Karl Bushby has completed his 28-year journey to walk around the world by returning to his mother's home in northern England HULL, England -- Karl Bushby completed his 28-year odyssey to walk around the world Monday by returning to his mother’s home in northern England. Bushby embraced his emotional mother, Angela, outside her row house in Hull, England, which he left in 1998. They were surrounded by journalists, a documentary film crew and a large crowd outside the home that had a banner saying “Welcome Home Son.” Bushby was a 29-year-old ex-paratrooper when he walked away from the home to a Royal Air Force base near Oxford and caught a flight to South America.
He returned as a 57-year-old — softer, grayer and weathered, but far more worldly. Earth.” Bushby set out from Punta Arenas, Chile, on Nov. 1, 1998, and has walked 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) across four continents and 30 countries to get home. He navigated shifting ice over the Bering Strait and swam across the Caspian Sea and English Channel to avoid taking a boat or plane — or any transport — to propel him forward.
On the final leg of the journey, helicopter footage showed Bushby ringed by supporters as he pushed his cart toward home after getting a hero's welcome earlier at City Hall. His dad, an army veteran himself, mentioned an argument among his fellow special forces troops about the possibility of 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. Perilous jungles, scorching deserts and frozen tundra slowed him down, but bureaucratic red tape often brought his adventure to a halt for long periods.
Bushby originally calculated the distance could be covered in about five years, but he knew that was unrealistic. And the plus was a big plus. But never in our wildest dreams would we ever have imagined 28 years.” He dodged war in the dangerous Darién Gap, the roadless and rugged jungle, rainforest and mountains between South and Central America in 2001, and was then jailed for 18 days after crossing a restricted border zone in Panama.
After being airlifted to safety during the 56-mile (90-kilometer) Bering Strait crossing in 2006 with American adventurer Dimitry Kieffer, they started again and faced a standoff with a polar bear, survived near-death plunges into freezing waters and almost lost all their supplies when their sleds plunged in the sea. After managing the rare crossing, the pair were jailed and faced deportation for entering Russia illegally. It took Bushby almost 10 years to make his way through Russia in fits and starts because of visa struggles and weather that only allowed travel a few months a year.
When Russia denied him a visa in 2012, Bushby walked in protest from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., which eventually led to him getting the proper paperwork. Bushby planned to meet with family, including his son, Adam, whom he has only seen a few times over the journey. He was expected to meet his 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time.
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