Cuba, Israel, Gaza, Madagascar, Nepal, Tibet, and South Africa.
Ms. Murphy died at her home. She was old.
Her publisher confirmed her death.
On Nov. 28, 1931, she was born. Her father was the county librarian. Her mother was unable to walk by the time she was 2 years old.
When she was 14, she left the convent school to care for her mother full time. Her travel and ambitions were put off until her mother died 16 years later. She planned the trip to India in the winter of 1963.
She wrote that having the fulfillment of a 21-year-old ambition within one's grasp can be disconcerting.
She was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 Two men died when their plow skidded off a precipice as they tried to clear a snowdrift.
In Turkey, she killed a wolf with a pistol when it was about to attack her, and in Bulgaria, she killed a Kurdish person in a hostel room.
Those experiences did not deter her.
She wrote about Afghanistan in a book, and she was tempted to settle. There is nothing false about the interdependent nature of humans and animals. It would be impossible to lose one's sophisticated, complex world because of the fundamental falsity involved in abandoning one's heritage.
She wrote about a tough and passionate person on a bike who travels the world at a leisurely pace, cut off happily.
Andrew Harvey wrote in The New York Times that the book was not a kebab of clipped or funny anecdotes, but a novel.
Ms. Murphy and her daughter, Rachel, traveled 1,300 miles in the Andes from Cajamarca to Cuzco. Rachel was with her mother on other trips.
Ms. Murphy told The Guardian that people thought it was insane to set out with only basic supplies.
Ms. Murphy didn't finish her trips unscathed. She broke her ribs. She was bitten by a scorpion. She was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 She needed a new hip after a fall in Palestine.
She told The Guardian that the triple tooth abscess was the most painful.
Ms. Murphy lived in a stone house that was part of a cattle market. She didn't have a car, dishwasher, washing machine or television.
Mr. Rogerson said in an email that there was a book hut, a guest hut, and a covered area where old carts and wood for the stove were kept dry.
Mr. Rogerson said that Ms. Murphy left behind a book about her time in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan and her desire to travel to Africa.
She got some backlash as she became more political, but she was never a champagne socialist, Mr. Rogerson said in a phone interview. She followed her principles. A person who was concerned about international issues.
When she received the Edward Stanford Award for outstanding travel writing in 2021, Michael Palin of Monty Python told her that she had a mixture of open honesty and fearlessness. You can give yourself great revelations by talking to people who will open up and talk to you.
She was the subject of a documentary in 2010.
Ms. Murphy is survived by three granddaughters. She was never married. Her daughter's father was an editor at The Irish Times, but they did not have a relationship.
An American engineer stopped in his Jeep to give Ms. Murphy a ride on a hot day in Iran.
She recalled him saying that the track wasn't suitable for a camel.
She said that it doesn't feel like a frying pan when you're on a bicycle.
He yelled, "You are a goddam nut case!" after she refused to accept his help.
She described the experience as "sheer bliss."
All Rights Reserved © 2024
