In 1889 the Cosmopolitan magazine sent its literary editor Elizabeth Bisland to race Nellie Bly of the New York World around the globe, going the opposite way to beat Jules Verne's fictional eighty days. Bisland had refused at first, mainly because she dreaded the publicity, but she boarded a train to San Francisco within hours. She travelled by rail and steamship across America, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, and wrote seven lyrical articles that became the book In Seven Stages. Bly, racing in the other direction, finished first, so the contest is remembered as a fast, sensational publicity stunt that also became an early record of how fast travel was shrinking the world.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.