Around the World on a High Wheel

Thomas Stevens -- a man born in the UK but an immigrant to the US -- was the first person to circle the globe by bicycle -- and he did it on a high-wheeled "Ordinary".

Stevens rode a Columbia 50-inch 'Standard' big wheeled penny-farthing around the world, from April 1884 to December 1886, carrying his essentials like socks, a spare shirt, a revolver, and a rain jacket that doubled as a tent, in a pack on his handlebars and strung down his rear tube. 

Starting off from San Francisco, Stevens biked eastward across the US to New York where, after spending the winter, he took a steamer to Liverpool. After arriving in Liverpool, Stevens biked down through England and then took a ferry to France, where he set off through Europe, Iran and into Afghanistan. From there Stevens rode and walked across India, China and Japan, before he returned by steamer to San Francisco.

His book Around the World on a Bicycle is free and downloadable in many forms including audio book.

Stevens later spent 6 months in Africa climbing Kilimanjaro and hunting big game while searching for Henry Morton Stanley (this was 18 years after Livingstone), and reporting on his travels through Asia (Through Russia on a Mustang) and the Middle East (Travels in Arabia) before ending up as a manager of the Garrick Theatre in London.