Return of the Native : Adventure traveler and author chronicles Women Explorers in new book

Sharon M. Hannon graduated from St. Mary's High School in the late 1970s and set off on a lifetime of globetrotting travel, big adventures and looming deadlines. A professional writer, the petite, green-eyed Annapolitan lived in Baltimore and California before finally settling in a house on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

"It reminds me a lot of home, with all the old, historic brick buildings," the former Hillsmere resident said. Her personal odyssey has taken her up mountains, across glaciers, on hikes along the Inca trail and through Patagonia, Peru and Poland. But not, apparently, Paraguay, Portugal or Papua New...