Walk!

November 7th, 2026| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Karl Bushby embraced his weeping mother in his arms Monday as he returned to his northern England home to complete a 28-year odyssey to walk around the world.

The guy left his home in 1998, and returned this year, 2026.

Asked his mother, Angela:

Where have you been?”

British adventurer Karl Bushby, got home after a journey walking across the world!

He set out from Punta Arenas, Chile, in 1998, and walked 31,000 miles across four continents and 30 countries to get home. He navigated shifting ice over the Bering Strait (connecting the Pacific Ocean’s Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean’s Chukchi Sea) and swam across the Caspian Sea (a landlocked inland sea) and the English Channel (an arm of the Atlantic Ocean) to avoid taking a boat or plane—or any transport.

It was an eye-opening adventure full of danger and drudgery that was interrupted for years at a time by the unexpected: the 2008 financial crash that sapped funding from sponsors, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and mountains of bureaucratic red tape to get across international borders.

The ex-paratrooper said he looked like he was 10 years old when he left his mother’s row house at the age of 29. He returned at 57—softer, grayer and weathered, but far more worldly.

The idea started with a birthday card from his dad, Keith, that he got in the mid-90s. The father, an army veteran himself, mentioned an argument two special forces troops had had about walking from London to New York over the Bering land bridge, believed by some scientists to have been used by early humans to migrate from Asia to the Americas at a time of lower sea levels.

He decided to settle that argument once and for all. Took him only 28 years, across perilous jungles, scorching deserts, and frozen tundra, not to mention bureaucratic holdups and a precarious pandemic. Including being jailed twice, in Panama and in Russia, for illegal entries.

Karl has met several times over the decades with family members who have met up with him on his journey. He was greeted on the beach in Dover by his father and brothers after crossing the channel last month. He reunited with Adam, his 36-year-old son from an early marriage whom he had rarely seen, and he met his 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time, which he said was amazing.

In the final days of his trip, Bushby spoke of his anxiety over the trip ending, not knowing what he would do next and coming to terms with having to live in his mom’s basement.

But he’ll be busy. Six speaking engagements are scheduled in the next two months, a sequel to his memoir “Giant Steps” is due, and German filmmaker Werner Herzog is making a documentary on his trek.

Keep walking, bro!

But far more importantly, let’s keep walking … with God!

Blessing [upon] everyone who fears Yahweh,
who is walking in His ways.
The labor of your hands you will surely eat—
blessing [upon] you, and goodness with you:
your wife like a fruit-producing vine
in the inner parts of your house;
your children like cuttings of olive trees surrounding your table.
Behold, for thus he will be blessed,
the [mighty] one who fears Yahweh.
May Yahweh bless you from Zion,
that you may see the goodness of Jerusalem all the days of your life;
that you may see your children’s children.
Peace be upon Israel.
Psalm 128:1–6

SOURCES (of ideas, numbers, and words): The Associated Press