Nellie Bly: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days

At 9.40 on the morning of Thursday 14 November 1889, Bly sailed from Hoboken on the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line. She had had a travelling dress made in a hurry — plain blue broadcloth with a camel's-hair plaid — and an ulster for the cold. She had dreaded the start: her editor had dreamt she lost a race. Her plan was to finish in 75 days, and the World printed her itinerary that morning. The Hamburg line's piers have long gone from the Hoboken waterfront.

Location precision: The old Hamburg America Line piers are gone; the pin marks the Hoboken waterfront at the rail terminal.

From Southampton she raced through London without sleep to make a detour no schedule needed: to Amiens, to meet Jules Verne. He and his wife met her at the station and took her home, where Madame Verne lit a fire. Holding up a candle, Verne showed her a map in his hall on which he had traced Phileas Fogg's route in blue pencil, and asked why she was not going through Bombay. They drank a glass of wine to her success, and she hurried on to catch the mail train south. The house, Verne's home from 1882 to 1900, is now a museum.

Visitor guidance: The Maison de Jules Verne, at the corner of rue Charles-Dubois and boulevard Jules-Verne, is open as a museum.

The India Mail carried her through Calais, Paris and Turin to Brindisi, at the heel of Italy, where she arrived in the small hours of 25 November and boarded the P&O steamer Victoria for the East. From here her route followed the mail: through the Suez Canal, opened twenty years before, to Port Said, Ismailia and Suez, then down the Red Sea to Aden, where she watched boys diving for coins thrown from the ship.

Location precision: Bly doesn't describe the quay; the pin marks Brindisi's harbour town.

Bly reached Colombo, in what was then British Ceylon, on 8 December and found that the ship for China would not sail for five days. She stayed at the Grand Oriental, a large hotel of tiled arcades and airy corridors near the harbour, and fretted: her record table lists 98 hours lost here, the worst delay of the trip. She passed the time riding in jinrickshas and went one night to a Parsee theatre. The Grand Oriental Hotel still stands in the Fort district, facing the port.

After a stop at Penang, the ship reached Singapore on 18 December. Bly drove around the town in a gharry, a light carriage with latticed windows, and at the house of her driver saw a monkey at the door. She had resisted buying all sorts of things on the way, she wrote, "but when I saw the monkey my will-power melted" — and it travelled with her for the rest of the journey, all the way to New York. The ship sailed on through the monsoon towards Hong Kong.

Location precision: Bly doesn't name the street; the pin marks central Singapore.

Bly reached Hong Kong two days ahead of time, just before Christmas, went to the steamship office and was told: "You are going to be beaten." Another woman, Elizabeth Bisland, had set off the same day for Cosmopolitan magazine, travelling west. It was the first Bly had heard of the race. With days to wait for the ship to Japan, she spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on a trip up the river to Canton with a guide named Ah Cum, who greeted her with "A Merry Christmas!"

Location precision: The steamship office can't be placed; the pin marks Victoria Harbour.

From Hong Kong she sailed to Yokohama, where she spent a few days in Japan before boarding the Oceanic of the Occidental and Oriental line on 7 January 1890. The ship's engineers, who had heard about her race, painted a rhyme over the engines: "For Nellie Bly, we'll win or die." The runs were fast at first, then the weather turned against them. Gaining a day as she crossed the date line, she was now well ahead of Fogg's eighty days — if her luck held.

Location precision: The pin marks central Yokohama, the port she sailed from.

The Oceanic landed her in San Francisco on 21 January, a day early, and a special train was waiting to rush her east on the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe lines. People turned out at every stop: over ten thousand greeted her at Topeka, and the mayor of Dodge City presented resolutions of praise. At times the train covered a mile in 53 seconds. She reached Chicago on the morning of the 23rd; the 4,525 miles from Yokohama had been the longest stage of the journey.

Location precision: Bly's landing pier isn't described; the pin marks central San Francisco.

At 3.51 p.m. on 25 January 1890 her train pulled into the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Jersey City, and she jumped onto the platform, because that moment made her time: 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes, over 21,740 miles. Thousands packed the station and cannons boomed from the Battery. Her record stood only a few months, until George Francis Train went round in 67 days. The station, at Exchange Place, closed in 1961 and was demolished.

Location precision: The station is gone; the pin marks its former site at Exchange Place.

Visitor guidance: Exchange Place is now an office district with a waterfront walkway facing Lower Manhattan.