Nellie Bly’s 72-Day Trip around the World
The American journalist Nellie Bly, out to beat the fictional Fogg, travelled alone eastward around the world and returned in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes — the fastest circuit yet.
H. A. Mayers · Public domain · Source
On 14 November 1889 Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York World, sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, with a single bag, aiming to beat Fogg of Around the World in Eighty Days. Passing through London, she met Jules Verne at Amiens in France, who is said to have told her that if she did it in seventy-nine days he would applaud with both hands.
By way of the Suez Canal, Aden, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Yokohama she crossed the Pacific, raced across the continent from San Francisco on a special train, and reached New Jersey on 25 January 1890 — 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes, the fastest trip around the world to date. A rival reporter from another magazine, Elizabeth Bisland, set out westward the same day, but returned four and a half days later.
