On June 6th, 1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen departed from New York's Battery in an 18 foot rowboat destination Europe.  They took the northern route skirting in and out of the shipping lanes.  The same shipping passages that the Titanic would later use and the same areas fished by Gloucester and Nova Scotia fisherman.

È stato ieri in visita alla nostra redazione, un giovane bavarese, il signor Negue Renfah, giornalista, che sta effettuando il giro del mondo in bicicletta. Partito da Monaco il 1 dello scorso giugno il signor Renfah ha attraversato la Germania del Nord, la Polonia e la Svizzera percorrendo 7'400 km; si è diretto verso l'Italia stamane, intenzionato di visitare poi la Turchia e la Palestina.

At four in the morning this gorgeous spectacle moved through the moonlit streets of Peking en-route to the prison-palace. The entire city was awake and the people thronged the line of march. A forest of pennants blazed and fluttered past ...gold dragons on black silk, blue dragons on gold silk; and swaying lanterns, and gilded kiosques containing the bride’s ceremonial robes, and princes on horseback surrounded by their colorful retinues. There was more than enough music. Last of all came the bride’s sedan hung with yellow brocade, roofed with a great gold dragon, and borne along by sixteen noblemen. I followed close behind the shrouded chair, and wondered about the state of mind of the little girl inside. Headed straight for prison, she was on the point of surrendering forever the freedom she had hitherto enjoyed... The procession wound its way to the 'Gate of Propitious Destiny,' one of the entrances to the palace, and halted before it. Torches flared. There was subdued confusion and whispers. mandarins and court officials hurried back and forth. Slowly, darkly, the great gates swung open,—I could look inside the courtyard and see the blazing avenue of lamps down which the procession would move up to the throne room where the emperor waited. Into the glitter and glamour of this 'Great Within' the trembling little girl, hidden in her flowered box, was carried. Then as I watched, the gates boomed shut and the princess became an empress.
Richard Halliburton, The Royal Road to Romance, 1925, pp. 298–300.

Just in their twenties and living off a shoestring budget, three young Parsis, one from Baroda, ventured on the first ever trip around the world on bicycles on October 15, 1923. The trio covered 44,000 miles in three years and three months across 27 countries and four continents. On their return, Adi Hakim from Vadodara, Jal Bapasola from Mumbai and Rustom Bhumgara from Pune, who later became a freedom fighter, wrote a book of their memoirs from the epic journey, of which but a few copies still exist. The original book includes a foreword by Jawarharlal Nehru and comments from leaders around the world like Benito Mussolini and Calvin Coolidge.”