The epigraph to this chapter is an excerpt from a letter written in 1862 by the Bulgarian philanthropist and activist Iordanka Filaretova , the wife of a Russian civil servant, before travelling to Constantinople (Istanbul).2 She addressed a friend who had already visited the city and described to her its splendours. The quote captures the prospects of spatial mobility that opened to educated middle-class women and their responsiveness to such new opportunities. Women's travel in the 19th century was still quite limited with the exception of teachers, pilgrims, Greek diaspora women, some merchants' wives, and the spouses of new professionals, such as engineers and doctors. Filaretova's later trips and deeds in the Ottoman Empire and Russia certified her keenness to adopt new ideas. For instance, after living in Constantinople between 1862-1867, she moved back to Sofia where she was among the initiators of a women's society (1869).3 This chapter explores various case studies of women travellers who traversed the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan states, Russia, and other European countries in the course of the long 19th century. It also pays attention to ways of adopting and disseminating material objects, services, and ideas as part 1 Bulgarian Historical Archive at the National Library "Sts. Cyril and Methodius", hereafter (BIA-NBKM), f. 22, a.e. 90, p. 1. Iordanka Filaretova to Maria Gerova, 17 May 1862. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are mine. 2 Both names are used interchangeably throughout the text. 3 Khristo Tsekov, Iordanka Filaretova Gospozhata (Sofia: 2009), 54.4 Earlier research paid more attention to the "exchange of values" as a politically mediated process. See, for example, Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, (Cambridge: 1986), 4-6. More recent scholarship focused on both social and gender aspects. See Victoria de Grazia and Ellen Furlough (eds.