Gary Lowe, 66, and his wife, Pam, 69, have long been adventurous travellers, but two years ago, the couple challenged themselves to the ultimate trip: circumnavigating the globe—solo. Their inspiration wasn’t The Amazing Race, but rather the book that likely inspired that show, Jules Verne’s Around The World in 80 Days. Published in 1873, Verne’s novel follows eccentric protagonist Phileas Fogg and his loyal valet, Jean Passepartout, as they attempt to win a wager and prove that then-novel modes of transport—like the steam train—have made it possible to circumnavigate the world in less than three months (Spoiler alert: Fogg wins the bet, albeit only just). To see if they could match Fogg’s jaunt the Lowes, who live between rural England and Cataluña in Spain, the Lowes traveled using a combination of planes, trains, and buses. They spent around US$85,000 (HK$662,740) on the entire trip, creating extraordinary memories along the way.

This is their story.

Plans and Prep

They dreamed up their ambitious adventure on a whim—sitting in a restaurant in Italy one winter day, dreaming of warmer climes.

We thought about doing this in January 2022, and we departed on 2 October that year, so we didn’t have an awful lot of time to make detailed preparations. I had a fairly clear idea of where I wanted to go, and we got the basic itinerary drawn on a placement in a restaurant. We were paying lip service to Jules Verne’s novel and wanted to go round the world in exactly 80 days, and to a number of the places Phileas Fogg went. But obviously, he couldn’t use air transport. We didn’t want to suffer, but we also didn’t want to do it in the most luxurious way, either; so we didn’t consider one of those air cruises.

Instead, we flew business everywhere we could, and the airlines themselves were terrific—Qatar especially, because of the cleanliness of the plane, and the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff.

The Adventure Begins

The first leg of the trip: Europe and the Middle East, with a detour to North Africa.

When Phileas Fogg did his trip, he went from London to Paris to Turin, which we did, too. But we also decided to stay longer in places we thought we’d need more time to see, like Rome. We walked everywhere, in all the cities. My belief is that you can’t really get the feel of a place without walking it, so we walked and walked and walked.

We went to Jerusalem, Cairo, and Alexandria, too. Cairo was probably Pam’s least favourite place: big, dirty, and busy. It was almost impossible to cross the road. But we took the train from Cairo to Alexandria, which cost around £5 [HK$50] in first class for a three-and-a-half-hour journey, and it was very comfortable. We needed somewhere luxurious to stay at the end of that, but the Four Seasons there was disappointing. It was under construction, so the bars and swimming pool were not available. In Alexandria, you feel the history but not in the same way as in, perhaps, Istanbul.

The Highlight

Both Gary and Pam treated India as the crown jewel of their trip.

India was the central focus—the driving force behind the whole trip. We picked a train called the Maharajas Express around the Golden Triangle and really enjoyed it. I’d absolutely recommend it unreservedly.

We slept pretty well, though some people found that difficult. The most important feature was the logistics: We were travelling at night, at low speed. That’s how we got to Bombay. Phileas Fogg went to Bombay by going down the Suez Canal. We thought about maybe doing that, as we have a friend who’s in shipping and said “I can get you down there, no problem, any day of the week.” But I wasn’t sure we really wanted to travel on a container ship, or finish up in Yemen, because it’s a conflict zone.

A Change in Itinerary

Lingering pandemic-era restrictions forced the Lowes to deviate further from Fogg’s journey.

From Bombay, Fogg went to Calcutta, Singapore, and Hong Kong. But Covid was still a problem in China [in late 2022], and if we had gone there, it would have been very risky, as we could have got stuck. So we went to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, as we have a very good friend there, and neither of us had been. We stayed with friends and Pam booked our hotels. A few of the clubs had reciprocals for mine in Europe. We’re also part of the Cresta Run Club in Switzerland, and we played golf with the grandson of the most recent king, who’s also ridden the Cresta with us. That was terrific.

From here, Fogg went to Japan before taking the steamer from Yokohama to San Francisco. He never went south of the equator. But we deviated again, going down to stay with more friends who are members of the Cresta, this time in Sydney. Pam’s oldest son lives in Perth in Western Australia, and he came over for a few days. They played golf together. I’m a keen cyclist, so I rented a bike to cycle down the south of Sydney to a place called Wollongong, with such a beautiful coastline. It was a thrill for me.

We went from there to Santiago. It took some persuading for Pam to drive over the Andes, going from Santiago to Mendoza. It was a very long trip, but it had to be done, and in the end, it was on a fabulous coach that was quite luxurious as coaches go. It took about 10 hours, but that included a three-hour stop at the border as you go into Argentina. Goodness knows why it takes so long, but it’s well known to happen. We flew back. That took one hour.

After time in Lima and California, plus a brief stop to see Chicago’s skyscrapers, the couple was on the home stretch.

I had lived in the States, and we went to New York where our friends put us up and threw a big party—we’d been relatively abstemious on the trip. But that night we definitely had too much to drink. I was celebrating my birthday on 17 December. Then we flew home the next day, just in time for Pam’s birthday on 19 December.

Famously, in the novel, Fogg got his timings wrong because of the dateline, so we thought the sensible thing to do in case anything went wrong was to build in a two-day buffer, which we didn’t end up needing. Then we went to the Reform Club, as he had, on the 80th day after leaving, for a nice lunch with some Champagne. It was December 21, the same day as Fogg.

Travel Hacks

The two biggest tips from Lowe: cutting costs on laundry, and a need-to-read book in prep.

One of the great problems is how to manage your clothing situation. We travelled with quite a lot of luggage—two hard suitcases and a backpack, each—which was no problem on airlines, but became a problem when we took the train. For the most part, it was hot everywhere we went; in fact, all the way until we got to North America. So we had sent a suitcase ahead to our friends in Los Angeles, full of warm clothes, and that’s when we switched.

Pam also became an expert on the laundromats of the world. Most places, you have serviced laundry done, with all your clothes washed and ironed back within 24 hours. We didn’t use the hotel laundry service, which saved us a fortune.

I read the Jules Verne novel maybe once or twice before we planned our trip, and re-read it again while we did. But there’s another book that’s just as interesting, by this fascinating woman who wrote under the pen name Nellie Bly. She did a round the world trip, more or less on his route, as a woman alone, in the 1880s, and wrote Around The World in Seventy-Two Days. That’s quite a story.