A Brit is on his way home on the last leg of an extraordinary journey around the world which has taken him 27 years so far
An adventurous Brit could soon become the first person to complete an unbroken round-the-world walk after starting the last leg of his 36,000 mile journey – 27 years after setting off. Karl Bushby, 56, set off from Chile on November 1, 1998 and is now heading for home after an “epic” expedition on foot, which saw him escape death more than a dozen times.
In one extraordinary near miss in Alaska, he ended up stranded on ice 28 miles from the coast after it broke off during a storm. He has also survived a close encounter with a polar bear and a Panama hellhole jail after being wrongly suspected of being an illegal immigrant. He even spent weeks under house arrest in Russia.
“We’ve lurched from crisis to crisis,” his dad, a former SAS hero himself, told the Mirror. “But I feel extremely proud that he’s done it.
“I wouldn’t have the bottle to do some of it myself. It’s a unique expedition, I don’t think there’s ever been one where the person has never gone home in between stages.”
Astonishingly his dad revealed his son doesn’t really like walking much. “He doesn’t really like walking,” he laughed, “he is only doing it to achieve something.” Asked how he has coped with the worry for almost three decades, the dad said: “I couldn’t spend 27 years worrying. It’s just another day in the office for him.”
When his son Karl, a former paratrooper, began his epic journey, he was just 28 years old and Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Cher was No 1, and Arsenal were champions of the Premier League. He had served 12 years in the Parachute Regiment before deciding to start his extraordinary challenge.
He decided to walk home to Hull from the southern tip of South America without using any forms of transport to progress. “He had access to maps of the world working in the battalion intelligence cell that started it all,” Keith said.
After leaving Chile he walked through the dangerous jungles of Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia, into North America, passing across the US, then Canada, eventually reaching the Arctic Circle.
He then made it across the Bering Strait, where the US is separated by Russia by 51 miles of sea before scrambling across huge lumps of floating ice into Russia in 2006, then through China.
After Russia invaded Ukraine he was unable to enter the country again and instead had to swim 186 miles across the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest lake. Now he has less than 2,000 miles left to walk before he arrives at his home city of Hull.
Karl, who is currently in Mexico waiting for a visa to complete his challenge, has said returning home will be a “very strange place to be” after being away for almost three decades.
Karl, told BBC Radio Humberside: “On 1st November 1998 you’re literally looking down at a road that’s 36,000 miles long and have no idea how you’re going to do it.
“We’ve run into a lot of complications with visa problems, financial crises, the pandemic, we’ve had it all. It’s been extremely difficult but we’ve always stuck to our guns and never been willing to compromise on the route.”
The rules to his challenge include not being allowed to use any form of transport to advance and “not allowed to return to the UK until I can walk home”.
He has to be out of Turkey for 90 days before getting a fresh visa and aims to arrive in Hull by September 2026, after a challenge which was supposed to take 12 years.
Karl, a divorced dad-of-one, said there had been “a few occasions” where he feared for his life, but he was “mentally prepared” for the tough encounter.
“Getting home, I just don’t know, it’s weird, it’s a very strange place to be in where suddenly your purpose for living will have a hard stop.
“I’m hoping to transition into other things as quickly as possible, keeping mind, body and soul on the move.” He said reuniting with his family would involve getting “to know each other again”.
His dad, Keith Bushby, 77, who lives in Herefordshire, has been supporting his son every step of the way, keeping in contact over the internet and stepping into help when it was needed.
He told The Mirror on Wednesday: “Karl has always been a natural born wanderer. As a child, I lost him no end of times. He would look at the horizon and wander off towards it.”
Talking about what drives his son on, he adds: “He’s dyslexic and had a hard time at school. It left him scared but it toughened him up, no doubt about that.
“I managed to get him in the army at 16 as a junior parachute company. He progressed to Three Para.” He said his son then started talking about wanting to do a “long walk”. “I think it is all because the world had written him off and he wanted to show there was more to him.”
Keith doesn’t know where to start talking about his son’s adventures: “He’s had at least a dozen near death experiences.
“Like the time he was crossing Alaska in the winter. For a number of days Karl said it was like someone was walking around his tent beating it with a shovel, he never got out of his sleeping bag as there was a windchill factor of minus 98.
