British adventurer Karl Bushby has stepped back onto U.K. soil after a 28-year attempt to walk around the world, and on Oct. 5 he announced on social media that he swam the English Channel from France to England.
While resting in Dover, Bushby wrote that he was “staring at the Union Jack” outside his hotel and posted photos of one of his first meals back — traditional British fish and chips, according to his social media posts. He told followers he hopes to reach his mother’s home in Hull by the end of the month.
According to Bushby’s website, he began the expedition on Nov. 1, 1998, in Chile with just a few hundred dollars. He walked north through the Americas and waited for a frozen Bering Strait to cross from Alaska into Russia.
The website says Russia denied him a visa in April 2012, pausing the trip; Bushby then walked toward the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., in protest before the ban was overturned and he resumed his route through Russia, Mongolia and China. His itinerary later included swimming the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan and travel across Europe.
Bushby says he has covered more than 30,000 miles across 29 countries and has roughly 240 miles left to walk. He told followers he originally expected the journey to take 12 years but was delayed by visa restrictions, the 2008 financial crash, COVID-19, geopolitics, detention and other setbacks.
“The world is an incredible place, and it’s the people, the strangers that I have met along the way, that have kept me upright and moving forward,” Bushby said in a post cited by his social media page.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
