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.
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
I think the commenter was referring to visa sponsorship. Visa sponsorship is a bit more involved than just money. Someone is putting their name on government paperwork saying that if something goes wrong with this visitor, all bills can be forwarded to me. It isn't like a goFundMe or Kickstarter where a whole bunch of people are chipping in on a person or project; it is one person putting their livelihood on the line.
One of the world's most active overland travel scenes in the 1990s and early millennium was in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. These travelers had relatively weak passports, but they started with the countries that would let them in, and then they eventually used that travel experience to visit more discriminating countries (those are more likely to issue a visa if they see you have a passport full of stamps yet always went back home). This is why so much of the travel-book industry about overlanding far flung countries is in Polish or Russian, not English. There were -- and still are -- organized clubs to help people out with this. Where there is a will, there is a way.
Actually, the subject is ‘After 28 years walking across the globe, he’s almost home’. I found it curious that someone else would walk for as long as 38 years, and I don’t see any conflict with the subject.
Yeah... not actually objecting to you bringing him up, but I was briefly confused (longer than it should have been as I had some trouble getting the NYT artictle to load), and I thought the point was worth clarifying.
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?
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.
Thank you for being condescending, this helps the conversation.
Could you please point out in the comment I was responding to where you found this quote?
And maybe refer to
>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?
which true to explain how great the relationship was once the kid grew up?
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.
"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 know how this kind of thing brings up strong emotions for nearly everyone—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 this sort of personal denunciation is against both the rules 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 it should be off-topic to talk about this in a thread about the article? No. But to be within both the site guidelines and its intended spirit, you should do it differently—without this
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.
if you replace each part of a trolley - one part at a time over the course of a quarter decade ... is it still the same trolley it was in the beginning?
I think HN reposts links that are “interesting” from users with a certain level of “karma” and I imagine from places that have a certain level of “authority” - wish I could gift you the karma points
Not just randomness, but also time and day of the week, the source (domain), and quality of the writing (enough to make the first few users to upvote before the submission gets dropped from the first page).
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.
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.
63 comments
[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 74.5 ms ] threadTurns 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
I had the impression, that would prevent people from travelling countries and working there without work visa.
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
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=visa+sponsorship+meaning&ia...
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.
38 years, 5 months, 20 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Blessitt
Karl Bushby is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby
They get a baby in the middle of it but keep going (maybe changing the rules a little ^.^). Still inspiring and heart-warming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/world/europe/karl-bushby-...
Does doing a lot of walking make it acceptable to leave your young kid and go globetrotting for 30 years?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now read your comment again, slowly.
Could you please point out in the comment I was responding to where you found this quote?
And maybe refer to
>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?
which true to explain how great the relationship was once the kid grew up?
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.
"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?"
"..."
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 it should be off-topic to talk about this in a thread about the article? No. But to be within both the site guidelines and its intended spirit, you should do it differently—without this
[editing - bear with me...]
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.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/13/karl-bu...
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...
In this case someone emailed us and recommended this post for the SCP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308).
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.
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.