Karl Bushby is almost home after 28 years walking around the world, with the final stretch of his journey taking him through Lincolnshire towards Hull.

The 57-year-old former paratrooper left Punta Arenas in Chile on 1 November 1998, and has covered about 31,000 miles on foot under two self-imposed rules: nothing but his own feet may move him forward, and he cannot go home until he walks there.

The final miles

Bushby reached British soil on 5 October 2026, when he walked onto Shakespeare Beach near Dover after swimming the English Channel from France. He had earlier been denied permission to walk through the Channel Tunnel service tunnel, so swimming was the route that kept his rules intact.

He is now walking about 20 miles a day along back roads in North Lincolnshire to avoid heavy traffic, accompanied in the final miles by fellow world walker Angela Maxwell. He is scheduled to cross the Humber Bridge on Sunday with his father and brother, before a welcome in Queen Victoria Square, Hull, on Monday morning, and then the walk to his mother's home.

A journey interrupted, not abandoned

Bushby first expected the walk to take about 12 years. Instead, visa restrictions, the 2008 financial crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical delays all stopped him in his tracks at different stages. Along the way he crossed the Darien Gap, traversed the frozen Bering Strait and swam the Caspian Sea.

He has said the approach of the finish is unknown territory. After 28 years in which every day was anchored by a clear objective, he said he would have to work out who he is again once the walking stops.