Nellie Bly, The Journalist That Beat Phileas Fogg's Journey Around The World

Cassy Morgan
Jul 27
4 min read

Updated: Aug 1

Collage featuring journalist Nellie Bly with Victorian portraits, a vintage newspaper announcing her travel record, a calendar-style route map, and colourful pop-art cutouts of Bly in her travel coat, symbolising her 1889 round-the-world trip. — A tribute to Nellie Bly’s historic race around the world in 1889–1890. This collage blends portraits, newspaper clippings, and pop-art colour overlays to celebrate her journey and record-breaking return in just 72 days.

In 1873, Jules Verne published Around the World in Eighty Days, a novel that captured the growing excitement of a world connected by new technologies. Steamships, railways, and canals were making once-unthinkable journeys suddenly possible, or at least imaginable. By 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad had bridged America, and the Suez Canal now connected Europe and Asia by sea. Indian railways soon followed suit, stitching the subcontinent together.

The stage was set for Phileas Fogg, Verne’s calm and determined protagonist, to wager that he could circle the globe from London and return in 80 days. While fictional, Fogg’s journey was grounded in the very real infrastructure of the time, and for seventeen years, no one seriously attempted to test the idea.

Until 1889.

And not just by anyone, but by two women, in an era when women weren’t even permitted into the exclusive gentlemen’s clubs from which Fogg launched his travels.

Newspaper front page with cartoon of people holding signs around a woman. Text reads: "She's broken every record! Father Time outdone!" — The World’s front page on 26 January 1890 celebrates Bly’s feat

Who Was Nellie Bly?

Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864 in a small Pennsylvanian town named after her father, Judge Michael Cochran. After his death, the family faced financial hardship, and Elizabeth, nicknamed “Pink” for her childhood wardrobe, left school early to help support her mother.

In 1885, she came across an opinion piece in The Pittsburgh Dispatch that questioned women’s ambitions and place in public life. Deeply frustrated by its tone, she responded under the name “Lonely Orphan Girl”. Her reply was so persuasive that it earned her a job offer from the paper. From then on, she became Nellie Bly — a name suggested by her editor, borrowed from a popular song.

Rather than write about fashion or theatre, as was often expected of female journalists, Bly tackled social issues. She reported on factory conditions, domestic abuse, and injustice. When her critiques made advertisers uncomfortable, she resigned and travelled to Mexico as a freelance foreign correspondent. There, her reports on government oppression caused her to be expelled — and bolstered her reputation.

Back in the US, her career-defining moment came in 1887, when she went undercover as a patient at the notorious Blackwell’s Island asylum. Her exposé, Ten Days in a Madhouse, revealed harrowing treatment of patients and led to funding increases and reforms.

By the end of the decade, Bly was an established investigative journalist — and ready for her next challenge.

Board game illustration titled "Round the World with Nellie Bly" featuring spiral track with numbered days and drawings, surrounded by text. — The World also published ‘Round the World with Nellie Bly’ – a board game of Bly’s trip, with squares for each day of her journey

Inspired by Phileas Fogg

In 1889, after reading Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, Bly proposed a daring plan to her editor at The New York World: she would attempt to beat Fogg’s fictional time — and do it alone.

At first, she was dismissed. The idea of a woman travelling unaccompanied around the world was considered far too dangerous. The paper’s managing editor argued she’d need a chaperone and would be weighed down by luggage. Bly responded directly:

“Start the man, and I’ll start the same day for some other paper and beat him.”

She got the assignment.

Packing Light, Thinking Fast

On 14 November 1889, Bly departed New Jersey with just one small satchel. Her packing list was famously minimal: a dressing gown, caps, a flask, toiletries, writing supplies, and no weapon. “I had such a strong belief in the world’s greeting me as I greeted it,” she later wrote, “that I refused to arm myself.”

After a rocky Atlantic crossing to England, she was invited to meet Jules Verne in France, an honour that required a major detour. She accepted. After the visit, she travelled by rail and steamship to Egypt, through the Suez Canal, and on to Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

The Unexpected Race

Unknown to Bly, a rival publication, The Cosmopolitan, had also sent a reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, on a competing journey. Bisland took the westward route. The world now had not just a bold traveller, but a genuine race.

When Bly discovered this twist in Hong Kong, she doubled down. “I promised to do the trip in 75 days, and I will do it,” she insisted. Still, when delays mounted, she admitted to being anxious — and determined to win.

She continued through Asia, visiting Singapore, buying a monkey she named McGinty, and weathering storms en route to Japan. From Yokohama, she sailed to San Francisco aboard the Oceanic, arriving on 21 January 1890.

But snowstorms threatened to ruin everything.

A woman in a checkered coat, holding a round hat and bag, stands against a plain background, exuding a composed and stylish demeanor. — Bly with her hand luggage

Back With a Day to Spare

Publisher Joseph Pulitzer pulled out all the stops, chartering a special train to race Bly across the United States. The “Miss Nellie Bly Special” completed the journey in under three days, breaking records and making headlines.

On 25 January 1890, she arrived back in New Jersey. Her total time: 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds — a full week faster than Verne’s fictional Fogg.

Bisland, delayed by a cancelled steamer and a slower alternative route, arrived five days later.

Legacy Beyond the Finish Line

Bly’s journey inspired readers around the world and boosted Verne’s book sales. The World even published a board game based on her route. Her achievements were widely celebrated.

In 1895, Bly married businessman Robert Seaman and stepped away from journalism. But when his company later collapsed, she returned to reporting, covering everything from women’s suffrage to the First World War.

Bisland, too, continued to write and contribute to literature. Both women died of pneumonia in the 1920s, leaving behind legacies as pioneers — not only of travel, but of women’s voices in media.