It's a bit mysterious how did he get from Russia to Mexico in 2006? The official website linked says just "displaced".
TFNA 2 hours ago [-]
Bushby's walk has been extensively covered in the press (and in his own book about the Americas leg). Mexico served as his base while waiting for visas, permissions, and sponsorship, so he was flying back there and then, once he could continue, he flew back to the exact coordinates he had left off and started walking again from there.
GrumpyGoblin 1 hours ago [-]
Had a developer who worked for me who did something very similar. Lived all over the world, would get short term visas, and return to Mexico if needed to await his next visa. He had a friend that let him use his mailing address for work and mail and slept on his couch or in hostels while awaiting a new visa. He loved the life. Lived on a dozen different beaches while he was working for me. Apparently a Mexican visa is one of the easiest to get.
ShinyLeftPad 2 hours ago [-]
I haven't heard of it until this fall.
TFNA 2 hours ago [-]
I found a copy of Giant Steps in a European bookshop circa 2008, so he was never an obscure figure. In any event, within the overland travel community especially, Bushby comes up occasionally for his walking across the Darien Gap (a region which is the bane of people traveling up or down the Americas), as well as for his Bering Strait crossing.
looperhacks 2 hours ago [-]
Is it? He took a plane, surely
ShinyLeftPad 2 hours ago [-]
That's what I thought but then the article says it's supposed to be "with unbroken footsteps". I thought that literally was impossible in modern society and i guess it is
mikeryan 54 minutes ago [-]
The article says he would “decamp” to Mexico at times and then pick up where he had left off. I read this as he’d take a break and fly (presumably) to Mexico and then fly back to where he left off.
Depends on what you mean by “unbroken”.
I’d assume that when he ran into legal issues like after crossing the Bering Strait the authorities would transport him via a car or bus so it’s not like he never took a motorized transport.
atrus 58 minutes ago [-]
People always assume he's been walking continuously for all these years, and it's understandable because the headlines are always written to imply that.
He doesn't. He walks some, marks where he stopped, takes a break, continues from where he left off.
testing22321 2 hours ago [-]
I’ve driven my personal vehicles through 65 countries on 5 continents. It’s not that hard.
jph00 2 hours ago [-]
Gift article (requires login, but no subscription):
I wonder how his now 36-year-old son who was 8 when his father left to do this for no reason feels about it.
Does doing a lot of walking make it acceptable to leave your young kid and go globetrotting for 30 years?
dang 6 minutes ago [-]
I know how this kind of thing brings up strong emotions for nearly everyone—it does for me too—but you can't fairly judge another person's intimate relationships from the handful of details that appear in a news article, and responding with this sort of personal denunciation is against both the rules and the intended spirit of HN.
We mostly don't know why other people do what they do, nor what they've gone through themselves, and we tend to be harshest and most uncharitable when we know the least.
Does that mean that it should be off-topic to talk about this in a thread about the article? No. But to be within both the site guidelines and its intended spirit, you should do it differently—without this
[editing - bear with me...]
TFNA 2 hours ago [-]
Why not ask his son, who has joined him on sections of his walk, or at least read the abundant press coverage about the two and why Bushby was unable to follow his infant son to Northern Ireland?
Within the overland-travel community, Bushby comes up often enough and people actually talk about his walk, getting visas, crossing borders, interacting with local people. It's a good demonstration of how toxic general social media like Reddit (or, now, HN) is for substantial discussion that people try to move the discussion instead to the personal merits of the person.
IncreasePosts 1 hours ago [-]
He couldn't go to Belfast because he was active duty in the British military.
But, he left the army to do his around the world walk, which means that he could have left the army and gone to Belfast instead.
He and his adult son have a good relationship now seemingly, but that doesn't mean his son didn't need a dad growing up. Having said that, it seems like this dude had a whole slew of mental issues, so perhaps it was for the best that he wasn't around his son much while he was growing up.
BrandoElFollito 35 minutes ago [-]
No matter what, a kid needs his parents as a kid (in normal healthy families). There is not a case that I can imagine where not having them is good.
The fact that he gtew up to be a man much, much more mature than his father just shows he is the better person. And absolutely nothing on the father.
21 minutes ago [-]
oAlbe 16 minutes ago [-]
> [...] a kid needs his parents [...] There is not a case that I can imagine where not having them is good.
Now read your comment again, slowly.
contingencies 39 minutes ago [-]
As a retired cycle tourist myself who hosted a few world-spanning cyclists and a friend of a well known late Italian Vespa globetrotter, I would say: this is actually the critical audience (often subconsciously) personally justifying why their own life is so boring: "my way is the right way: everyone else is irresponsible". Deep down they feel threatened by the notion that their life may be boring BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN DAMN CHOICES. News at 9.
