On June 25, 1894, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a young mother of three small children, stood before a crowd of 500 friends, family, suffragists, and curious onlookers at the Massachusetts State House. Then, declaring she would circle the world, she climbed onto a 42-pound Columbia bicycle and “sailed away like a kite down Beacon Street.”

Un giramondo eccezionale. È passato da noi, ieri mattina, Zygmunt Krawczykowsky, un polacco che ha intrapreso il giro del mondo con lo scopo di costituirsi una collezione di medaglie ed autografi di uomini illustri. Veniva dall’Italia, di cui si è dimostrato entusiasta, dove gli sono state offerte un centinaio di medaglie d’oro e d’argento.

I had observed that most people who wrote stories of travel journeyed over the country in firstclass coaches. They visited only the great cities and points of known interest. . . . Their stories are of beaten paths and, dress them as artistically and originally as they may, they are only telling a tale that has been told. While making no particular claim to superiority in writing, I thought by assuming the garb of a sailor and traveling as one of the plain, everyday toilers I could get closer to nature and her children and tell a story of our country such as had never been told.
Krohn, John Albert. The Walk of Colonial Jack; a Story of a Long-Distance Walker. Keane, N.H.: Printed by the Cheshire republican, 1910.

Boston Lads start on Cross Continent Tramp. Young Men to Set Out From Los Angeles on Wager.