A woman with a pseudonym made a name by driving through 75 countries in a Ford Model T. She was known as Aloha Wanderwell who once epitomized the excitement of travel in a world where cars were new.
Idris Galcia in real life was born in Winnipeg, Canada. Her father was a British Army reservist who died during World War I. After the war ended, she went to school in France where she drove her teachers crazy with her tomboyish ways and her rebelliousness. In 1922, she came across an ad in the Paris Herald, the European version of a New York paper, that is looking for a lucky young woman with beauty, brains, and breeches which will be rewarded with a world tour.
A man named Captain Walter Wanderwell placed the ad in the paper. It was a pseudonym of Valerian Johannes Piecynski who opted to change it to a worldlier and less Polish name. Wanderwell was a self-made man, a mysterious figure whose name was linked with World War I espionage and has a taste for intercontinental travel. The sixteen-year-old Hall was fascinated and when Wanderwell met her, the feeling was alike. Immediately he asked her to work as his secretary supporting the Work around the World Educational Club (WAWEC) for International Police during an around-the-world tour, says Time.
The aspiring around-the-world WAWEC tour was apparently aimed at ad hoc international peacekeeping in a world withered by war, but its real purpose was to make money from a group of volunteer cadets whose dues financed the publicity-laden trip. Wanderwell also got funding for the journey from the Ford Motor Company, which contributed Model T's for the journey. Hall's mother arranged for Wanderwell to declare her his ward and for her daughter to take on his last name. He re-christened her Aloha, and they went out on a trip called The Million Dollar Wager.
Wanderwell would contest against his wife, Nell, in a race around the world with two Model T teams. The journey took Aloha and her boss from Asia to Africa and beyond. They funded their tour by creating films of the sights they come across, speaking in public and signing up volunteers for the WAWEC. Together, the Wanderwells they encountered indigenous cultures, wild animals, dangerous terrains and swaying bridges. Aloha was often behind a camera, detailing her amazing and often dangerous journey.
Aloha Wanderwell continues to travel, write memoirs, make movies, and about her adventures until her death in the 1990s. The historic footage she gathered considered to be groundbreaking as well as her movies can be found in both the Smithsonian and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' film archive. The girl with a palate for adventure was also a woman who demonstrated what a fearless traveler with a Model T and a camera could accomplish.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
