Phileas Fogg is the protagonist of Around the World in Eighty Days, as his actions, thoughts, and fate have the most bearing on the story. He is an English gentleman of immense wealth and a keen sense of adventure. Though his days of travel are behind him by the time the novel starts, he bets his entire fortune that one can travel around the globe in eighty days. This sets off the plot of the book.

Fogg is a man of contrasting types. He is greatly rational in his scientific approach and the consummate English gentleman in his reserved manner, yet he is also a man of risk and adventure, impulsively risking his livelihood and his own survival time and again.