“... with strong headwinds, with heavy rains, making cycling awfully hard, 150 miles being the amount I covered in a whole week’s stead travelling. Getting tired of this, when within 100 miles of Paris, I suddenly turned at a right angle to the Paris road and took a straight course for Dieppe, through the cities of Amiens and St. Quentin, where I went aboard the SS Paris for New Haven”.
There aren't any other comments from Karl as he passed through Amiens, but I hope that he took the time to tip his hat to Jules Verne –– the author who inspired the possibility of his travel around the world.
In 1873, Jules Verne set his protagonist Phileas Fogg on his mission Around the World in Eighty Days. Following this fictional story’s publication, the allure of travel captured the interest of many, and there were various attempts to complete the route set out by Verne but faster, in reverse order, or some other variation.
The first to set out was the incomparable Nellie Bly, who in 1899, was the first to travel around the world in 72 days.
Nellie proposed to her editor that she could complete the trip faster than Phileas Fogg. The idea was appealing to the editor but not being completed by Nellie –– after all, she was a woman. The editor maintained that only a man could make this trip. Only a man could travel alone without a chaperone, and a man could travel faster as he would not be encumbered with surplus luggage. Nellie didn’t argue with her editor. Instead, she declared that if the newspaper approved this trip and assigned it to a man, she would start her trip the same day — but for a different newspaper — and beat any man.
As bold as Nellie was, she did appreciate that she needed some time to prepare for her trip around the world. First, she set out to the dressmaker, providing instructions to make a dress durable enough to be worn constantly for three months. Next — undoubtedly recalling the sexist remarks made by her editor about her anticipated quantity of luggage — she had to buy one bag to pack for her trip.
Then on Thursday, November 14, 1889, at 9:40 a.m., with her one bag, a passport signed by the Secretary of State, and £200 in English gold and banknotes, Nellie Bly set out on a trip around the world.
The travel route for Nellie to get around the world was planned by the newspaper emulating the one set out by Jules Verne. Her travels took her through England, France, Italy, Egypt, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and then through the United States back to New York.
She travelled by steamship, train, rickshaw, horse, and donkey. She suffered from seasickness on the Atlantic Ocean, bought a monkey in Singapore, and visited a leper colony in China.
Nellie travelled alone without a chaperone for 21,720 miles which took her 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes, beating Phileas Fogg by almost eight days. She fulfilled her quippy proclamation to be on the other side of the earth and documented her journey in a book aptly titled: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days. Nellie made this journey over 130 years ago when she was 25 years old. She was fierce, persistent, and inspiring.
Another journalist and author, Rosemary Brown, learned about Nellie Bly while seeking out a female traveller as an alternative role model for her teenage daughter. Rosemary connected with Nellie as I have with Karl. In 2015, on the 125th anniversary of Nellie’s adventure, Rosemary set off on her own to follow in Nellie’s footsteps and documented the journey in her book: Following Nellie Bly: Her Record-Breaking Race Around the World.
I arranged a zoom call with Rosemary on May 5, 2022, which just happened to be the day Nellie Bly was born. Rosemary understood my desire to follow Karl around the world as she had just recently travelled over 22,500 miles, over 32 days, following Nellie. The shared enthusiasm about our respective travel muses reassured me that my journey was both possible and of historical value. We chatted about the similar travel routes completed by our adventurers and how their itineraries mirrored that of Phileas Fogg.
Both Nellie and Rosemary stopped in Amiens to visit the Verne home. Jules and his wife, Honorine Verne, had invited Nellie and met her at the train station, taking her by carriage to their home. Jules showed Nellie his study and the salon, wishing her well, albeit doubting her ability to beat the record of Phileas Fogg. That same house, Maison Jules Verne, is now open to the public, and in 2015 Rosemary visited those same rooms, literally standing in Nellie’s footsteps on the plush carpet.
Karl would have known about Nellie Bly’s accomplishment as the newspapers reported extensively on her journey. The two adventurers were travelling a similar route, during the same time frame albeit in very different social circles and circumstances. Although Karl didn’t get an invitation to visit Maison Jules Verne in Amiens I’m sure he recognized the significance of that French town and the possibility of his trip ultimately deriving from the imagination of Jules Verne. Philias, the fictitious eccentric Englishman who set a wager to travel the world in 80 days, is indirectly responsible for a legacy of GlobeTrotters, including Nellie, Karl, Rosemary and me.
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The Karl Journey is now registered as an official expedition with the Royal Geographical Society