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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The first thing that always crosses my mind when I see these feats of endurance - walking for weeks/months/years is always how the hang did they pay their way - food, accommodation (even if it's just a tent) clothing, medical supplies, none of it's free
I think the commenter was referring to visa sponsorship. Visa sponsorship is a bit more involved than just money. Someone is putting their name on government paperwork saying that if something goes wrong with this visitor, all bills can be forwarded to me. It isn't like a goFundMe or Kickstarter where a whole bunch of people are chipping in on a person or project; it is one person putting their livelihood on the line to vouch for that visitor's trustworthiness. And if the country requires sponsorship for their visa program, and no one is willing (or if you don't know a single person in that country), you cannot enter.
One of the world's most active overland travel scenes in the 1990s and early millennium was in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. These travelers had relatively weak passports, but they started with the countries that would let them in, and then they eventually used that travel experience to visit more discriminating countries (those are more likely to issue a visa if they see you have a passport full of stamps yet always went back home). This is why so much of the travel-book industry about overlanding far-flung countries is in Polish or Russian, not English. There were -- and still are -- organized clubs to help people out with this. Where there is a will, there is a way.
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.
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.
> We should really stop talking this guy, he's not a great person as far as I'm concerned.
So what? Should we talk only about good guys? Even if he's shitty person (I'm not sure if he is - maybe he's not, I'm not making this judgement) the story is still interesting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The stories where bad parents just swoop in late in childhood and have a great relationship with their kids is frustrating. As a parent you would like to think the monumental task of raising a newborn from birth through the first 5 years would create some kind of lasting connection between you and your kid.
It is a ton of sacrifice and they won't recognize it until they have kids themselves. The reality is they can resent you as a teen and become endeared with a step or absent parent if they are more "fun" in the moment.
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.
"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?"
I know this kind of thing brings up strong emotions for most people—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 personal denunciation is against both HN's rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and its intended spirit.
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 the family impact of taking such a path in life should be off-topic in a thread like this? Not at all. But to be within HN's guidelines and (more importantly) its intended spirit, you should do it differently—not in a condemnatory way, but in a wondering way, and perhaps drawing connections to one's own experience, which always helps.
This walk is fairly tame in risk of death. Not so much in time lost as a dad.
This is a very common archetype though: dad of young kids does risky outside adventure for self-aggrandizement > dies.
the upcoming doc Everest: The Other Side will be fascinating.
Hilaree Nelson & Jim Morrison had a pretty crazy expedition goal. Then she dies while training to do it together.
He continues on anyways.
A bit of nuance: IIRC he previously lost his ex and kids in a horrible non-mountaineering car crash.
But IIRC Hilaree had children she left behind.
The film looks beautiful though.
Which is part of the problem... The inspired by jimmy's cinematography -> alex's feats -> become a wannabe amateur free solo father who dies is well established by now lol
My dad is friends with one of the main rabbis in JH. has done probably 20+ "He died doing what he loved" speeches, as the wife and kids sob and are left with no income stream.
if you replace each part of a trolley - one part at a time over the course of a quarter decade ... is it still the same trolley it was in the beginning?
I think HN reposts links that are “interesting” from users with a certain level of “karma” and I imagine from places that have a certain level of “authority” - wish I could gift you the karma points
Not just randomness, but also time and day of the week, the source (domain), and quality of the writing (enough to make the first few users to upvote before the submission gets dropped from the first page).
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.
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.
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.
Bushby has had actual sponsorships, and also sold the rights to a book from a major publisher (all well documented), so you shouldn't read his remark as just bludging off locals for decades.
Rather, any longterm overland traveler, even if they can pay their own way and are even posh, will encounter situations where local people want to extend hospitality and do something to help you, even if they are of much more modest means. Sometimes this isn't actually helping you, because you'd rather sort your own accommodation and food and have downtime to yourself, whereas being a guest requires socializing and energy, but you feel compelled to accept because people want to be seen as kind and generous.
fhdkweig | 13 hours ago
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
ShinyLeftPad | 12 hours ago
looperhacks | 12 hours ago
ShinyLeftPad | 12 hours ago
atrus | 11 hours ago
He doesn't. He walks some, marks where he stopped, takes a break, continues from where he left off.
mikeryan | 11 hours ago
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.
TFNA | 12 hours ago
ShinyLeftPad | 12 hours ago
TFNA | 12 hours ago
GrumpyGoblin | 12 hours ago
k__ | 10 hours ago
ShinyLeftPad | 10 hours ago
awesome_dude | 10 hours ago
The first thing that always crosses my mind when I see these feats of endurance - walking for weeks/months/years is always how the hang did they pay their way - food, accommodation (even if it's just a tent) clothing, medical supplies, none of it's free
fhdkweig | 7 hours ago
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=visa+sponsorship+meaning&ia...
