British Traveller Returns Home to Hull After 28 Years Walking Around the World
Karl Bushby, a 57-year-old former paratrooper from Britain, has completed a round-the-world trek that began in Chile in 1998. He swam the English Channel in 20 hours as the final stage.
British traveller Karl Bushby, a former paratrooper, has finished a journey around the world on foot that lasted almost three decades, returning to his hometown of Hull in England, according to the BBC. The trek began in November 1998 at the southern tip of Chile. Over the years, the 57-year-old covered more than 48,000 kilometres and crossed 29 countries.
Two strict rules
Throughout the journey, Bushby kept to two rules he had set himself: travel only on foot or by swimming, and never shorten the planned route. Whenever he was forced to pause, he returned to exactly the spot where he had stopped.
The hardest stretches
On the way he crossed the Darien jungle in Latin America and walked over the frozen Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. He swam across the Caspian Sea over the course of a month.
The last obstacle was the English Channel. The operator of the Channel Tunnel, Eurotunnel, refused Bushby permission to walk through the service corridor, so he decided to swim the strait instead. After 20 hours in the water, he came ashore in Britain near Dover.
Welcome home
Relatives, friends and film director Werner Herzog were waiting on the shore. Herzog is making a feature-length documentary about Bushby's journey.
Bushby says that coming back after 28 years feels strange: he has to get used to the local currency and the range of goods on shop shelves again. As the most valuable lesson of his journey, he names his firm belief that the great majority of people in the world are wonderful and kind.
