Around the world in 80 days - bookshelf inspiration

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how Around The World in 80 Days inspired this blog (and how books all to often inspire travel). This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).  

Have you guessed that this blog aroundbritainwithoutaplane is named after Jules Verne's classic book Around the World In 80 Days? I hadn't read the novel when I dreamt up my blog title, but during winter 2011-12 read it aloud with my then 10-year-old, Nell, and we found it fascinating. You can find copies easily in the library or secondhand shops - ideally choose one with illustrations, especially if you are reading it aloud to a child.

The main character, phlegmatic Phileas Fogg (who most of us know from the snack brand), is an insufferable bore who travels in the exact opposite to the way anyone should. He prefers the card game whist to views; timetables to experience. But his uncharacteristic comment: "I will bet £20,000 pounds that I will travel round the world in not more than 80 days," creates a marvellous novel (and, shhh, geography lesson).

Starting from Number 7 Savile Row, finishing at the Reform Club, P Fogg Esq plans to go:

• From London to Suez (Egypt) (via Mont Cenis (the pass over the French Alps) and Brindisi (Italy)) by rail and steamer - 7 days
• Suez to Bombay, by steamer - 13 days
• Bombay to Calcutta, by rail - 3 days
• Calcutta to Hong Kong, by steamer - 13 days
• From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan's 2nd largest city), by steamer - 6 days
• From Yokohama to San Francisco, by steamer - 22 days
• From San Francisco to New York, by rail - 7 days
• New York to Liverpool and on to London - by steamer and rail - 9 days.

Slow travel is actually quite fast, but it's expensive too. It costs Phileas Fogg close to £20,000 to make the journey (admittedly he travels in some style, and with at least one companion, his man-servant, the loyal Passepartout).

Just for the record, the cheapest round-the-wold air ticket I can find on offer in April 2012 is £749 but the flexibility is extremely limited and doesn't include any accommodation. Add on 80 days of food and beds (say £40 a day but no trips) and you need at least £4,000 to go around the world in a rushed three months.

Step into the great man's shoes (on a different route)
After a quick google I also found a copy-cat Phileas Fogg 80-day journey, see here, which costs £6,400 (and needs two people to be doing it). But what a journey, what an itinerary - completely organised for you with a complete disregard of the things that happen as you travel: lost purses, ill health, a desire to slow down and chat to people, and most of all weather...

Over to you
Jules Verne teaches us that travel cannot be micro-managed. He shows us how the unexpected turns up, and urges us to step in where wrongs need to be righted. He's half mocking the people who want around-the-world tickets, half luring us into buying them. Maybe this blog is doing the same for it's readers. For me, the blog writer, it's satisfying an insatiable desire to travel simply by looking for stay-at-home-but-feel-abroad experiences.

Let me know if it's helped.

Where's fashion street?

The skull pic is just a note to self about what to wear on Mexico's Day of the Dead.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to go clothes shopping as if you could teleport. This post is by Nicola Baird 


Imagine a long street crowded with shoppers. Now add racks of dresses being wheeled out of lock up shops. It's a city yes, and besides the fashion shops, and alleys hung with the latest garments, cafes tempt you to linger thanks to the amazing cooking smells. There are also dry cleaners, garment alterers and even a sewing machine repair shop. Fonthill Road could be Singapore, Hong Kong, Dakka. But it's actually London's best kept secret - the place to go for cheap fashion, and invariably far more fashion forward than the high street.

Who will buy?
On my last sashay along the crowded pavements I enjoyed watching older women in brown coats debate whether to buy another brown coat, a super-plainly dressed Hasidic Jewish mum locate the only shop that sells black woollen skirts with front pleats; two Asian guys admiring the leopard skin tops (you come here to cross-dress too!), the girl in the shoe shop having a quick fag on the pavement, school students rushing past late for class with their eyes on the window, Turkish guys buying for girlfriends, black guys minding the buggy and baby while mum chooses the best dress to impress. There are long dresses, short dresses, Church dresses, nightclub handkerchiefs, frothy sunshine dresses, wedding dresses.

Most are on sale for a bargain fiver.

These must be the product of sweat shops - or maybe they are the trial runs. Whatever their provenance if you want to detour to the land of super cheap fashion then take the tube to Finsbury Park and walk to Fonthill Road. Here's where to change your image without punishing your budget.

On the other hand it doesn't answer my desire to try to buy pre-loved clothes.

As my daughters grow it is getting increasingly hard to find suitable stuff in charity shops that fits and isn't worn out (although jumble and car boot sales can be good). So I was thrilled to be tipped off by the shop assistant at the British Red Cross charity shop just off Kings Road that a member of the Nigerian royal family had just come in with piles of never worn clothes that would probably fit Nell. One pair of jeans for an eight-year-old (with jewelled skulls and roses on one leg) still had a price tag on it - apparently £400 - which the Red Cross staff planned to sell for £20.

A quick search revealed that 395 Dhs is the United Arab Emirates' dirham and thus originally £69.51. But a bargain's a bargain (even if 20 quid is still a pricey pair of jeans). It's Nell's first piece of designer wear and she looked very happy to be so spoilt.

For more info about fair trade and organic fashion see People Tree. Founder Safa Minney has recently published her first book too, Naked Fashion.

Where's that?
Do you know any row of shops in the UK that reminds you of an overseas experience? Bazars, markets, alleyways, pop-ups, pavement cafes - share what they remind you of, and their location.  Thanks.