Nellie had arrived in San Francisco from Yokohama early in the morning on Jan. 21, 1890, to the distressing news of a huge blizzard blocking all railway travel east. Pulitzer and the people at the World went to work, cabling the Southern Pacific Railroad to “spare no expense” in chartering a special train from Oakland to Chicago via a southern route that would bypass the snow. The trip to Chicago – to Mojave, then to Albuquerque, then north to eastern Colorado, then to Kansas City, and then to Chicago – would require transfers to different railroads and switching to different locomotives, but the Southern Pacific pulled off the arrangements, at a cost greater than the entire rest of Nellie’s around-the-world trip.

Leaving Yokohama for San Francisco aboard the Oceanic on Jan. 7, 1890, Nellie immediately encountered a four-day storm that practically brought progress to a halt. Much to her relief, the storm finally abated, and the world’s fastest ship eventually made up almost all of the lost time and arrived in San Francisco Bay on Jan. 21, actually a day ahead of Nellie’s schedule. All the local and even national newspapers trumpeted her arrival. Things looked incredibly promising for her to break Fogg’s record. Nellie was due to arrive back in New York City on Jan. 26, which would make the trip around-the-world in 73 days. And then, two serious problems arose.

After her time in Hong Kong, Nellie was quite taken with Japan: “After seeing Hong Kong with its wharfs crowded with dirty boats manned by still dirtier people, and its streets packed with a filthy crowd, Yokohama has a cleaned-up Sunday appearance..”

But it was not only first impressions that were favorable; he country grew on her with every passing hour: “If I loved and married, I would say to my mate: ‘Come, I know where Eden is, and. . . desert the land of my birth for Japan, the land of love – beauty – poetry – cleanliness.”

Was Nellie Bly Jewish? I hadn’t thought so. But she spent Christmas in Canton and ate Chinese food. Just askin’. . .

She then moved on to Hong Kong, waiting for the Oceanic to take her to Japan and then San Francisco. She busied herself sight-seeing and shopping, buying a pin specially made for her with the Chinese characters for “Success to your novel enterprise.”

On December 28 she boarded the Oceanic and learned that the monkey had been transferred from the Oriental. As Nellie put it,

“Meeting the stewardess I asked how the monkey was, to which she replied dryly:

On Dec. 16 Nellie arrived just outside the waters of Singapore. If it had been up to her, the ship would have refueled and immediately set sail for Hong Kong. But the mail contract required the ship to stay in port for 24 hours, and for reasons unknown to her, the Oriental was taking its time going into port and setting off the 24-hour requirement. When it finally did anchor in port, Nellie and a companion explored Singapore like tourists. At the end of their day trip, however, they had a most untourist-like experience. On the way back to the ship, the driver showed them his home. Standing in the doorway was a macaque monkey that Nellie found irresistibly adorable. What a wonderful souvenir and companion, she thought. And so she bought it from the driver for three dollars. For the rest of the trip Nellie carried the monkey with her in a cage. Indeed like her cap and traveling bag, the monkey became one of the symbols if her trip.

On Dec. 13 Nellie stopped over in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for what was supposed to be two days, but her scheduled steamship, the Oriental, could not leave for Singapore and Hong Kong until a mail and passenger ship arrived from India, and by all accounts the ship from India was tortuously slow. Nellie would be delayed at least three days in Colombo, Ceylon, and possibly more. Her ship from Hong Kong, the Oceanic, was supposed to depart on December 28, in 15 days, and she was 3,500 miles away. The three-day delay took away all margin for error; if she missed the Oceanic in Hong Kong, the earliest she would get to New York would be 81 days after setting out. Finally, after five maddeningly long days, the Indian ship arrived and the Oriental departed, into the Bay of Bengal amidst word of a monsoon. And Nellie was officially behind schedule.

Suddenly Nellie had a competitor: Cosmopolitan Magazine was sending its own woman reporter around the world to break Fogg’s record – and beat Nellie in the process.

After visiting the Vernes in Amiens, Nellie went by train from Calais, in northeast France, to Brindisi, at the southern tip of Italy, in three and a half days – skipping Paris, Florence and Rome altogether. The eyes of the modern traveler widen in disbelief at such an itinerary. No Eiffel Tower? No Michelangelo statues? No three-star restaurants?  But Nellie was out to break a speed record, not tour the continent, and every hour mattered. Nowadays, a traveler between Calais and Brindisi would grumble that a commercial airliner must make two stops and cover the distance in an “interminable” nine hours. Nor would another train set off in a few hours; if Nellie missed a connection, even in Europe, it would most often cost her two days. And so the European part of her trip was three nights of train travel — right after crossing the Channel.