Having learnt that a new railway in India has made it theoretically possible to travel all the way around the globe in no more than eighty days, Phileas Fogg, a wealthy and fastidious London gentleman, makes a wager of 20,000 with his Reform Club associates that he can achieve this hitherto unheard-of feat, and, accompanied by his French valet Jean Passepartout, boards a train for Dover the very same evening. Pursued on their epic journey by a Scotland Yard policeman who has mistaken Fogg for a bank robber, the intrepid voyagers face a race against time as they traverse a range of exotic and sometimes hazardous landscapes and make use of any and every mode of transport available to them – including elephants – in order to achieve their goal.