The book details Mark Twain and his wife, Livy, as they circumnavigate the globe, primarily following the equator, to recoup their financial losses after a bad investment in a typesetting machine. Twain delivers lectures in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, Canada, and South Africa, and the book is structured around these stops, interspersed with lengthy digressions on everything from the history of the places they visit to his personal philosophies and anecdotes. He describes the landscapes, the people, the social customs, and the political realities of the late 19th-century British colonies, often with a sharp and critical eye. It's less about a strict itinerary and more about Twain's reactions to, and interpretations of, the world around him.