Ibn Battuta

The 14th-century Moroccan scholar-traveller covered an estimated 75,000 miles over 29 years of continuous travel — more than any explorer before the age of steam. Departing Tangier in 1325 for the hajj to Mecca, Ibn Battuta extended his journey through North Africa, the Middle East, East Africa, India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and China, visiting the courts of dozens of rulers and recording his experiences in the Rihla. He travelled three times the distance of Marco Polo and documented cultures, customs, and geographies that no other source preserved, making his account an irreplaceable historical record of the medieval Islamic world.