When I was a little girl, I remember learning about Jane Goodall in school – a woman who was brave enough to live with chimpanzees and dedicate her life to the study and conservation of these primates. The stories seemed like they were long ago, but in reality, her time with the chimpanzees only started about thirty years before I learned about them (which, for perspective, would be like learning about the 90s now). Fast forward to when we moved to Tanzania in 2021: I didn’t know that Jane still lived and worked there (well, part of the year, as she still traveled most of the year for her work). And little did I know that during our four years in Tanzania, our family would not only get to meet her, but that I would also be able to travel to Gombe National Park to see the chimpanzee families that she has studied for decades.
The type of adventure young Jane pursued would be nearly impossible to replicate in 2025. Earlier this year, while taking the two-hour slow boat to Gombe National Park (the home of her research since the 1960s), I thought about the sheer remoteness of this park – only accessible by boat, situated in a distant corner of Tanzania. It seemed like such a trek for us to get there, taking an entire day of travel via airplane, taxi, and boat just to arrive before sunset. And upon arrival from our long day, the permanent lakeside tents were all made up for us, and a warm dinner was served. I have a hard time imagining what Jane’s original journey looked like to arrive there more than sixty years before we did, and I hesitate to even call our boat “slow” in comparison to what she likely experienced. All things considered, the life of an adventurer in 2025 is pretty luxurious compared to those that came before us.
Jane arrived in Africa for the first time in 1957 at the age of 23, taking a slow boat from England to Kenya. I find a parallel in my own life, as I also opted for an unknown journey at the age of 22, departing for the Peace Corps in Ethiopia to live in a remote town. But my journey, as extreme as it seemed at the time, was still very organized, safe, and predictable; I wasn’t literally foraging through thick vegetation in the wilderness looking for wild animals. In a time and place where the world wasn’t set up for women to succeed and do things outside the mold, Jane didn’t let anything stop her, and in turn, she has pushed the limits, opening paths for all of us to be bigger and better adventurers.
She didn’t have it all figured out when she first moved to pursue her passion, but she found an inspiration that stuck. And remarkably, nearly 70 years later, she was still living her life to the fullest, still steadfastly passionate about conservation and chimpanzees. So, it’s here I stop comparing my life to Jane’s because I don’t think it will end well. But experiencing Gombe first-hand and meeting her, I have started to understood the Jane Goodall Effect – the powerful inspiration her life brings. I hope we can all take a moment to think about the life she led, and (just like when you were a kid) help it inspire the rest of your life to live a bit more like Jane.
