After 28 years of travel across the globe, adventurer Karl Bushby has finally reached British soil.
On Oct. 5, Bushby announced that he had swum the English Channel from France to England. Resting in Dover, he looked out at the Union Jack flying outside his hotel. “I’ve seen many flags over the days, but that one is special,” he said.
He also shared a photo of one of his first meals back in Britain, celebrating the chance to enjoy authentic fish and chips again.
Karl Bushby celebrates after swimming across the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan in September 2024. (Resul Rehimov/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The expedition is not finished. Bushby plans to complete the final stretch and reach the finish line — his mother’s home in Hull — by the end of the month.
His website says the idea began with a birthday card from his father in the 1990s. It described two soldiers debating an impossible journey: walking from London to New York by way of the Bering Strait. Bushby picked up a map, drew a continuous line and realized he had found his life’s mission.
Bushby is shown moving through Dover, England, on Oct. 9 as he begins the final 250-mile leg of his 28-year journey.
The former paratrooper began the expedition in Chile on Nov. 1, 1998, carrying only a few hundred dollars. “South America, you were young, it was all new, it was the boys adventure dream,” Bushby said.
He headed north on foot to the United States, then waited for the Bering Strait to freeze so he could travel from Alaska into Russia. When Russia denied his next visa in April 2012, the expedition stalled. In protest, Bushby began walking in the opposite direction toward the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The ban was eventually overturned, allowing him to resume the route. From Russia, he continued through Mongolia and China before swimming across the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan.
From there, his route continued into Europe.
“You’ll find that you are way more capable than you think you are. People always underestimate themselves. The world always looks bigger and scarier than it actually is,” Bushby said.
Bushby walked through Cameron, North Carolina, in 2014 during the U.S. leg of his journey. (Megan Morr/Washington Post)
Bushby initially believed the journey would take 12 years, but visa problems, the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, detention and several close calls repeatedly delayed him. He credits the people he met with helping him continue.
“The world is an incredible place, and it’s the people, the strangers that I have met along the way, that have kept me upright and moving forward,” Bushby said.
About 240 miles remain in the journey, which has taken him more than 30,000 miles through 29 countries. “We went at a reasonable pace, we did what we needed to do and it has worked. I know it’s time to stop, I know that much because I feel that in the knees and ankles,” he said.
