07/05/2026
Wow!
Amazing human
On November 1, 1998, a 29-year-old former British paratrooper named Karl Bushby stood at the southern tip of Chile with $500 in his pocket and a single, relentless goal:
Walk home to England. Every step. No shortcuts. No exceptions.
The journey would span 58,000 kilometers.
Nearly three decades later — he’s still walking… and he’s close.
From the beginning, Karl set two absolute rules.
First: no transport could move him forward. If he was ever forced to fly for legal reasons, he would return to the exact spot he left and continue from that precise step.
Second: he could not go home until he could walk there.
Simple rules. Brutal reality.
He moved north through South America, then entered the Darién Gap — a lawless, roadless jungle between Colombia and Panama controlled by armed groups. From there, he crossed Central America, Mexico, and the entire United States.
In March 2006, he reached Alaska, staring out across the Bering Strait — 240 kilometers of frozen ocean separating him from Russia. Alongside French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer, he spent 14 days navigating shifting ice floes on foot, armed for polar bears and wearing immersion suits in case the ice gave way.
They made it across.
Russian authorities arrested them almost immediately.
Though diplomatic efforts secured his release, a new challenge emerged: Russia’s visa limits made crossing Siberia on foot nearly impossible. He would walk for months, leave, return, and repeat. Then, in 2008, his funding collapsed during the global financial crisis.
In 2013, Russia banned him entirely for five years.
So Karl responded the only way he knew how — by walking.
He covered 4,800 kilometers from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. to protest outside the Russian Embassy.
The ban was eventually lifted.
He continued through Central Asia — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan — but then the world shut down. COVID stranded him on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea with no way forward.
So he chose the only option left:
He would swim.
288 kilometers across open water.
“I’m definitely not a swimmer,” he admitted.
He trained for a year, partnered with fellow endurance walker Angela Maxwell, and secured support from Azerbaijan — including boats and national-level swimmers. In August 2024, they entered the sea. For 31 days, they swam in rotating six-hour shifts, battling waves, wind, and exhaustion.
On September 17, 2024, they reached Azerbaijan.
From there, Karl walked through Georgia and Turkey. On May 2, 2025, he crossed the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul — stepping into Europe for the first time since 1998.
Now, in 2026, he continues west.
About 1,500 kilometers remain.
One final barrier stands between him and home: the English Channel. To preserve every step, he can’t simply take a ferry. Swimming it is dangerous. His hope is to be granted rare permission to walk through the Channel Tunnel’s service corridor — a place no pedestrian has ever crossed.
After 27 years and tens of thousands of kilometers, it doesn’t seem like much to ask.
When people ask why he’s doing this — with no prize, no guarantee of recognition — his answer is simple:
“Because it’s hard. Because no one had done it.”
But what stayed with him most wasn’t the distance.
It was the people.
“99.99 percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best of humanity. The world is kinder than it often seems.”
Somewhere in Europe right now, a 56-year-old man is still walking west — just as he has every day since 1998.
Behind him: 47,000 kilometers of unbroken footsteps.
Ahead of him: home.
And after 27 years, he still hasn’t stopped.
