Hull, England — After 27 years, over 30,000 miles, and countless extraordinary trials, British explorer Karl Bushby is nearing the end of his unprecedented “Goliath Expedition”—an attempt to walk an unbroken path around the world and return to his hometown on foot. What began as a line drawn on a map by a restless former soldier in 1998 is now a profound human saga of endurance, discovery, and resilience.

Bushby, now 57, left his home in Hull, England with $500 and a simple, yet formidable, objective: to get home “unassisted by any form of transport,” walking or swimming the entire way. Starting at the southern tip of Chile in Punta Arenas, his journey has taken him through the Americas, across Asia, and into Europe, confronting not just the planet’s most challenging obstacle courses of terrain, but also complex geopolitical borders and immense personal sacrifices.

From Bored Soldier to Global Walker: The Genesis of an Epic

Bushby’s wanderlust was born from a sense of restless duty. After 12 years in the British Army's parachute regiment during what he calls an unusually peaceful time, he grew “bored and tired and became wondrous and mischievous.” Sketching a continuous line from the U.K. to the tip of South America on a map ignited an unstoppable calling. “Once I got that on a map, there was kind of no going back,” he recalled.

The reality of translating that line into a life’s journey has been staggering. He has survived crossing the treacherous Darien Gap, been detained by Russian authorities, jailed in Panama, nearly frozen in Alaska, and spent 31 days swimming across the Caspian Sea. He has endured hunger so severe it induced hallucinations, relying on the kindness of strangers across cultures for food and medical aid—a testament, he says, to a world that is “a hell of a lot friendlier and nicer than it might appear.”

The Ultimate Lesson: Relationships Over Physical Endurance

While the physical hardships are legendary, Bushby reveals the greatest challenges were emotional. “The toughest thing you will deal with... is losing the women that you fall in love with,” he shared. Conversely, his happiest moments came from those deep connections. This insight—that ultimate happiness stems from relationships rather than conquest—forms the core wisdom of his marathon strategic journey.

Now in Europe, Bushby expects to finally complete his high-stakes race against time and circumstance and walk into Hull next year. His journey stands as a monumental extreme endeavor, not just of geographic exploration, but of the human spirit's capacity for perseverance and its fundamental need for connection in a vast and often beautiful world.