Somewhere between a test of geography and a test of faith, there’s a man still walking with no crew, no convoy and no shortcuts. He is just one human being tracing a line across continents and refusing to break it. His name is Karl Bushby, and for 27 years, he’s been walking around the planet without taking a single ride.
The Man Who Refused To Sit Down: Meet Karl Bushby
Back in November 1998, Bushby, a 29-year-old ex-paratrooper from Hull, England, left Punta Arenas, a wind-torn city at the tip of Chile. His destination: home, and his plan: walk there! He called it “The Goliath Expedition,” a name that fit both his ambition and the absurdity of it. The idea was simple enough: walk an unbroken path around the world, connecting every footstep until he reached his front door. His only rule was no mechanical transport, ever.
He figured it might take eight years. He’s been walking for almost three decades. Karl Bushby’s path reads like a survival manual carved into the globe. He slogged through the Darien Gap, that notorious tangle of jungle and mud where maps lose meaning and even seasoned explorers think twice. He forded rivers, faced armed militias, and walked on.
In 2006, he did something almost mythic; he crossed the frozen Bering Strait on foot, trudging through slabs of shifting ice with fellow adventurer Dimitri Kieffer. At times they crawled and at times they swam. The sea between Alaska and Russia doesn’t forgive easily, but they made it and became the first humans to walk from the Americas into Asia since the Ice Age.
And then came the long slog through Siberia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkey, and beyond. It was a geography lesson measured in blisters.
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The Rule That Cost Karl Bushby Everything
He’s been arrested, stranded, and banned. Russia locked him out for five years after a visa mix-up. Funding dried up, friends moved on, and the world kept spinning without him. Still, he wouldn’t bend his rule.
Now, in 2025, he’s walking through Europe, having crossed the Bosphorus in Turkey. Ahead lies roughly 3,000 kilometres, the final chapter in a 58,000-kilometre odyssey. If nothing derails him, he’ll step into Hull by September 2026, closing the loop he started before Google existed. Think about that. The internet was young when he began. The iPhone, social media, and streaming didn’t exist. In that time, he’s lived a whole life between borders. He’s become something rare, a traveller who has outlasted trends, technologies, and time itself.
The Kindness That Kept Him Moving
For all its solitude, Karl Bushby’s walk is also a story of strangers. In Siberian villages, locals took him in from the cold. In Mexico, families shared their food. In remote Alaskan outposts, fishermen repaired his gear.
He doesn’t walk for fame. The sponsorships come and go. He walks because the rule he made with himself is sacred. He walks because stopping would undo everything he’s done. If he succeeds, Karl Bushby will be the first person in history to complete an unbroken walk around the Earth. This will be a record not of speed or strength, but of stubborn grace. There’s something almost old-world about it; it is like a defiance of convenience.
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When Bushby finally reaches his hometown and turns the key to his front door, he’ll have walked across the entire planet using nothing but his own legs. It’s called Twenty-seven years of motion, one line unbroken. Maybe that’s why his story feels so magnetic, because in an age obsessed with shortcuts, he’s the proof that the long way still matters.
Cover Image Courtesy: bushby3000/Instagram
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