He Started Walking Home in 1998. He Thought It Would Take 12 Years. He's Almost There

HULL, England, Oct. 23, 2026 — When Karl Bushby set off on foot from the southern tip of Chile, he figured the walk home would take about 12 years. That was Nov. 1, 1998. Twenty-eight years later, the former British paratrooper is back on English soil and walking the last stretch to his mother's house in Hull. He's aiming to arrive on Nov. 1, the same date he left, NPR and The Guardian report.

And now that the end is in sight? "I'd like to drag it out longer if I could," he told NPR.

## Two Rules and a Birthday Card

The idea came from a birthday card. In his mid-20s, Bushby's father, a former SAS soldier, sent him one that described a conversation among Special Forces soldiers about whether you could walk from London to New York by way of the Bering Strait, according to NPR and The Guardian. Bushby decided to try something even bigger.

He gave what he calls the Goliath Expedition two rules, the BBC reports: no transport to move forward, and no going home until he got there on foot. If he had to stop or detour, he could travel, but he always restarted from the exact spot where he left off.

There was a neat bit of geography behind the route, too. The Guardian notes that Punta Arenas, Chile, sits at about 53 degrees south, while Hull sits at about 53 degrees north.

## The Long Way Round

The BBC puts his distance at more than 30,000 miles (48,000 km) across 29 countries. The Guardian's tally is higher, about 36,000 miles. Either way, the route reads like an atlas:

- The length of South America, then the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama.
- North to Alaska, then across the Bering Strait on sea ice, swimming where necessary, into Russia in 2006. NPR says the 58-mile crossing took 14 days.
- Siberia and the rest of Asia, followed by a 31-day swim across the Caspian Sea in 2024, after land routes into Europe were closed.
- Into Europe in 2025.

The delays piled up: visa problems, the 2008 financial crash, which cost him sponsors, COVID and geopolitics, the BBC reported. Through much of it he towed a customized cart he nicknamed "the Beast." The Guardian says the original lasted three years, and a rebuilt "Beast 2," made in Nicaragua, carried on after that.

## Swimming Home

The last big obstacle was the English Channel. In June, Channel Tunnel bosses turned down his request to walk through a service tunnel, so he swam it. It took 20 hours over three days, and he landed at Shakespeare Beach near Dover on Oct. 5, the BBC reported. Waiting on the sand were his father, Keith, and filmmaker Werner Herzog, who is directing a documentary about the journey called "Walk of Life."

"It feels good to have UK soil under my feet after all these years," Bushby told the BBC.

## What Home Means Now

The journey has had a cost. Bushby told NPR he has seen his mother and son only a handful of times in 28 years, and he has a granddaughter he has never met. He also said that, after so long away, England feels a bit like just another country. "I'm learning this country again," he said.

For now, there is a little over a week of walking left. Then, for the first time since 1998, he gets to stop.

Sources: NPR · BBC News · The Guardian