Karl Bushby Back in Europe, Begins Last Leg of Journey
Back in Turkey to finish the 27-year-long journey. Photo: Karl Bushby
Karl Bushby set out from Punta Arenas, Chile, almost 27 years ago, on Nov. 1, 1998. With a Day of the Dead parade kicking off in the background, he began with $500 in his pocket, a vague plan he came to call the Goliath Expedition, and a stubborn confidence that he could do what no one else had done before — walk around the world with no mechanical transport and not returning home until the walk is complete.
About 47,000km later, the ex-paratrooper is now back in Europe. In spring 2025, he reached Turkey, and on May 2, he strode across Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge, officially leaving Asia behind and stepping into Europe for the first time since 1998.
The route. Map: Karl Bushby
There, the bureaucracy that has bedeviled him time after time reared its head once again. Turkish visa restrictions forced Bushby to leave the country the day he crossed the bridge. His 90-day visa was about to expire, and he had to race to the airport to avoid running afoul of those limits. For the next three months, he waited in Mexico to be eligible to reapply for entry into Turkey.
Yesterday, he landed back in Istanbul, preparing to restart his trek. He will then pick his way across Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, France, and finally the UK. With home just 3,000km away, he is confident he will be back in Hull, England by September 2026.
Hurdle after hurdle
It is no surprise that the last 27 years have been plagued by such logistical hurdles. Several times — bureaucracy, the need to cross war zones, lack of funding, and a pandemic — he has had to pause his walk until he could set off again. His rules allowed him to fly to a holding area, often Mexico, and wait until he could overcome whatever stopped him from continuing.
He survived the infamous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama, trudging through mud and jungle to emerge weeks later in Panama, where he was briefly detained. From here, he crossed Central America and the United States. In 2006, he and fellow adventurer Dimitri Kieffer made international headlines when they crossed the frozen Bering Strait on foot, leaping between bobbing ice floes and braving bitter Arctic winds, only to be arrested upon reaching Siberia.
Years of diplomatic wrangling followed as he tried to get permission to walk across Russia, which would take him much longer than a three-month tourist visa allowed. Intervention by figures as highly placed as British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich helped keep the expedition alive. Finally, in 2014, he received the coveted permission. From Russia, he crossed through Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan — another hard one. Here, his journey once again ground to a halt. He could not get a visa for Iran, and then COVID struck.
Photo: Karl Bushby
A long interlude, an unusual solution
So it was back to Mexico. He spent the next few years there, eventually coming up with a plan that morphed into the most unexpected leg of his journey. Bushby swam the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan with fellow walker Angela Maxwell. It was the only way he could continue the journey without setting foot in Iran.
Crossing the Caspian Sea. Photo: Karl Bushby
He doubled back to Uzbekistan and then walked across the Kyzylkum Desert to the Caspian Sea. He then swam 288km in stages to Azerbaijan, although he admitted that swimming was not his forte. A relieved Bushby then started walking again.
One last obstacle remains, which may prove as daunting as the Darien Gap or the Bering Strait. To complete his walk, Bushby must somehow cross the English Channel. He does not want to swim it, sailing is not an option because under his self-imposed rules, sailing qualifies as mechanized, and walking through the Channel Tunnel is prohibited. His only chance is to secure special authorization to use the 4.8m-wide service tunnel reserved for maintenance crews.
Speaking to BBC Radio this summer, Bushby admitted that the end of his odyssey fills him with as much uncertainty as excitement.
“Getting home, I just don’t know, it’s weird,” he said. “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.”
As for his family, he recognizes that the reunion will be bittersweet: “It will be about getting to know each other again.”
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