But yeah, they are all half-mad or worse (read: "interesting people"); military service isn't going to have zero impact either, people deal with it different ways.
I find it telling he doesn't have flags on his kit.
wand3r 18 minutes ago [-]
Many qualities of people who accomplish extraordinary things do not correlate with strong interpersonal relationships. The comment was a little overly judgmental so I totally understand your comments, but put politely, it isn't particularly unreasonable.
contingencies 14 minutes ago [-]
Absentee parenting is a novel concept; in ages prior it was the norm. That said, I'm on board with being there for the kids, all the evidence is positive. Unless you're English, in which case: chin up, keep calm and carry on! That's another contributing factor: the guy possibly went to boarding school.
smt88 1 hours ago [-]
“Temporarily unable to go to Northern Ireland” doesn’t justify abandoning your child for the entire rest of his life.
There’s no way to spin it so that Bushby isn’t an absentee father and a selfish person.
TFNA 1 hours ago [-]
In so many of these stories, once the parent and child have publicly reconciled as Bushby and his son have, the child is very annoyed by total strangers on social media continuing to harp on abandonment or injustice; it feels like an intrusion into their personal life that hbn or smt88 knows nothing about. So, you might want to ask whether your intervention here is actually sought.
anonreplier 46 minutes ago [-]
Reflects a lot better on the son than his selfish old man; he's fortunate he's seemingly turned out so well.
adaml_623 58 minutes ago [-]
Well maybe public judgement of a father abandoning their child will stop it from happening to a child in the future.
BeetleB 38 minutes ago [-]
I'm sorry, but: Post-hoc justification.
saghm 21 minutes ago [-]
This entire discussion is post hoc, unless you're assuming that everyone who is commenting here happened to also have criticized him publicly in the past. There's no statute of limitations for people voicing their opinion on something they just learned about from a while back.
BeetleB 39 minutes ago [-]
> There’s no way to spin it so that Bushby isn’t an absentee father and a selfish person.
I never understood why people are so willing to advertise their lack of imagination.
Apocryphon 16 minutes ago [-]
Then dazzle the discussion with your creativity.
andai 1 minutes ago [-]
I don't know, does being the Buddha? (He also named his son Fetter, for extra comedic effect.)
sosodev 59 minutes ago [-]
Acceptable? No, but some people realize too late that they want an alternative mode of existence. As somebody who had abusive parents, I would rather they had pursued their desires.
ndiddy 6 minutes ago [-]
I imagine the conversation went something like:
"Hey dad, what's this trip I hear you talking about?"
"Well son, even though you're 8 years old, I've decided to spend the next 28 years walking around the world."
"Gee dad, that sure seems like a long walk. Are you sure about this?"
"Well of course I'll be taking breaks rather than doing the whole thing at once."
"Great, so you'll be able to visit me, your 8 year old son, right?"
"Nope! I've decided to add my own self-imposed rule that I can't visit the UK until I've completed my walk. Instead, whenever I don't feel like walking, I'm going to fly to Mexico and hang out there. Then when I do feel like walking again, I'll fly back to where I was and resume my walk."
"So you're leaving me, your 8 year old son, to go on a 28 year long, non-contiguous walk around the world where you'll rarely see me? And by the time I grow up we'll barely know each other? And you'll end up missing the birth of your granddaughter?"
"That's right, son! I hope you're excited for the first of 4 times we'll see each other, 6 years from now! Aren't you proud of your dad for being such a great explorer?"
"..."
dudul 1 hours ago [-]
I think I read (maybe on a wikipedia article about this project) that he was already pretty much an absent father before even starting this walk.
tarentel 2 hours ago [-]
This guy had a baby not too long before this and just left it behind. We should really stop talking this guy, he's not a great person as far as I'm concerned.
TFNA 2 hours ago [-]
There has been plenty of press coverage of how Bushby was unable to see the child, because the mother took the child to Northern Ireland where Bushby was unable to follow due to his military status.
tarentel 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
TFNA 1 hours ago [-]
Do you know anything about the Troubles and post-Troubles era? In any event, there has just been so much press coverage of this very topic (and in recent years of a largely conciliatory tone) that your original post is not any kind of gotcha to Bushby, but rather just the usual social-media peanut gallery.
clickety_clack 1 hours ago [-]
If the mother took the child to a place that he couldn’t go, then yes.
dlisboa 60 minutes ago [-]
Couldn’t go to Northern Ireland but could go walk around the world. Yeah, right.
There’s nothing that would make me not see my son short of imprisonment. If he wanted to be around his kid he would be.
deadbunny 50 minutes ago [-]
Not even a paramilitary that will shoot you on sight because you're a member of the British Military?
