Karl Bushby Walked Around the World for 28 Years. Your Step Count Is Embarrassed
Karl Bushby left the tip of South America in 1998 to walk around the world. On Monday he swam the English Channel and stepped onto a beach near Dover. Hull is next.
By the Heckle Desk · · 2 min read
Karl Bushby, a former paratrooper from Hull, England, left the bottom of South America in 1998 with the stated intention of walking home. This is an idea most of us have had after a bad night out. The difference is that he meant it.
On Monday, October 5, at the age of 57, he walked out of the sea onto Shakespeare Beach near Dover, the first time he'd stood in Britain since he left. He'd swum the Channel to get there, because the people who run the Channel Tunnel told him he couldn't use their service tunnel. I've been told no by a great many people in my life, and not once did I respond by swimming to France. Or from it.
By his count, he has covered more than 30,000 miles through a couple dozen countries. He crossed the Darién Gap, which is a jungle with a reputation. He walked over the frozen Bering Strait, from one continent to another, on ice, which I'd only recommend to a man who's lost a bet. He spent a month swimming the Caspian Sea with help from Kazakhstan's coast guard. The Caspian Sea is so big they argue about whether it's a lake. He didn't argue. He swam.
Let me put this in sporting terms. Thirty thousand miles is something like 1,145 marathons. A marathon, you'll recall, is the race named after the fellow who ran one and then died. Bushby has done eleven hundred of them in a row and his main complaint seems to be paperwork.
He started this walk before smartphones, before streaming, before anybody had ever counted a step on purpose. Now everybody wears a little watch that congratulates them for walking to the refrigerator. Somewhere in this world, there's a fitness app that's been waiting twenty-eight years to send him a notification, and I hope, when it finally does, he throws it in the sea.
The journey isn't quite done. He still has to walk to his mother's house in Hull. And I'll say this for the man: twenty-eight years is a long time to keep your mother waiting, but it's a fine excuse. Most of us have no excuse at all, and we live twenty minutes away.