Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France and enjoyed drawing machines and looking at ships in the port as a child. When he was 11, his father found him trying to stow away on a ship and told him he could only travel through imagination. As an adult, Verne wrote popular adventure novels about fantastic voyages, including "Around the World in 80 Days" about an English gentleman, Phileas Fogg, who attempts to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days by any means of travel.