MAN WHO WALKED FOR 28 YEARS FINALLY GETS HOME TO HIS MUM
Karl Bushby, a 57-year-old former British paratrooper, finished his 28-year walk around the world on November 2, 2026, when he reached his mother Angela’s house in Hull, England, the same home he left in 1998. He started after his dad, Keith, passed along an argument among special forces friends about whether a man could walk from London to New York, and he swore he would not come home until his own feet got him there, according to the New York Post.
The trip covered roughly 31,000 miles, four continents and 30 countries, and he never took a ride. His mum, who had not seen him in a decade, hugged him on the pavement under a “Welcome Home Son” banner while reporters and a documentary crew crowded the street.
“They say it takes a village but literally it took a world to get me here,” Bushby told the crowd. “The kindness of strangers, so many, from individuals to nation states to get me back here today. I didn’t do this alone. There was a big team. The biggest team. Earth.”
He had crossed the Humber Bridge on Sunday, November 1, where his father, his brothers, his 36-year-old son Adam and his 12-year-old granddaughter were waiting. He was meeting the granddaughter for the first time. Adam was 8 when his dad left and now lives in Belfast with a family of his own.
On Monday around 11 a.m., Bushby walked into Queen Victoria Square in central Hull, where hundreds had turned out. “I’m back,” he said. “This is absolute madness.” Then he joked, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Bushby had planned on about five years and set off from Punta Arenas, Chile, on November 1, 1998, reportedly with less than $1,000. Along the way he spent 18 days in a Panamanian jail after wandering into a restricted border zone in 2001. In 2006 he and American adventurer Dimitry Kieffer crossed the frozen Bering Strait, which involved an air rescue, a polar bear and a near drowning.
Paperwork was the real villain. Russia refused him a visa in 2012, so he walked from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington to protest. A five-year entry ban in 2013 sent him through Mongolia and China, and he later swam the Caspian Sea to Baku.
The last obstacle was the English Channel. The Channel Tunnel’s operator turned down his request to walk its service passage, so Bushby, a self-described weak swimmer, swam instead. He reached Shakespeare Beach near Dover on October 5, 2026, after about 20 hours in the water over three days.
Hull’s Lord Mayor, Maria Coward, said the city had been inspired by his “spirit, tenacity and dogged determination,” the BBC reported. The BBC also said a free exhibition of his photographs, belongings and diary material opens at Hull’s Monocle building on November 3, 2026, and runs into early 2027.
Filmmaker Werner Herzog is directing a documentary about the trek called “Walk of Life,” and Bushby says he plans to focus on the film and public speaking. Asked about regrets, he told the Post, “It worked, so no, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“People are amazing, despite what we think the world looks like,” he said. “Humanity is worth the effort.”
