Around the World in 80 Days

by Michael Palin

Hardcover, 1991

Status

Available

Call number

910.41

Genres

Collections

Non-Fiction, Geography and Travel

Publication

BBC Pubns (1991), 256 pages

Description

In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. This fascinating and humorous account tells the story of his travels: from Venice on the back of a rubbish barge to the Pyramids on a camel. Now with added music.

User reviews

LibraryThing member jcbrunner

To recover from his traumatic eating experience on the wonderful A Fish called Wanda, ex-Monty Python Michael Palin chose to replicate Phileas Fogg and Passepartout's epic journey around the world in eighty days in 1988, chaperoned by two BBC teams. Air travel has made the eighty days restriction

pointless. To somewhat even the odds, Palin restricted himself to land- and waterborne transportation and followed Fogg's route hopping from former British possession to the next. The secret to winning this challenge is to refrain from using the slow water transport. A train will easily and comfortably carry its passengers at over 100 kilometers per hour; at sea, he will be lucky to exceed 30 kilometers per hour. An optimized route (if one neglects the Trans-Siberian route) would not embark in Venice and travel via Athens to Egypt but take the train to Istanbul and then drive through Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Palin lost too much time in the early legs of his journey - quite to the benefit of his readers, though as the crossing of the Pacific and the Atlantic are both long and boring. Thus the first half of the book is much more interesting than the second half.

In typical British fussiness, the Reform Club, famous starting and endpoint of the challenge, did not let Palin enter its hallowed grounds. One part that has also changed during the last twenty years is that a modern host could not indulge in Palin's constant craving for alcoholic beverages.

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LibraryThing member JohnMunsch

Michael Palin's diary of his trip around the world to try and recreate the fictional voyage was entertaining and very illuminating.

I listened to the unabridged audio version of this read by the author and it definitely felt like a companion piece to the series. Even though the series came out a

long time ago, I definitely want to get it and watch it.

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LibraryThing member greenefingers

the original and best!

LibraryThing member kevn57

Almost as enjoyable as the novel the concept is based on.

LibraryThing member Belana

Very funny, very interesting, and superbly read.
So yes, going around the world in 80 days and NOT taking a plane surprisingly was a bit of a problem,
and there isn't any real in-depth information about the many places Michael went to, but his observation skills and wit make this a thoroughly

enjoyable journey for the reader/listener, with his very personal insights into the people he met and places he traveled.

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LibraryThing member Mithril

Lovely, and has more interesting details than on screen.

LibraryThing member INeilC

It's thirty-five years since I watched the TV series, but this book still relives the journey well. As Palin bemoans the loss of scheduled steamer routes, so it is noticable that the ferry routes he catches in this book now no longer exist.

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