This is Karl Bushby. In 1998, he made a bar bet that he could walk from Chile to England. 27 years later, he is still walking. He has survived the Darién Gap, 57 days in a Russian prison, and traversing the Bering Strait on shifting ice.

It started as a barroom bet in the 1990s. Karl Bushby’s friends didn’t believe he could walk from the southern tip of South America all the way back home to Hull, England. He took the bet, and in 1998, he set off from Chile with $500, a paper map, and a backpack. He thought it would take him 12 years.

27 years later, he is still walking.

Bushby calls it the “Goliath Expedition,” and he operates under two unbreakable rules: he cannot use any form of transport to advance, and if he is forced to leave a location (usually for visa reasons), he must return to the exact inch where he stopped before taking another step.

The journey has been absolutely brutal. He survived the Darién Gap, spent 57 days in a Russian prison for crossing the wrong border, and became the first person to traverse the Bering Strait on foot; jumping between shifting ice floes in a feat no one thought was possible. Recently, to avoid political bans in Iran and Russia, he had to swim across the Caspian Sea, a 31-day ordeal where he slept on support boats at night and resumed swimming from the exact GPS coordinate the next morning.

Despite wars, visa bans, financial ruin, and a pandemic, he has never quit. He is currently in Europe and is finally expected to walk through his front door in September 2026.

[Source](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2025/12/05/karl-bushby-walk-around-world/)

Is he funded by crowdsourcing at this point?

“Betcha can’t do it again!”

This man isn’t walking across continents, he’s walking straight through side quests like they’re nothing. From the Darien Gap to the Bering Strait to a Russian prison… at this point he’s not completing a journey, he’s speed-running human endurance.

I don’t know anything about that guy other than what you just told me, but if that’s true he’s the gnarliest human being. That’s still alive on this planet.

There really are people that don’t give a fuck, and we gotta compete with em

“I’m pretty tired. I think i’ll go home now.”

How does he have money?

Just to add some context: he hasn’t been doing this in one go. The text is disingenuous because it makes it sound that this is one continual adventure. But there have been breaks of years. When they say “if he is forced to leave a location (usually for visa reasons),” it might mean he can’t come back till the next year or the year after. And in between he spends a couple of years in a completely different part of the world.

I mean, huge achievement and way up in the top 1% of adventurous things to do, but the 27-year duration thing is implying something that is a bit different to the truth.

Wife: you said you were going out for a pint

Girls: let’s order an Uber home from the bar

Average male experience getting home from the bar:

One side trip was walking from L.A. to D.C. to get to get a visa from the Russian Embassy. Then he found out the guys who bet him had their fingers crossed.

Show off!!

Tom Hanks is on the phone…

27 years? Is he lost? Jk, lol

As a man who does very long distances on my feet you have always had my respect. Hell of an adventure.

Do you get the Apple News alert too?

Double or nothing!

Every article is so misleading. Yeah, he flies home all the time to take breaks and then goes back. He didn’t “start walking and hasn’t stopped” It completely ruins it for me, sorry.