Journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochran or more commonly known by her pseudonym, Nellie Bly recognized she needed a vacation from her job and in that moment wished that “she was on the other end of the earth!".
Moments later, instead of dismissing such an impulsive idea, she instead concluded: “Why not!, I need a vacation; why not take a trip around the world?".
It was 1888, sixteen years after Jules Verne set his protagonist Phileas Fogg on his mission Around the World in Eighty Days, so the next day Nellie proposed to her editor that she could complete the trip faster. The idea itself was appealing to the editor but not the idea of it being done by Nellie, afterall, she was a woman. The editor maintained that only a man could do 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, then she would start her trip the very same day — but for a different newspaper — and would beat any man.
A year later, Nellie was called into her editor’s office and he inquired if in two days time she could start her trip around the world. Nellie promptly responded that she would go the very next morning.
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 dress maker providing instructions that a dress be made for her that would be 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 a bag, one bag. Nellie documented all that she packed in that one bag: two traveling caps, three veils, a pair of slippers, a complete outfit of toilet articles, ink-stand, pens, pencils and copy-paper, pins, needles and thread, a dressing gown, a tennis blazer, a small flask and a drinking cup, several complete changes of underwear, a liberal supply of handkerchiefs, and a jar of cold cream
Then on Thursday, November 14, 1889, at 9:40 a.m. with her bag, a passport signed by the Secretary of State, and £200 in English gold and bank notes, Nellie Bly set out on a trip around the world.
The travel route for Nellie to get around the world was generally set out by the newspaper emulating the one set out by Jules Verne. Yet Nellie anticipated that her itinerary needed to be flexible and consequently she only booked the passage from her home in New York to London.
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 a 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. Within that time frame there were 56 days of actual travel and almost 16 days lost to delays, yet she still beat Phileas Fogg by almost 8 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, pertinacious, and inspiring.
She’s got me thinking about another intrepid traveller and photographer — Louise Trotter. She doesn’t have a pseudonym but considers her corporate career as the cloak that conceals her true identity. She’s wishing at this moment that she was on the other end of the earth. And why not! She needs a vacation; why not take a trip around the world?
Stay tuned...