Globetrotters. A Repertory of World Travelers, 1850–1945

The enigmatic protagonist becomes involved in a discussion with several club members who, prompted by recent events - particularly the theft of £55,000 - debate how easy it has become for a thief to vanish in an increasingly smaller world. Fogg ends up accepting a bet proposed by Mr. Stuart and supported by fellow members Fallentin, Sullivan, Flanagan, and Ralph. The gentlemen wager £20,000 on the impossibility of circumnavigating the globe in 80 days.

Fogg departs from London the same evening, returning victorious and having won the bet 80 days later, on December 21. To accomplish the journey, he uses a wide array of means of transportation: steamships, railways, carriages, yachts, cargo ships, sleds, and even elephants. Each stage is marked by unexpected challenges and unusual adventures, often fueled by the persistence of Fix, an inspector convinced that Fogg is a bank robber and who follows him throughout the journey in an attempt to arrest him.

In addition to the written version, the theatrical adaptation—produced by Verne and Adolphe d’Ennery—also deserves mention. The premiere was held on November 7, 1874, at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin in Paris and achieved tremendous success, running continuously until November 10, 1878.

Taken together, the novel and its theatrical version have inspired generations of travelers and marked a rupture with previous travel dynamics. With the publication of Verne’s work and its captivating adaptation, the idea of traveling around the world became a competition between reality and fiction involving fictional characters, journalists, writers, and ordinary wanderers.

The famous French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, fascinated by Fogg’s adventures, completed his own journey around the world between March 28 and June 17, 1936. He wrote: “Jules Verne’s masterpiece, with its red and gold prize-book cover, and the play derived from it, behind the red and gold curtain of the Châtelet, excited our childhood and gave us, more than the sight of a globe, a love of adventure and a desire to travel” (Cocteau, Jean. Il mio primo viaggio. DeAgostini, 1964).

Made famous by the celebrated Phileas Fogg, the globetrotters experienced a golden age in the early decades of the 20th century, a time marked by rapid technological progress and growing curiosity about the unknown. Globetrotters from all social backgrounds embarked toward unfamiliar horizons with enthusiasm and, at times, recklessness. Imaginative and intrepid, they carried out the most unlikely expeditions, often with improvised means, contributing to the global construction of a new imagery and a new way of conceiving travel.

Within the historical context of the 19th century, several key innovations in transportation revolutionized the possibilities of global travel. The first transcontinental railway in the United States, inaugurated in 1869, enabled fast and safe travel from coast to coast. In the same year, the opening of the Suez Canal drastically shortened sailing times between Europe and Asia, facilitating both trade and exploration. At the same time, the establishment of a unified railway system in India significantly improved mobility within the subcontinent.

The invention of the internal combustion engine marked another leap forward in transport, with automobiles beginning to spread in the early 20th century, making overland travel faster and more affordable. One notable achievement was the 1907 Peking-to-Paris car race, which demonstrated the durability and capability of automobiles in covering vast distances.

Aviation also made a fundamental contribution to mobility. The first flights by the Wright brothers in 1903 paved the way for long-distance air travel. In the following years, aviation advanced rapidly, with transatlantic flights and global circumnavigations making the world increasingly accessible. The first aerial circumnavigation of the globe was carried out by an American team in 1924. Unlike the journey narrated by Jules Verne, this real-life trip took 175 days to complete, covering 42,400 kilometers by flying east to west across the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and the Atlantic.

In this dynamic context of profound technological and social change, the exploits of the globetrotters take shape - a phenomenon often forgotten or, at best, relegated to the footnotes of books on major social and economic developments. Yet, between the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of wanderers embarked on the most extravagant undertakings, often without proper preparation or sufficient resources. These micro-histories, diverse in nature, help us interpret tourism and broader social transformations through a different lens.

For decades, globetrotters were ephemeral celebrities who arrived unexpectedly in towns and cities, where they were initially met with some degree of success. The phenomenon revealed multiple facets and opened up space to address sensitive social issues. For instance, the first journeys of adventurous women travelers pointed to a shifting place for women within society. Similarly, the efforts of hundreds of differently-abled travelers underscored their desire to assert normalcy in societies that tended to marginalize those who did not conform to certain standards.

The documented adventures from the late 19th century onward are far from homogeneous. The materials produced by wanderers, as well as the reports published in periodicals, describe global circumnavigations, transcontinental treks, and routes of various kinds - undertaken alone or accompanied by people or animals, using mechanical means such as bicycles, motorcycles, or cars. This diversity is reflected in the travelers themselves: men, women, children, infants, and the elderly. Driven by a wide range of motivations, they promoted both original and trivial projects, both authentic and fabricated. To this varied population we must add another often forgotten category that plays a key role in the collective imagination: that of the imaginary travelers - globetrotters born from the narratives of authors who, as Verne so masterfully demonstrated, shaped archetypal characters that remain inexhaustible sources of inspiration.

