Nellie Bly · 1890 · global

Nellie Bly's 1890 account of her record-breaking dash around the world, undertaken for the New York World to beat the fictional eighty days of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg. Travelling east by steamship and railway, alone and with almost no luggage, the pioneering stunt journalist circled the globe in seventy-two days and became a worldwide celebrity. The route follows her eastward circumnavigation.

1. 1
   New York

   The young reporter Nellie Bly sets out from New Jersey to race around the world in fewer than the eighty days of Jules Verne's famous novel, with a single bag and the coat on her back.

2. 2
   London

   Across a rough Atlantic to England, the first leg won and the clock already ticking.

3. 3
   Folkestone

   Nellie Bly crosses to the Continent by boat train and Channel packet, the way every traveller did. She is racing the fictional eighty days and has no hours to lose.

4. 4
   Boulogne

   Ashore in France and straight onto another train. Bly barely stops moving; every connection is timed to the next leg of the race.

5. 5
   Amiens

   A detour to Amiens to meet Jules Verne himself, who wishes her luck on the journey his Phileas Fogg only imagined.

6. 6
   Brindisi

   By train down through Europe to Brindisi on the heel of Italy, to catch the eastbound mail steamer.

7. 7
   Suez

   Through the Suez Canal, the gateway between the seas, into the heat of the East.

8. 8
   Aden

   Down the Red Sea to the coaling port of Aden on the tip of Arabia.

9. 9
   Colombo

   Across the Indian Ocean to Colombo in Ceylon, where a maddening wait for a delayed ship threatens her schedule.

10. 10
    Singapore

    On through the Strait of Malacca to Singapore, where she famously buys a monkey.

11. 11
    Hong Kong

    To Hong Kong, where she learns a rival reporter is racing the other way around the world to beat her.

12. 12
    Yokohama

    A last Eastern call at Yokohama before the long Pacific crossing.

13. 13
    San Francisco

    Across the Pacific to San Francisco, then a special chartered train flung across the snowbound continent.

14. 14
    New York (return)

    Home to New Jersey in seventy-two days, six hours and eleven minutes, a record and a sensation.