Getty Image / Leon Neal / iStockphoto / digitalmazdoor
English walker Karl Bushby returns home and reunites with his mother
Englishman and ex-soldier Karl Bushby left home in 1998 and has walked his way around the earth ever since. In the past 28 years, he has walked 36,000 miles and he just made it home today to hug his mother.
During his walk, Karl Bushby nearly drowned, was almost eaten, was robbed, deported, held at gunpoint, and more. Yet he pushed on and after swimming the English Channel last week he made it back to his native England and continued his walk to Hull, a home he had not been to in decades.
Karl Bushby Returns Home After Walking 36,000 Miles Around Earth Since 1998
What came to be known as the Goliath Expedition began in November 1998 when Karl Bushby began his walkabout in Punta Arenas, Chile. His plan was to walk home to Hull, England from there.
Emphasis on walking, as Karl Bushby stipulated that no motorized transportation could be use. This created some unique challenges after he was deported, and needed to renew passport and travel credentials, so he would need to sort that out and return back to the exact place he left off and pick up the walk again.
Initially, Karl Bushby’s walk around the earth was only meant to take 12 years but somehow he spent 28 on foot. Highlights from the journey include being jailed in Panama for 18 days after entering the country through the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama, a densely forested region inhabited by jaguars, snakes, and FARC troops / narco traffickers. After starting in Chile, he made it through Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia before being detained above, his first of many snags throughout the journey.
In 2005, he attempted to cross the Bering Strait into Russia and was detained by border guards where he was issued a ban from Russia. This could have sent his entire journey down the drain but an appeal overturned the ban and he was able to enter the country and continue his journey… Until his sponsor funding dried up. Then he lived in Mexico for a few years until he was able to secure funds and a new visa to continue his journey and that’s when he flew back to Russia and then entered Mongolia in 2017.
After Mongolia he entered China where authorities stopped him but allowed him to continue the walk under police supervision. From there he went through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran-Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Romania, Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia. Travel visa issues then sent him back to Mexico briefly before returning and on into Belgium and from there he swam the English Channel on his way home.
Here is the moment he arrived:
28 years! What’s wild is how many times he was sent back to Mexico during this journey when he could have realistically flown home to Hull at any time. The story was huge news across England today with every media outlet picking up his return home:
I saw a quote from ultra-runner Andy Glaze over the weekend, and I’m paraphrasing here, but it goes something like ‘sign up for things that are way too hard for you and then figure out how to do them.’ And I’ve been thinking about that quote for days now.
When Karl Bushby set out from Chile to walk home back in 1998 there was no way he could have ever imagined where the journey would take him but he figured it out, come hell or high water.