The story takes the Fenouillard family to Paris where they want to see the Eiffel tower;but they take the wrong train (after the laborious explanations of the station master),winds up on a ship who sails away to Brazil:here ,they get lost in the virgin forest which looks like an exotic garden ,complete with parrots,boas and cannibals who put them on their menu . Saved by convicts escaped from a penal colony ,they try to get back home on a ship which takes them to the North Pole ,where they live,as tradition has it,in an igloo;then Madame gets drunk with sake in Japan ,dressed up as a geisha ;as there's no boat when they get to the harbor ,they will "walk" their way home via Africa rivers ,the pyramids,the road to Damascus - When they have arrived ,they will have seen the whole world ,everything but the Eiffel Tower.