LONDON (AP) — Karl Bushby arrived on foot at his mother’s house in Hull, northeastern England, on Monday, completing an epic walk around the world that he began in South America half a lifetime ago, in 1998.
He was 29 when he set out. Now he is 57.
Bushby navigated shifting ice across the Bering Strait and swam across the Caspian Sea and English Channel. But most of his journey was on land, taking him through dangerous jungles, rainforests, deserts
and frozen tundra in almost every kind of weather imaginable.
Here’s a look at Bushby's adventure, by the numbers:
If fitness trackers had been around when Bushby started his trip, it's likely they couldn't have kept up with his cumulative number of steps.
The total mileage he put on his body is the equivalent of having run 10,000 5K road races (50,000 kilometers).
He initially estimated the distance could be traversed in five years. “Then you just dump a whole bucket full of reality on that,” he said. “We suspected that it was 12 years plus. And the plus was a big plus. But never in our wildest dreams would we ever have imagined 28 years.” That adds up to 10,229 days.
When geopolitical conflicts blocked his route through Russia and Iran, Bushby decided to swim across the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water. During the 31-day crossing, he used a technique he calls “floatimming,” a combination of floating and swimming. Wearing a flotation vest and wetsuit, he propelled himself backward by flapping his arms in the water.
Starting in Chile and ending in the U.K., he entered or passed through 30 countries before returning home.
No country took Bushby longer to traverse than Russia, where his journey stretched over about a decade. He was detained and faced deportation for entering illegally after crossing the Bering Strait in 2006. Harsh weather allowed only a few months of travel each year, while bureaucratic delays repeatedly forced him to leave the country. After Russia denied him a visa in 2012, he spent a year walking 3,500 miles (5,600 kilometers) in protest from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., which then supplied the necessary paperwork.
The trek has taken Bushby through South America, North America, Asia and Europe — all but three of the world's seven continents.
He fell in love twice and had his heart broken both times. He had long-term relationships with a woman from Colombia and another from Japan, but neither romance survived the strain of his journey.
Bushby estimates he wore through 10 pairs of shoes in the Americas before losing count. That was 20 years ago, so who can blame him? “After that we were just in and out of all kinds of different stuff,” he said. The total? “A lot.”
