In the classic adventure novel, Around the World in Eighty Days by the French writer Jules Verne, global travel brought Phileas Fogg nothing but happiness.

Now, a Chinese senior couple is also pursuing such kind of happiness even at the price of selling their house, the Oriental Morning Post reported Monday.

Zhang Guangzhu and his wife Wang Zhongjin pose on a beacon at Cape Agulhas, South Africa on Feb 20, 2011.[Photo/blog.sina.com.cn/huajiabeibaoke]

The 64-year-old husband Zhang Guangzhu and his wife Wang Zhongjin in Beijing have traveled around the world visiting more than 30 countries across Europe, the Antarctic, North America and South America since 2008, which has shocked netizens after they shared their travel experiences online.

The couple’s idea of traveling around the world was inspired by a foreign tourist they met in Yunnan province during the spring festival of 2007. They found that foreigners dare to travel alone to a remote area of China despite not knowing the Chinese language. This inspired them to think about the possibility of travelling abroad without the ability to speak foreign languages.

The couple turned their inspiration into action, and began their world tour. They have managed to communicate with others during their trip, even using gestures to bargain with a hotel boss and successfully got a lower price.

Once started, it is hard to stop, Wang Zhongjin said. The senior couple feel that they are getting younger during their global tour. “It seems that we go back to the begining when we just fell in love with each other,” the couple affirmatively said.

Confronted with the economic pressure caused by thuge travel expense, the couple even advocates selling a house for travel.

Such a view has found some like-minded comments on the Internet where a saying circulates that “With the payment for a-half-square-meter apartment, you can even have a tour to Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia; with the payment for two square meters, you can have a tour to Europe and America; with the payment for three or four square meters, you can travel to more mysterious places, like South Africa. You may have traveled everywhere of the world in several years, still it may not even cost you the price of a bathroom, and but your world view may be different."