“The storm died down and Karl unzipped it to discover he was 28 miles out to sea, the ice flow had moved. I had to organise a helicopter rescue.
At the time he was with a fellow adventurer, who joined him for part of his journey, but who lost part of his finger to frostbite during the storm.
“That’s just a typical incident, another time he went through the ice down into the frozen sea. Luckily enough they did the ice dip in Norway during his training, so that came in handy.”
The ice was to blame for another close call, Keith explains, when his son crossed the Bering Strait and the ice started cracking beneath his tent so much the fabric floor was stretched. “Can you imagine that in the middle of the night? He got out very quickly and dragged the tent to one side.”
In Colombia, he told how his son had to disguise himself, dying his blond hair black, wearing rags to escape the gaze of dangerous cartels. Then in the Darién Gap, a 60-mile stretch of dense rainforest and jungle, Karl told his dad ‘I’ve never been so frightened in my life’.
“He put his hammock up in some quite dense jungle when he could hear about 20/30 men with their weapons clinking walking past him just 10 yards away, luckily it was at night and they didn’t spot him.”
It was Alaska again when Karl faced further danger, when he came across a “huge polar bear” but luckily he was as surprised as him. “It reared up with its arms out and it was absolutely enormous and it was a shock but he stood still and the bear realised he wasn’t a threat and just walked away.”
Half the battle of his journey has been for visas or finding a way round no-go countries, such as Iran and later Russia. As he waited for papers he would return to a small ‘bunker’ in Mexico, refusing to ever allow himself home until the challenge is complete.
“He has never been back to the UK as that’s his rule. He cannot come home until he’s walked there. Russia was a nightmare, they would allow him 90 days visas only. He was detained by The Federal Security Service (FSB). Some of the tales have been amazing.
“He got to a local town in the most north eastern part of Siberia, 1800 miles to the nearest road. At first it was all okay and he was having a drink with the local mayor.
“But then the FSB came and they were most upset. Nothing ever happened up there and next thing you know there’s two westerners turning up, they were obviously spies in their eyes.
“They were arrested and everything was taken off them. They put them in a hotel, which they had to pay for but they locked them in, they didn’t even have toothbrushes.
“Local people were quite good and the local priest brought them food. For a month they were there before they went before a local court. They were done for illegal entry. They were fined 40 quid and ordered to leave the country.
“I think they got out thanks to the ex Chelsea boss, Roman Abramovich, he was the governor of that area. We think his representative must have had a word with people and things moved.
“It was dodgy though and could have all ended there if Russian had not let him back in. He’s gone into Russia lots since then and each time they strip his computer down. ”
Asked if he remarried, the dad laughs and says: “Who is going to marry him? Someone might for a couple of days then he’s off again.”
On Wednesday Karl told The Mirror about his apprehension at returning to his home in the UK. He said: “It’s a big change in one’s life after 20 odd years. I don’t know the United Kingdom any more. When I left Tony Blair was Prime Minister and it was a very different world. I don’t know what to expect. It almost has a distant mythical status.”
About what he has learnt during his huge journey, he said: “I’ve re-established my faith in humanity, the overwhelming support and kindness you find in the world and that’s stood out to me from the very beginning. I’ve found that in every country.”
He said his favourite countries were Chile and Columbia and the “toughest” probably Russia. “One of the toughest countries was Russia both in climate and politically,” he said explaining how he spent 57 days detained and it got “pretty tense and pretty scary”.
Alaska, he said, was “beautiful” but the winters were harsh and “a real eye opener” – with a couple of “near death experiences” on his way to the Bering Straits.
He endured the coldest weather there with temperatures down to minus 51 without windchill, but with windchill he said it worked it out at minus 97 or 98.
“It’s painful and stressful. The world is literally trying to kill you at that point. Feel your joints freezing,” he said.
Now Karl says he needs to find a new adventure as he is starting to feel his age and plans to start a not for profit project involving science literacy.
“I’ve got to switch focus now as my adventure days are coming to an end. I’m 56 years old. Things are starting to hurt now and I can’t do what I used to be able to do, so I’ve got to wrap things up pretty quick..”