This article analyses the travel narratives of Maipina de la Barra (1878), Eduarda Mansilla (1882) and Clorinda Matto de Turner (1902), considering the concept of escape as a problematic Gordian knot which leaves evident gender marks and inflections in the writing. It proposes that the subject of the wound, provoked in De la Barra by impoverishment and neglect; in Matto by the violence of work denied, destroyed property, and the censored voice; and in Mansilla by the compulsory choice between family and vocation, is developed in these narratives through diverse strategies which include its over-investment, historization and silencing.