Historical journey mapping / Day 5 · A journey

Around the world on a penny-farthing

First Cycle Trip Around the World

A map of Thomas Stevens’s 1884–1886 journey, the first trip around the world by bicycle.

QGIS
Adobe Illustrator

Dark world map tracing Thomas Stevens’s 1884–1886 bicycle route across the United States, Europe, and Asia to Japan, with land routes in red and sea routes dotted — Map by Jesse Friend. Select the image to explore it at full size.

A closer look

I started cycling in 2024, and friends introduced me to bikepacking: carrying everything you need to camp on the bike and finding places to stay along the way. After my first trip that summer, I became curious about where it all began.

That led me to Thomas Stevens, who left San Francisco on a penny-farthing in April 1884. Over more than two years he crossed the United States, Europe, and Asia, finishing in Yokohama in December 1886. Along the way he was denied passage through Siberia, expelled from Afghanistan, and chased by a mob in China who mistook him for French during the Sino-French War.