TFNA | 7 hours ago
testing22321 | 12 hours ago
gridspy | 10 hours ago
Some citizens are not as fortunate to live in a country which issues passports accepted in so many places.
I also won the passport lottery.
testing22321 | an hour ago
TFNA | 5 minutes ago
reconnecting | 12 hours ago
38 years, 5 months, 20 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Blessitt
bsammon | 12 hours ago
Karl Bushby is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby
dingdongditchme | 12 hours ago
They get a baby in the middle of it but keep going (maybe changing the rules a little ^.^). Still inspiring and heart-warming.
tarentel | 12 hours ago
TFNA | 12 hours ago
azan_ | 9 hours ago
So what? Should we talk only about good guys? Even if he's shitty person (I'm not sure if he is - maybe he's not, I'm not making this judgement) the story is still interesting.
jph00 | 12 hours ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/world/europe/karl-bushby-...
hbn | 12 hours ago
Does doing a lot of walking make it acceptable to leave your young kid and go globetrotting for 30 years?
TFNA | 12 hours ago
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.
smt88 | 12 hours ago
There’s no way to spin it so that Bushby isn’t an absentee father and a selfish person.
TFNA | 11 hours ago
adaml_623 | 11 hours ago
BeetleB | 11 hours ago
saghm | 11 hours ago
anonreplier | 11 hours ago
smt88 | 12 minutes ago
Good fathers don’t need to reconcile in the first place.
I don’t know what your weird beef is here, but abandoning your son to do something incredibly pointless is selfish and terrible parenting.
BeetleB | 11 hours ago
I never understood why people are so willing to advertise their lack of imagination.
Apocryphon | 11 hours ago
IncreasePosts | 11 hours ago
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.
contingencies | 11 hours ago
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 | 11 hours ago
contingencies | 11 hours ago
BrandoElFollito | 11 hours ago
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.
oAlbe | 11 hours ago
Now read your comment again, slowly.
ericmcer | 10 hours ago
It is a ton of sacrifice and they won't recognize it until they have kids themselves. The reality is they can resent you as a teen and become endeared with a step or absent parent if they are more "fun" in the moment.
dudul | 11 hours ago
sosodev | 11 hours ago
ndiddy | 10 hours ago
"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?"
"..."
dang | 10 hours ago
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 the family impact of taking such a path in life should be off-topic in a thread like this? Not at all. But to be within HN's guidelines and (more importantly) its intended spirit, you should do it differently—not in a condemnatory way, but in a wondering way, and perhaps drawing connections to one's own experience, which always helps.
The goal is to have a curious conversation, rather than a reductive one. That's always the goal here! https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
(* assuming one can ever do that, or that it's one's place to try)
andai | 10 hours ago
dillondoyle | 10 hours ago
This is a very common archetype though: dad of young kids does risky outside adventure for self-aggrandizement > dies.
the upcoming doc Everest: The Other Side will be fascinating.
Hilaree Nelson & Jim Morrison had a pretty crazy expedition goal. Then she dies while training to do it together.
He continues on anyways.
A bit of nuance: IIRC he previously lost his ex and kids in a horrible non-mountaineering car crash.
But IIRC Hilaree had children she left behind.
The film looks beautiful though.
Which is part of the problem... The inspired by jimmy's cinematography -> alex's feats -> become a wannabe amateur free solo father who dies is well established by now lol
My dad is friends with one of the main rabbis in JH. has done probably 20+ "He died doing what he loved" speeches, as the wife and kids sob and are left with no income stream.
fallinditch | 11 hours ago
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/13/karl-bu...
bigwheels | 11 hours ago
raffael_de | 5 hours ago
hackthemack | 11 hours ago
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...
[OP] rafaelc | 8 hours ago
dang | 5 hours ago
In this case someone emailed us and recommended this post for the SCP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308).
guiambros | 5 hours ago
cubefox | 2 minutes ago
vconnor | 11 hours ago
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.
cubefox | 11 hours ago
paradine7 | 11 hours ago
TFNA | 10 hours ago
Rather, any longterm overland traveler, even if they can pay their own way and are even posh, will encounter situations where local people want to extend hospitality and do something to help you, even if they are of much more modest means. Sometimes this isn't actually helping you, because you'd rather sort your own accommodation and food and have downtime to yourself, whereas being a guest requires socializing and energy, but you feel compelled to accept because people want to be seen as kind and generous.
dragthor | 10 hours ago
raffael_de | 5 hours ago