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For Karl Bushby, arriving home also means letting go

BBC News's Hull report goes beyond the homecoming celebrations to the adventurer's anxiety about life after his extraordinary journey.

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BBC News Story of November 3, 2026Trari Newsroom

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Why this story? One of BBC News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 331,150 views.

Karl Bushby completes 28-year journey from Chile to Hull | BBC News

Things we can learn from the video

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0:41Bushby stops for a chip butty before crowds welcome him outside Hull City Hall.
1:28The expedition's rules prohibited onward transport and returning home before completing the route.
2:36Bushby estimates that roughly fifteen years of the journey were actually spent walking.
3:25He describes sadness at letting the expedition go and anxiety about what comes afterwards.
4:02The report shows his English Channel swim before returning to Hull for the homecoming.

Karl Bushby's welcome home includes a chip butty, a crowd outside Hull City Hall and a reunion with his mother. But BBC News's report also captures something less straightforward than celebration: his unease at finishing the journey that has occupied 28 years of his life.

"It's kind of sad. It's, you know, I'm letting go of something," Bushby says in an interview featured in the report. "There's a lot of anxiety. I'm crossing the event horizon and looking into a black hole right now."

The former paratrooper set off from Punta Arenas in Chile with two self-imposed rules: no transport to advance his journey, and no going home until it was complete. The BBC revisits his passage through the Darién Gap, the Arizona desert and the Bering Strait, before showing his English Channel swim and final walk towards Hull.

Not all that time was spent moving. Bushby puts the walking itself at about 15 years; the BBC describes visa difficulties, financial disruption and Covid as reasons for the long interruptions.

On the final approach, the Humber Bridge carries particular meaning for him, a landmark he had held in his mind through the expedition. Then comes a much more familiar stop: a local fish and chip shop, with home finally close enough to walk to.

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