Adventurer Karl Bushby, 57, finished a 28-year walk from Chile to his home city of Hull on Monday 2 November, ending at his mother’s house after a welcome from crowds in the city centre.
He set out from Punta Arenas in November 1998, aged 29. The BBC reported that the route covered about 31,000 miles (50,000km) across four continents.
Two rules governed the whole trip. He could not go home until the end, and he could not use transport to move forward.
Crowds and a lord mayor
Bushby was mobbed by well-wishers as he arrived, according to Yorkshire Live. The lord mayor of Hull, Maria Coward, and the Hull East MP Karl Turner were there to meet him.
Ms Coward told him the city had waited 10,229 days for his return, the paper reported.
Bushby said the reception was unlike anything before it. He thanked the crowd and told them the whole planet had got him back.
He then covered the last stretch on foot. CBS News reported that it was a brisk walk of about three miles from near the city centre to a neighbourhood of red-brick terraced houses. He pushed the cart that had travelled with him for roughly 25 years.
His mother, Angela Bushby, was waiting at her home in Sutton Park, where she raised him. Al Jazeera reported that a banner above the door read “Welcome Home Son”.
She had not seen him for 10 years. Her first words to him were: “Where have you been?”
Bushby told the BBC the moment felt surreal, and said his head was a blur as he took it all in.
What comes next
He confirmed at a press conference that the walking is over: “I’m hanging my boots up.”
He is working on a documentary with the German film-maker Werner Herzog and on a second book about the journey. Asked about the future, he said he had a story to tell.
Bushby said he expected the coming weeks to be hard. He has been an adventurer for half his life and feared an identity crisis once that role fell away.
The day before, he had crossed the Humber Bridge into East Yorkshire. His son Adam, 36, was waiting there, along with his father and brothers. So was a 12-year-old granddaughter he had never met.
The journey did not run continuously. By his own account, only a little over half the 28 years was spent actually walking. Visa problems, the 2007 financial crash and Covid caused long gaps.
During those pauses he often stayed in Mexico because living there was cheap. His rules meant he could not visit family in the UK, so he met his son and parents, who are divorced, only on rare occasions abroad.
He began as a penniless backpacker, sometimes relying on handouts. Sponsorship and a book deal came later.
The journey took in the Darién Gap jungle and the frozen Bering Strait. Most recently, he swam the English Channel to reach Britain.
Sources: Al Jazeera, Yorkshire Live, CBS News, BBC News
This story was compiled by the MDW Newsdesk with AI-assisted tools, using the reporting credited above.
