After 27 years, 25 countries, and nearly 50,000 kilometres, Karl Bushby, a 56-year-old former British Army paratrooper, is on the verge of completing his extraordinary quest to walk around the planet Earth without using any motorised transport. Currently in Hungary with just 1,500 kilometres remaining, Bushby is on the home stretch to Hull, England, where his mother eagerly awaits his arrival.
Bushby's ambitious goal, dubbed the Goliath Expedition, aims to make him the first person to complete an unbroken walking path around the entire world. "The plan was to do something pretty extraordinary," Karl says of his ambitious goal.
The genesis of this incredible journey began with a casual conversation among friends during his twenties. “Suddenly, it became a challenge,” he recalls. “That conversation gathered steam, until eventually I did the math and thought, ‘this is doable’. I became semi-obsessed with what it would take to achieve something like this.”
In 1998, at the age of 29, Karl set off from the edge of Punta Arenas, Chile, ready to begin his 49,900-kilometre expedition. Armed with nothing but paper maps, pencils and a calculator, he meticulously planned what he thought would be a 12-year journey.
Nearly three decades later, he’s still walking. Financial challenges, visa issues, political barriers and the Covid-19 pandemic have stretched his journey into a 27-year odyssey.
Despite the numerous setbacks, Karl has remained steadfast in his commitment to completing the journey on foot, adhering to a strict set of self-imposed rules. “I can’t use transport to advance and I can’t go home until I arrive on foot. If I get stuck somewhere, I have to figure it out,” he explains.
This unwavering philosophy has guided him through some of Earth’s most challenging terrain, from the Patagonian wilderness and the towering Andes to the length of Central America and Mexico, across the entire United States, through the vastness of Russia and Mongolia, and into remote corners of Asia. Along the way, he has traversed deserts, jungles and even war zones.
Remarkably, despite hiking through four continents over nearly three decades, Karl reports that his feet are in remarkably good condition. He is expected to reach home between September and October 2026.
As he approaches the finish line, Karl admits to having mixed feelings about completing his life’s work. “For the last 27 years of my life, my purpose of living has been getting up and moving forward, and that’s going to stop abruptly,” he admits. “It’s hard to adjust and that’s obviously going to be the case.”
While walking alone across the world for close to three decades might sound solitary, Karl’s experience has been quite the opposite. “Ninety-nine percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best in humanity,” he says. “The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.”
Reflecting on his extraordinary journey, Karl offers a simple piece of advice to others: seek adventure. “You need to see how the world really is – and the people who are living in it,” he says. “It’s one of the best educations you’ll get.”
As Karl Bushby embarks on the final leg of his incredible journey, the world watches with admiration and anticipation, eager to witness the culmination of a truly remarkable feat of human endurance and determination.
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