After 28 years walking across the globe, he's almost home

Karl Bushby, a former British paratrooper, set out in 1998 to walk from southern Chile to his home in Hull, England, following a route across South America, North America, the Bering Strait, Asia and Europe. Nearly 28 years later, after swimming the English Channel, he is within a few hundred miles of home and expects to arrive next week, at age 57. He began with about $500 and a loaded golf trolley, aiming to walk roughly 18 miles a day. His self-imposed rules were not to use transport to advance and not to return to Britain before completing the journey. The trek brought him through the Darién Gap and Siberia, as well as arrests, deportation, financial hardship and long interruptions caused by war, economic crises and the pandemic. The most dangerous stretch came in 2006, when he and fellow adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed the shifting ice of the Bering Strait, then spent nearly two months detained in Russia.

The expedition’s costs included long separation from Bushby’s son, Adam, who was eight when it began and initially struggled to understand his father’s absence. They reconnected in Alaska in 2004; Adam now supports the journey and hopes to welcome his father home with a granddaughter Bushby has never met. Bushby says the adventure’s early excitement gave way to years of tedious routine, and as the end approaches he feels unsettled by the prospect of losing the purpose that has shaped his life. He is considering science education and public speaking, where he emphasizes an unexpected lesson: strangers across cultures repeatedly offered food, shelter and help. He wants young people to know that the world is kinder than they might expect.