Karl Bushby's 28-Year Walk Home to Hull: The Documentary

Two rules and a line on the map

Karl Bushby grew up in Hull, struggled at school with dyslexia that was not diagnosed until his teens, and joined the Parachute Regiment at sixteen. The idea for the walk came from a birthday card in which his father described two soldiers arguing over whether you could walk from London to New York across the frozen Bering Strait. Karl drew the line on a map, extended it to the bottom of South America, then reversed it so that every step would lead home.

He set himself two rules. Nothing but his own feet may move him forward; if he has to leave, he must return to the exact spot where he stopped. And he cannot go home until he walks there. In October 1998 he left his mother's house in Hull, and on 1 November 1998 he started walking from Punta Arenas, Chile, expecting the trip to take about twelve years.

Why it took 28 years

The route north tested the rules early. In 2001 he crossed the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama, then a conflict zone, and was arrested at gunpoint when he walked out of the jungle, spending 18 days in a Panamanian jail. After the Americas and a winter in Alaska, he stepped onto the Bering Strait ice from Wales, Alaska, on 17 March 2006 with Dimitri Kieffer. They reached Chukotka after about two weeks, in what was reported as the first recorded crossing on foot from Alaska to Russia, and were promptly detained.

Russia later let him continue, but only in short winter stints. The 2008 financial crash cost him his sponsors, and in 2013 Russia banned him for five years after he strayed into a restricted border zone. He walked from Los Angeles towards the Russian Embassy in Washington to protest, and the ban was overturned in October 2014. Mongolia, a police escort across western China and Central Asia followed, until Iran refused him entry in 2019. COVID and the war in Ukraine closed the remaining land routes. By his own count, about half of his 28 years have gone on waiting.

The Caspian and the Channel

With no land route left, he swam. In August and September 2024, mostly on his back, he crossed the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan over 31 days, believed to be the first such swim. He then walked west through Turkey and across Europe. In June 2026 Eurotunnel refused to let him walk the Channel Tunnel's service tunnel, so he swam the Channel instead, about 20 hours in the water over three days, landing at Shakespeare Beach near Dover on 5 October 2026. Werner Herzog, who is making a documentary about him, was among those waiting.

Where things stood when the film was published

At the time of the film, published on 13 October 2026, Karl had not finished. He had about 400 kilometres left to walk to his mother's garden gate in Hull and was aiming to arrive on 1 November 2026, 28 years to the day after Punta Arenas. He has walked nearly 50,000 kilometres; the 58,000-kilometre figure often quoted is the planned route. There is no Guinness World Record for the walk, and the firsts mentioned here are as reported or as he describes them.