He has crossed four continents, endured two heartbreaks and spent nearly three decades doing so.
asserted
He → cross → decades
In 1998, wearing a camel-coloured jacket, sandy long hair flowing, a 29-year-old Karl Bushby hugged his mum and nan goodbye in Hull, East Yorkshire, and set off on his 30,000-mile-long mission.
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Bushby → wear → mission
He flew to the southernmost tip of Chile and started walking, navigating his way back to the UK with two golden rules: to not use any transport to advance his journey and to not return to the UK until he completed his mission.
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he → fly → mission
The 57-year-old touched home soil again earlier this month, reaching Dover after swimming the English Channel.
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old → touch → Channel
After years spent battling jungles, deserts and Arctic ice, Karl now finds himself adjusting to something far more unexpected – Britain and the version of Karl that lives in it.
'We are definitely in terra incognita [unknown territory] right now, or pretty soon will be,' Karl said as he pushed his trolley named The Beast- and all his possessions – through rural Lincolnshire.
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he → spend → Lincolnshire
'Everything that I am and everything that I know is going to go away.'
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I → know → that
The 57-year-old started his global odyssey from Chile in November 1998 with the simple aim of becoming the first person to continuously circumnavigate the world on foot
Karl has trekked across South America, North America, Asia and Europe (tiktok.com/@karlcbushby/Press Association)
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Karl → start → America
Karl paused with his trolley named The Beast near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England, on Wednesday
But the prospect of stepping back into ordinary life is proving just as daunting as many of the obstacles he has faced along the way.
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he → pause → way
He told the BBC: 'You're going to have the old identity crisis, because Karl is this [an adventurer] and has been for half his life.
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Karl → tell → life
'I will have to figure out who I am again.
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I → have → ?
How do I find that meaning and purpose?
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I → find → meaning
How do I fill that hole I'm suddenly going to find myself in?'
Karl has been imprisoned, robbed, battled with terrible weather, monstrous terrain and the ministrations of polar bears.
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Karl → fill → bears
He's swum 200 miles across the Caspian Sea and, in 2000, went into full military exercise mode in Colombia's war-ravaged and jungle-choked Darien Gap, living on fish and coconuts for weeks.
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He → swim → weeks
The trek has taken the adventurer across South America, North America, Asia and Europe, spanning four of the world's seven continents.
In total, he has covered an astonishing 50,000km (31,069 miles), the equivalent of running 10,000 5K races.
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he → take → races
Along the way, Karl fell in love twice and suffered heartbreak twice.
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Karl → fall → heartbreak
He enjoyed long-term relationships with a woman from Colombia and another from Japan, but neither could survive the demands of life on the road.
uncertain
neither → enjoy → road
But while being tantalisingly close to his home in Hull, Karl shared his biggest fear is waking up in his childhood bed, with no savings, no pension and no real plan.
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fear → share → savings
After years spent battling jungles, deserts and Arctic ice, Karl now finds himself adjusting to something far more unexpected - Britain and the version of Karl that lives in it
Karl pictured at a beach near Dover on October 5 after swimming the English Channel
'I'm terrified.
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I → spend → Channel
Very, very uncomfortable,' he told the Daily Mail.
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he → tell → Mail
Remarkably, the epic odyssey that has consumed nearly three decades of Karl's life was sparked not by a lifelong dream or profound soul-searching, but by a few pints and a challenge in the pub.
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that → consume → pub
'It all started as a bit of a bet in the pub – a bit of banter,' Karl said.
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Karl → start → banter
A son of an SAS soldier, he and his peers revelled in seeing what their bodies could achieve.
uncertain
bodies → revel → what
'It just sort of grew and grew.
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It → grow → ?
They said I couldn't do it.
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I → say → it
I said I could.
uncertain
I → say → ?
There was a bit of wanderlust, but it was also an element of wanting to prove something,' he said.
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he → be → something
And I have, and set some records along the way – things people said couldn't be done.
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people → set → way
Such as navigating the Bering Straits – the 53-mile ice floe between Alaska and Russia, which he and French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer, whom he'd met in Alaska, crossed by swimming in the freezing waters in dry suits and then camping on slabs of ice at night.
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he → navigate → night
Unsurprisingly, no one had ever crossed it without transport before.
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one → cross → transport
Karl's journey will come to a close on Monday when he reaches in childhood home in Hull, where his family will greet him
Karl walked through Chile in 1999, where he started his round-the-world trip
Karl pictured in the first decade of his challenge in Alaska in 2005
The previous year, a Danish team had failed after drifting nine miles off course and needing rescue when shifting ice trapped one of their members.
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ice → come → members
'You pitch your tent on the biggest slab you can find, listen to the ice grinding all night and wake up on the edge of it,' Karl said.
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Karl → pitch → it
'It's the harshest environment on Earth, with polar bears thrown in for good measure.'
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bears → throw → measure
They made it across, only to end up not in a hot bath with a glass of red, but in a Russian detention centre.
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They → make → centre
Another first came with a 200-mile swim across the Caspian Sea after Iran closed its borders.
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Iran → come → borders
Karl, Angela and two Azerbaijani national swimmers completed the crossing in just over a month, swimming two three-hour shifts a day and sleeping on support boats at night.
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Karl → complete → night
'Funnily enough, no one had tried it before,' he said.
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he → try → it
But the most dangerous challenge was crossing the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia during the Colombian civil war.
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challenge → cross → war
'People were being murdered all the time and Colombia was the kidnap capital of the world, so we treated it like a military operation,' he said.
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he → murder → operation
Disguised as a vagrant, Karl travelled the first 200 miles before spending nearly three weeks in the jungle surviving on foraged food and using military escape-and-evasion tactics.
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Karl → disguise → tactics
'They had a few questions,' he said.
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he → have → questions
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
