With eight train tickets and five transfers, it may sound like someone is heading for the South Pole, but in fact it is how one young man plans to return home during the holiday crush.

The modern day Phileas Fogg, Wang Dong, a native of Deyang, Sichuan province, is a second-year PhD student at Fudan University in Shanghai. Rather than going through the hassle of buying a direct train ticket from Shanghai to Deyang, the 27-year-old designed a unique railway route home to avoid having to buy train tickets during the holiday crush.

The trip is about 2,000 km, including transfers in five cities. He will leave Shanghai at 1:20 pm on Feb 8, travel through Nanjing, Hankou, Yichang, Dazhou, Chengdu and arrive at his final destination, Deyang at 11:50 am on Feb 9, Lunar New Year's Eve.