Around the World in Eighty Days

AROUND THE WORLD:  Prologue

Who hasn't read Jules Verne's classic 1873 adventure novel, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, or as we English-speakers know it better, Around the World in Eighty Days?  If you've never read the book, chances are you have seen the movie—either David Niven's beloved 1956 screen classic or the ill-conceived (did the director even read the book?) 2004 misstep with Jackie Chan.  At the very least, it's safe to say that most people reading this have that earworm theme song from the '56 movie running through their heads at this very moment. 

But let's recap the story for those who may be more familiar with The Amazing Race than classic films.  The year is 1872, the setting London, more specifically the city's very exclusive Reform Club.  A very wealthy gentleman and club member with the unlikely name of Phileas Fogg engages in a debate with fellow members over a London newspaper article describing the completion of a new railway section in India.  The reporter alleges, and Fogg agrees, that this important link makes it possible to circumnavigate the world in a mere 80 days.  Absurd, his compatriots scoff, and when Fogg continues to press the claim, he finds himself wagering £20,000 (equivalent to about $1.9 million in today's values) that he, Fogg, and his loyal (though newly hired) French servant Passepourtout (pass-por-TOO) can complete the journey successfully:

"I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less; in nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or a hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes... The train leaves for Dover at a quarter before nine.  I will take it this very evening,"  Fogg asserts.  No small claim in 1872, long before the days of commercial or even experimental air travel.

And thus began a wild series of adventures, in which Fogg and Passepourtout utilize every imaginable means of transportation, exceeding cleverness, and no small amount of grit to travel around the much lesser known world, safely returning to London and the Reform Club just in time to win the wager.

Though we certainly take some inspiration from the intrepid Fogg, we expect our adventures to be a bit tamer, and certainly more predictable and easier to plan.  With air travel, of course, the 80-day barrier is no longer an issue.  In fact, we might even have dragged the trip out longer, but family events (celebrations of a 90th and an 85th birthday) wedged us into the eighty-day box, so we decided to embrace the notion.

David Niven's Phileas Fogg consults with Passepourtout in 1956 film.