Hapgood dreamed of traveling to Russia, and so engaged a Russian lady to help her attain fluency in the spoken language. Between 1887 and 1889, she and her widowed mother traveled through Russia. While there, Hapgood met several significant Russian literary and clerical figures. After that trip, Hapgood began traveling about annually to Russia. On that long first trip, Hapgood spent several weeks with the famous Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy on his country estate, and continued publishing translations of his works. In 1891, The Atlantic magazine published a lengthy article by Hapgood detailing her observations of Tolstoy as a man trying to live his ideal life.