The algos pushed this story at me the other day, unbelievable... absolutely incredible!
Had to look him up, read up on his story. Today I saw the NYT running a feature of Mr. Karl Bushby, with photos and interviews.
"Karl Bushby’s plan to walk across the globe began with a note in a birthday card."
Never mind that crossing the perilous waterway on foot had little modern precedent. Mr. Bushby took a black marker, walked to a map on his wall and drew a line from England, where he lived, through Europe and Asia, across the strait into North America and down to the southernmost tip of South America. [...] Mr. Bushby flew to South America and started walking home. Nearly 28 years later, he’s almost done.
The crazy bit about this, apart from the perseverance and extreme adventure-ism of it, is the wasting of a life... like what the actual fuck, that's how you wanted to spend your decades?? #1301606 Including leaving your 8-yo son at home, never to see him, and a 12-yo granddaughter you're never even met.
...my next thought was: Yes, this is crazy long of a walk but it doesn't take 28 years... what's the hold-up?
What the NYT omits, and just leaves there, is the most intense (and time-consuming) of delays after the crossing into Russia in 2006(!). What in the world did dude do for the next twenty years?!
At least some of the other articles I read this week about him revealed this:
- got repeatedly delayed and arrested in Russia --- and then with visa problems, was only allowed to spend 90 days there every 180 days. After that, leave, and return to the same spot. (He has a similar problem in the U.S. in 2002 and again in Alaska in 2005, Wikipedia informs me.)
- ran out of money/sponsorships during the financial crisis, so he retreated back to Mexico between 2008-2010, living cheaply and looking for new money.
- Then in 2013 he was banned from Russia because of visa violations. Once back in the U.S., he walked from LA to DC (take that @realBitcoinDog...) for a meeting with the Russian embassy and was ultimately granted a letter of invitation fr Russian gov.
- during 'rona, he couldn't get around the Caspian Sea (#942031), having been stuck between Iran/Turmenistan... so he swam. In 2024, he (accompanied by a team of elite Azerbaijani swimmers) spent 31 days swimming 2x3 a day and resting on floating boats to get across. God knows what he did for four years from being stopped in Turkmenistan/Iran and swimming the Caspian. (update: his website said he had already returned to the U.S. before the pandemic because crossing into Iran was diplomatically impossible/difficult... and the Kazakh->Azerbaijan swimming plan was the only plan they could come up with.)
- Similar 90-days-within-180 problem last year in Europe, so he had to pack up and go to Mexico to wait out the reset of the visa, before returning to Hungary and restart from there... and once more in July, having reached Belgium. What a farce.
Earlier this month, he swam across the English Channel, arriving in his home country after spending half his life away. His trek began in southern Patagonia, Chile, in November 1998, when he was 29, and he plans to reach his mother’s house in Hull, England, sometime next week. He will be 57.
"He has been arrested, deported, broke, lost, and written off more times than he can count."
Mr. Bushby began his trek in Punta Arenas [an extraordinary place I recall fondly from my teenage travels, #752441], in southern Chile. He had around $500 and what he called “The Beast,” a modified golf trolley holding camping supplies, clothing, toiletries, food and water.
Harsh weather, no money, and 18 miles a day. One reason the trek took so long in the beginning was that he took very long breaks (weeks/months at a time): bc "road life [...] was 'absolutely, insanely tedious'. The first years, you’re living the boys’ adventure dream, and it’s great [...] and then it really becomes a grind.”
Mr. Bushby felt a shift in 2002, when he crossed into the United States. He arrived in Nogales, Ariz., he said, and went from being a roadside curiosity to a nuisance, or a threat [....] He was frequently stopped by the police, who kept him off highways, made him move his tent or shooed him away from public places. The United States is also where he picked up sponsorships, including from a web hosting company and a shoe insole brand, which generated a few hundred dollars a month.
He said he had never really considered what the end of his trip would look like — it was always too distant. But now, with only a few hundred miles left, Mr. Bushby said it felt “troubling. I’m about to lose my purpose for living,” he said. “It’s about to abruptly end.”
Yeah, that's the thing with grand, life-consuming projects.
Mr. Bushby doesn’t know what he might do next, but said he is interested in becoming a science educator. He’d also like to share the thing that surprised him the most on his journey: the kindness of strangers. Hundreds of people offered him shelter, food, assistance or just a hug. He said that he found a welcoming spirit in “every culture, every country.”
Some of his story can be found here... with pictures. And it's the images of his face and his age that hit me the most; he was a young, adventurous 29yo when he started... the 57yo man that swam the English Channel is old, worn down. A life, just passed walking... sometimes uselessly (the LA-DC thing) or in vain (Alaska, Russia).
He definitely shouldn't have left his family but I don't see it as a waste of life.
Walking through different countries gives you a more realistic picture of what the place is like (rather than flying into a touristy city). It is a very rare way to travel but some people do it. Most don't walk that far of course. I remember meeting a few walkers during my early days of traveling.
Off topic but related, check out the Tibetan pilgrims that "walk" to Lhasa. They take a step or two then get down flat on the ground (pray?), get up and repeat. Traveling like this can easy take a decade.
Aah, yes I've seen this. Incredible exercise
Yeah, "waste" was a little harsh/clickbaity by me, and it's Def an extraordinary achievement — devotion, literally seeing the world, overcoming obstacles, seeing what people and nature is like literally everywhere.
What just troubled me, basically, is that while neglecting his family duties, he spent his entire working years living on one sponsorship after another. We wouldn't approve of a trust-fund kid partying away his dad's money for his entire 20s and 30s.
I'm seeing it in that light, living on someone else's dime... in order to achieve/build nothing. I dunno, irks me the wrong way.
Uh, that's pretty messed up.
I can see it if you're single. I might even be attracted to the idea myself. But not if I have a family, or other obligations, man.
Also, he didn't circumnavigate the globe, so does it even count?
I can't feel much more than disdain for someone who abandons their family for a frivolous adventure.
This hit me so hard, too. Like... wth? Way to abandon your responsibilities, bruh
Good enough for the guy in Sixpence and the Moon. There's a certain something about foolhardy adventures like this. Sure, it's not advised, but sticking with the advice never got you remembered.
You almost have to try to get caught walking into Alaska from Canada. There ain't nobody out there.
Yeah I agree it's a waste of life unless he's decided to live reat of his life in Sanyasa.
I have a one boy from here who traveller world's 195 countries in less than 10 years..he didn't set out on foot.. but still he managed to do it at the age of 25 now leaves him rich, full of time and absolutely the achievement that he's the youngest to do it..
In short mr Bushby was a retard to even plan for something that took him the lifetime.