In the mid-1990s, former British Army parachutist Karl Bushby got a birthday postcard from his father. Attached was a note about a bet between two fellow soldiers: whether anyone could walk from London to New York via the Bering Strait. Karl was about thirty and had nothing particular to do. He went to a map and drew a continuous line with a marker: from Cape Horn in Chile through both Americas, Alaska, the Bering Strait, Siberia, Asia, and Europe, straight to his family home in England. That journey took him 28 years.
Start in Chile and Patagonia's winds
On 1 November 1998, 29-year-old Bushby left the Chilean city of Punta Arenas. In his pocket were $500; on his shoulders, a backpack; ahead of him he pushed a gear cart nicknamed The Beast.
Within twenty meters the cart's bearings fell apart. It was Sunday, Chile was marking the Day of the Dead, and the shops were closed. Karl had to sit on the roadside for a full day.
Patagonia was no easier. Hurricane-force winds bent him toward the ground and blew him off the road more than once.
Then came the high Atacama Desert, where he had to adapt to altitude sickness, constant hunger, and daily marches of 30 to 40 kilometers.
Colombia and the Darién Gap
By the end of 2000 Karl had reached Medellín. Ahead lay the Darién Gap: wild jungle on the Colombia–Panama border, thick with far-right militias, FARC guerrillas, and drug cartels. At his father's insistence, before entering the jungle Karl signed an official will.
To slip past militia checkpoints, Bushby spent four days floating down the Atrato River, pretending to be a heap of drifting debris. In the jungle itself he cut a path by compass; covering two kilometers sometimes took up to ten days.
North America and the missing cart
After Central America and Mexico, Bushby entered the United States. There a bureaucratic snag waited: his tourist visa expired while he was in Las Vegas. He had to fly to Bogotá for a new visa, then return to the exact spot in Las Vegas where he had left off and continue.
In Montana someone stole his cart with all his gear. Luckily The Beast turned up dumped in a nearby quarry.
Bering Strait ice and arrest in Chukotka
In March 2006 Bushby and French explorer Dimitri Kieffer did the unthinkable: in 15 days they walked across the Bering Strait on drifting Arctic ice, circling open leads in wetsuits and staying clear of polar bears.
On the shore of the Chukotka village of Uelen, Russian border guards detained the travelers for illegal border crossing. Diplomatic intervention kept him from deportation.
The Caspian in 31 days and the final swim
Iran's border was closed amid international crises. Bushby chose an alternative: swim the Caspian Sea. In 2024, at 55, Karl covered 288 kilometers of open water from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan in 31 days, pushing an inflatable raft of gear ahead of him.
In autumn 2026, after crossing all of Europe, Bushby reached the English Channel. He put on a wetsuit and swam the strait in 20 hours. He came ashore at Dover on 5 October, 28 years after he set out.