Many of the accounts included in this Repertory remain unfinished and are difficult to reconstruct or verify. Historically, travel often involved a continual play of disguise - techniques used not only to evade the dangers that awaited the unwary traveler. In every journey there can be a hidden side, whether consciously concealed or not: “The traveler may thus invent a past he never lived; he can mask his true identity in countless ways, hiding or revealing it depending on the circumstances. He may strive to adapt to the reality he is crossing, altering role and status for personal reasons, sometimes quite legitimate, or simply to obtain some immediate, tangible benefit” (Mazzei, 2013).

Testimonies are often limited, inconsistent, or contradictory, making it difficult—if not impossible—to establish clearly how many travelers actually accomplished what they publicly claimed. Beyond partial or incomplete attestations, one must also consider the stories that left even fewer traces, are hard to find, or left none at all.

Within this framework, a truly comprehensive study is evidently impossible. A partial recovery of the available information may nonetheless allow us to appreciate a phenomenon that is still little known and scarcely studied. Why investigate the micro-histories of ephemeral figures and collect them into a Repertory? The tales of globetrotters offer an alternative narrative about the birth of a new world, in which travel takes on new meanings. Their actions help us better understand the starting point of these new dynamics and perhaps even glimpse the motivations behind these social practices. Travel assumes a dual value: as movement through space, but also as a journey through time—one that allows us to read societal change through the eyes of men and women who lived it firsthand.

The purpose of this work is to pay tribute to those women and men who ventured down unknown roads, often with makeshift means, inspiring a sense of fascination and wonder that remains unchanged to this day. It is a deserved tribute from those who now travel in comfort, relying on a vast, efficient network of services and rapid means of transport.

The Repertory is an incomplete document—a worksite open to all, inviting contributions from anyone willing to report new globetrotters or provide details and corrections for those already listed. The first chapter provides background information to contextualize the Repertory. In the next chapter, the globetrotters are listed in alphabetical order: each entry includes essential information, a short summary, and references for further reading. The text then explores fictional characters who have played—and continue to play—an important role in promoting new forms of tourist consumption.

The information presented in this publication derives from research conducted over a span of two decades in library and archive catalogs. The sources are varied and include published books, periodicals, postcards, and other materials produced in different parts of the world. No rigid research model was adopted, as the aim is not to offer a complete catalogue of experiences over the past two centuries - an undertaking that, even with advanced big data management, would likely not lead to definitive results.

The topic is elusive and fluid in its boundaries, not only due to the scarcity of available information. In fact, it is difficult to define unequivocally what - or who - a globetrotter is. How can one establish who qualifies and who does not? And what forms of “certification” could possibly be adopted? A considerable number of these micro-stories prove to be unreliable; in many cases, where in-depth research has been carried out, episodes of partial or complete fiction have emerged.

Given these challenges, the Repertory starts from a generic definition of globetrotter: the term refers to a person who travels the world over extended periods, often with makeshift means and without commercial purposes. This phenomenon differs from the classic Grand Tour of the European elites due to its more accessible and democratic nature, involving even the less privileged classes. The figure of the globetrotter represents a form of travel characterized by adventure, personal discovery, and a challenge against oneself or against time.

Initially, a broad spectrum of initiatives was considered, provided they met the following criteria:

• They are spontaneous and have no commercial intent;
• They are managed as true autonomous projects, with a beginning and an end;
• They have an impact on the collective imagination;
• They present a degree of originality.

The primary sources of information include:

• Postcards and other materials produced by the globetrotters themselves;
• Archives of historical newspapers and periodicals;
• Published travel accounts and diaries;
• Bibliographic and web sources;
• Archival materials.

The data collected from these various sources have been cited with clear references, and any inconsistencies have been flagged. For instance, many globetrotters' postcards mention routes, figures, records, and lists of cities and countries visited. However, such information must be treated with caution: in many cases, these claims were part of a precise strategy aimed at selling the items or drawing attention to support the traveler’s subsistence.

The Repertory provides a systematic synthesis of the information gathered. The code associated with each traveler’s name allows access to the complete record, along with an image (when available), on the website www.museumoftravel.org. Thanks to this system, users can update or correct the information collaboratively. Some fields—especially those linking to external web pages—are subject to rapid change and require constant maintenance.

Lastly, the Repertory focuses on events that occurred between 1850 and 1945 - a choice that is, in some ways, arbitrary, but necessary to define the scope. This period saw profound technological, social, cultural, and political transformations that influenced and reshaped how people travel and perceive the world. The year 1850 marks the beginning of a new era in organized tourism: although Thomas Cook, often regarded as the pioneer of modern tourism, had organized his first group tour as early as 1841, it was only in the following years that he began developing international travel packages. This era also saw the launch of the first World’s Fairs - starting with the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Additionally, travel literature flourished in this period, with authors such as Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson contributing to a shared imaginary around travel and exploration.

The year 1945 represents a symbolic threshold: the end of World War II marks a major turning point for the study of travel and tourism. The global consequences of the war transformed society and the economy. The kind of tourism that developed in the post-war period, shaped by the new geopolitical order, would soon evolve into a mass industry - rapidly changing the global travel landscape.

More info

Globetrotters: A Repertory of World Travelers. 1850-1945, Museum of Travel and Tourism, 2025.