Does doing a lot of walking make it acceptable to leave your young kid and go globetrotting for 30 years?
Within the overland-travel community, Bushby comes up often enough and people actually talk about his walk, getting visas, crossing borders, interacting with local people. It's a good demonstration of how toxic general social media like Reddit (or, now, HN) is for substantial discussion that people try to move the discussion instead to the personal merits of the person.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
They get a baby in the middle of it but keep going (maybe changing the rules a little ^.^). Still inspiring and heart-warming.
There’s nothing that would make me not see my son short of imprisonment. If he wanted to be around his kid he would be.
Turns out walking thousands of miles is the easy part.
for another source,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/exhibition-charts-karl-...
Depends on what you mean by “unbroken”.
I’d assume that when he ran into legal issues like after crossing the Bering Strait the authorities would transport him via a car or bus so it’s not like he never took a motorized transport.
He doesn't. He walks some, marks where he stopped, takes a break, continues from where he left off.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/world/europe/karl-bushby-...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/13/karl-bu...
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.
38 years, 5 months, 20 days