TFNA 48 minutes ago [-]
You realize there was a legal prohibition on even arriving at the airport or stepping off the ferry?
woah 45 minutes ago [-]
we haven't even begun to discuss the nagging
cubefox 48 minutes ago [-]
This is a crazy story. 28 years. Crossing the Bering Strait by foot, swimming across the English Channel after they didn't let him walk through the Channel Tunnel, etc. I wonder what his main source of income is/was.
paradine7 16 minutes ago [-]
re Income: Apparently, it was the kindness of other humans. In the NYT article, he noted that discovering people are generally kind was his greatest lesson.
2 hours ago [-]
fallinditch 1 hours ago [-]
See also [1] - Simon Hattenstone's interview with Karl Bushby
Love hearing from the morality police in face of such incredible feat of human effort and ingenuity.
No one who embarks in such an adventure is a ‘well-adjusted’ person, and their personal demons are theirs to face. Yet it is so simple for many to just point and blame at someone else’s fault instead of just appreciating what single-minded effort is able to achieve.
I well expect to be downvoted, as the modern internet culture revels in blame and negativity. Any achievement an opportunity to demolish it. The Puritan morality is stronger than ever. “Let the sinless one among you throw the first stone.”
Congrats to this person, and hope they have learned something about themselves and their place in the world.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176842
msnbc lost the link, but it was this article
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/british-globe...
They get a baby in the middle of it but keep going (maybe changing the rules a little ^.^). Still inspiring and heart-warming.
Turns out walking thousands of miles is the easy part.
for another source,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/exhibition-charts-karl-...
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby
Depends on what you mean by “unbroken”.
I’d assume that when he ran into legal issues like after crossing the Bering Strait the authorities would transport him via a car or bus so it’s not like he never took a motorized transport.
He doesn't. He walks some, marks where he stopped, takes a break, continues from where he left off.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/world/europe/karl-bushby-...
Does doing a lot of walking make it acceptable to leave your young kid and go globetrotting for 30 years?
We mostly don't know why other people do what they do, nor what they've gone through themselves, and we tend to be harshest and most uncharitable when we know the least.
Does that mean that it should be off-topic to talk about this in a thread about the article? No. But to be within both the site guidelines and its intended spirit, you should do it differently—without this
[editing - bear with me...]
Within the overland-travel community, Bushby comes up often enough and people actually talk about his walk, getting visas, crossing borders, interacting with local people. It's a good demonstration of how toxic general social media like Reddit (or, now, HN) is for substantial discussion that people try to move the discussion instead to the personal merits of the person.
But, he left the army to do his around the world walk, which means that he could have left the army and gone to Belfast instead.
He and his adult son have a good relationship now seemingly, but that doesn't mean his son didn't need a dad growing up. Having said that, it seems like this dude had a whole slew of mental issues, so perhaps it was for the best that he wasn't around his son much while he was growing up.
The fact that he gtew up to be a man much, much more mature than his father just shows he is the better person. And absolutely nothing on the father.
Now read your comment again, slowly.
But yeah, they are all half-mad or worse (read: "interesting people"); military service isn't going to have zero impact either, people deal with it different ways.
I find it telling he doesn't have flags on his kit.
There’s no way to spin it so that Bushby isn’t an absentee father and a selfish person.
I never understood why people are so willing to advertise their lack of imagination.
"Hey dad, what's this trip I hear you talking about?"
"Well son, even though you're 8 years old, I've decided to spend the next 28 years walking around the world."
"Gee dad, that sure seems like a long walk. Are you sure about this?"
"Well of course I'll be taking breaks rather than doing the whole thing at once."
"Great, so you'll be able to visit me, your 8 year old son, right?"
"Nope! I've decided to add my own self-imposed rule that I can't visit the UK until I've completed my walk. Instead, whenever I don't feel like walking, I'm going to fly to Mexico and hang out there. Then when I do feel like walking again, I'll fly back to where I was and resume my walk."
"So you're leaving me, your 8 year old son, to go on a 28 year long, non-contiguous walk around the world where you'll rarely see me? And by the time I grow up we'll barely know each other? And you'll end up missing the birth of your granddaughter?"
"That's right, son! I hope you're excited for the first of 4 times we'll see each other, 6 years from now! Aren't you proud of your dad for being such a great explorer?"
"..."
There’s nothing that would make me not see my son short of imprisonment. If he wanted to be around his kid he would be.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/13/karl-bu...
No one who embarks in such an adventure is a ‘well-adjusted’ person, and their personal demons are theirs to face. Yet it is so simple for many to just point and blame at someone else’s fault instead of just appreciating what single-minded effort is able to achieve.
I well expect to be downvoted, as the modern internet culture revels in blame and negativity. Any achievement an opportunity to demolish it. The Puritan morality is stronger than ever. “Let the sinless one among you throw the first stone.”
Congrats to this person, and hope they have learned something about themselves and their place in the world.
38 years, 5 months, 20 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Blessitt
Karl Bushby is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby