On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, a 25 year-old journalist from New York City, boarded a steamship in Hoboken that was bound for London, although that was not her final destination. Bly was setting out on an unprecedented journey, especially for a woman at the time, of traveling around the world in 75 days or less. She’d been inspired by Jules Verne’s Around The World in 80 Days, and proposed to her publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, that it would be newsworthy for her to attempt a similar feat and write about it. And so with a single bag and the clothes on her back, Nellie Bly set out to circumnavigate the globe faster than anyone had before.
She was not an experienced traveler. In fact, the steamer Augusta Victoria, the ship Bly. took to London, was the first she had been on, and caused her the startling discovery that she was prone to seasickness. This was especially concerning as her itinerary consisted mostly of travel by sea. Never one to resign to her fate, Bly locked herself in her room for 22 hours of uninterrupted sleep, after which she emerged healthy and happy to continue on. She had no more troubles with seasickness.
For Bly, getting herself around the globe and back to Hoboken was less a feat of explorer’s inventiveness and adventuresome bravery, but rather figuring out a complex web of transportation schedules. The routes she traveled were covered by regular steamship and train services, but these would often depart as infrequently as once a week or once a month. If she were to miscalculate or arrive late for any one of her connections, the whole trip would be ruined, as waiting for the next train would add a full 7 days to the duration. To clock in at her professed target of 75 days, Bly would need discipline and luck.
This tight schedule meant that while she was literally traveling the globe, she didn’t get to see much of it. Most of her time was spent onboard steamers and trains between major destinations. Bly was given a tour, in what she termed a “bird’s-eye-view of London,” as she was being whisked to the newspaper offices there to send her first dispatches back to New York. She found time to visit with Jules Verne at his home in France, but had to cut the visit short to make her connecting train lest she be set back a full week. Bly spent 5 days in Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), but only did so because of a delay in the schedule of her next steamer. While Bly saw more cities of the world than most people would in her time, she saw them at a brisk pace.
After stops at Port Said on the Arabian peninsula, Ceylon, Singapore, and Hong Kong, Bly spent a number of days in Japan before setting off on her final ship ride across the Pacific. She noted that Yokohama was a much cleaner city than the others she’d seen in Asia, but mostly spoke of hotel accommodations and the fashion of the Japanese. As her final steamer moved out of the harbor, she regretted at leaving such “a lovely land,” but knew that time was of the essence in her race. She ultimately arrived to San Francisco two full days behind schedule, prompting Pulitzer to charter a private train to speed her to Hoboken in what she called her “flying trip across the continent.” She was greeted at every stop with well-wishers and congratulating telegrams. Bly arrived in Hoboken a full three days ahead of schedule, meaning she had completed the fastest circumnavigation of the globe thus far in history at 72 days.