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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
I know how 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 the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) 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 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, as always, is to have a curious conversation, not a reductive one.
* (assuming one can ever do that at all, or that it's one's place to try)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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?"
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Strange how there is randomness to if a story catches on or not. I posted about this 10 months ago and got no traction.
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...
Reminds me of a couple German who walked/hitchhiked across the globe and made a movie of while doing so: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weit._Die_Geschichte_von_einem...
They get a baby in the middle of it but keep going (maybe changing the rules a little ^.^). Still inspiring and heart-warming.
Was he able to keep the same trolley for the entire journey?
To sum it up in one word: visas.
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
It's a bit mysterious how did he get from Russia to Mexico in 2006? The official website linked says just "displaced".
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.
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.
aren't you supposed to be legal resident in the country where you're applying for your visa...
Isn't that a crime?
I haven't heard of it until this fall.
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.
> sponsorship
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
Is it? He took a plane, surely
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
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.
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.
I’ve driven my personal vehicles through 65 countries on 5 continents. It’s not that hard.
Sounds like you won the passport lottery.
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.
Gift article (requires login, but no subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/world/europe/karl-bushby-...
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?
I know how 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 the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) 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 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, as always, is to have a curious conversation, not a reductive one.
* (assuming one can ever do that at all, or that it's one's place to try)
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.
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.
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.
> [...] 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.
“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.
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.
Reflects a lot better on the son than his selfish old man; he's fortunate he's seemingly turned out so well.
Well maybe public judgement of a father abandoning their child will stop it from happening to a child in the future.
I'm sorry, but: Post-hoc justification.
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.
> 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.
Then dazzle the discussion with your creativity.
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.
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.
I don't know, does being the Buddha? (He also named his son Fetter, for extra comedic effect.)
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?"
"..."
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.
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.
[flagged]
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.
If the mother took the child to a place that he couldn’t go, then yes.
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.
Not even a paramilitary that will shoot you on sight because you're a member of the British Military?
You realize there was a legal prohibition on even arriving at the airport or stepping off the ferry?
we haven't even begun to discuss the nagging
> 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.
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.
See also [1] - Simon Hattenstone's interview with Karl Bushby
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/13/karl-bu...
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.
For some reason I don't care about this story.
Arthur Blessitt
38 years, 5 months, 20 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Blessitt
To clarify, Arthur Blessitt is not the subject of the NYT article.
Karl Bushby is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby