00:00You know, when you think about walking around the world, what really comes to mind?
00:03The first guy who officially got credit for it, Dave Kunst, actually used airplanes to hop across the oceans.
00:09Now, don't get me wrong, he still walked an incredible 27,000 kilometers, but it was done in separate chunks.
00:14Today, though, we're going to talk about a man who took that same basic idea and pushed it to an
00:19extreme that is, well, it's almost hard to believe.
00:22So let me just ask you this straight up.
00:24Could you imagine starting a walk and then still being on that exact same walk 27 years later?
00:31That's not some random hypothetical question.
00:34That is the actual reality for the man at the heart of this story.
00:38Okay, to really wrap your head around the sheer scale of this, just look at this comparison.
00:42On one side, you've got Dave Kunst's amazing journey, but on the other, you have Carl Bushby's Goliath Expedition.
00:49No airplanes, no vehicles of any kind, a single, unbroken, continuous path of 58,000 kilometers.
00:56That is more than double the distance.
00:58We're not just talking about a long walk here.
01:00This is one of the most demanding endurance challenges ever conceived.
01:03So who is this guy?
01:05Well, his name is Carl Bushby.
01:07He's a former British paratrooper, and way back on November 1st, 1998, he set out on this mission he called
01:14the Goliath Expedition.
01:15And his goal was simple, and absolutely bonkers, to walk the longest possible continuous path on Earth.
01:22And this is where it gets crazy.
01:24The difference between what he planned and what actually happened is just staggering.
01:29Carl started in Chile with literally just $500, aiming to walk all the way home to the UK.
01:33He figured, you know, walk about 19 kilometers a day, he'd be there in eight years.
01:38Yeah, the journey had other plans.
01:40Over 27 years later, he is still walking.
01:43And here's why.
01:44It all comes down to two incredibly strict rules he set for himself.
01:48First, absolutely no transport.
01:51Not a car, not a train, not even a ride on a donkey.
01:54Every single inch has to be on foot.
01:57And second, the path has to be unbroken.
01:59This is the big one.
02:00If he has to stop for any reason, a visa issue, running out of money, whatever,
02:05he has to go back to the exact GPS coordinate where he took his last step to continue.
02:09These two simple rules would end up costing him years of his life.
02:13So, the journey kicks off at the very southern tip of Chile, in a city called Punta Arenas.
02:18And for the next seven years, the American continents would basically throw every single
02:23natural challenge you can imagine right in his path.
02:26Man, the first leg of this journey was just relentless.
02:29He started with the insane winds of Patagonia, climbed through the Andes Mountains, and then
02:34walked straight into the Atacama Desert, the driest place on the entire planet.
02:39From there, he plunged into the notorious Darien Gap, a lawless jungle that separates
02:44Colombia and Panama, before trekking all the way through Central America, the scorching hot
02:49deserts of the U.S., and finally, into the frozen wilderness of Alaska.
02:53Seriously, this wasn't just a long walk.
02:56It was a non-stop battle for survival.
02:58He dealt with everything from desperate thirst in the Atacama to the very real threat of guerrilla
03:03gangs in the Darien Gap.
03:04He even got arrested and thrown in jail for 18 days in Panama.
03:08And because of his rules, as soon as he got out, where did he go?
03:12Right back to the exact spot where he was arrested to continue his walk.
03:16Unbelievable.
03:17So, after somehow conquering the Americas, Carl came face to face with what would become the
03:22two biggest obstacles of his entire expedition, a frozen ocean and a wall of Russian bureaucracy
03:28that seemed impossible to break through.
03:30To get from North America to Asia on foot, there's really only one way to do it.
03:34You have to cross the Bering Strait.
03:36This isn't just a frozen lake.
03:38It's a massive, unpredictable stretch of sea ice connecting Alaska and Siberia, and it
03:43is lethally dangerous.
03:45The ice is constantly moving, shifting, and breaking apart.
03:48He and a fellow adventurer spent two weeks making that 240-kilometer crossing.
03:53For 14 straight days, with almost no sleep, they had to navigate around massive patches
03:58of open, freezing water.
04:00Sometimes they even had to swim from one ice flow to the next, with the constant threat
04:04of freezing to death.
04:05It was a staggering feat of survival.
04:07But the moment his foot touched Russian soil, that's when his real problems began.
04:11He was immediately arrested and deported.
04:14Why?
04:14Because the Bering Strait is not an official port of entry.
04:18It took Britain's deputy prime minister getting involved just to get him back in, and even
04:22then, he was stuck with these restrictive 90-day visas.
04:25For years, he could only walk for three months at a time before having to leave for nine.
04:30Then his money ran out.
04:31Then, in 2013, Russia just banned him for five years.
04:35Nature had been tough, for sure, but human bureaucracy was turning out to be a thousand
04:39times worse.
04:40I mean, at this point, most people would have just given up.
04:43But Karl's response to this five-year ban really shows you the kind of person he is.
04:47He didn't just sit around waiting.
04:49He walked.
04:50So let's jump forward a bit.
04:52He actually got his Russian ban lifted by walking across the entire United States to
04:56protest at their embassy.
04:58After that, he spent years crossing the rest of Siberia, Mongolia, and Central Asia.
05:03But then, boom, another wall.
05:06The border to Iran, his planned route, was closed shut.
05:10He's stuck in Turkmenistan.
05:11So what do you do?
05:13How do you keep an unbroken path going when the land itself is blocked?
05:17Well, if you can't walk on land, you find another way.
05:20He decided to continue his path on water.
05:23And we're not talking about a quick swim across a river here.
05:26He decided he was going to swim the entire width of the Caspian Sea.
05:30He swam 288 kilometers.
05:32It took him 31 days.
05:35For six hours, every single day, he swam, towing a tiny kayak behind him with all his stuff.
05:41And at night, he'd climb onto that kayak to sleep on the open water, getting tossed around
05:46by waves, completely exhausted, all just to keep his unbroken path alive.
05:51And this quote just says it all, doesn't it?
05:54He said,
05:55I don't like swimming, but it was necessary.
05:58This wasn't some fun side adventure.
06:00It was pure, gritty necessity.
06:02The path demanded it, so he did it.
06:04And just like that, he was finally on his way to Europe.
06:08After that incredible swim, Karl walked through Azerbaijan and into Turkey.
06:12By this point, he's a well-known figure, you know, and villagers would often welcome
06:16him into their homes.
06:17He was finally, finally on the home stretch.
06:21In Istanbul, he hit a really symbolic milestone.
06:24The Bosphorus Bridge connects Asia and Europe, but it's for cars only.
06:28Pedestrians aren't allowed.
06:30But the authorities knew about his epic journey, and they gave him special permission to walk
06:34across it.
06:35He officially set foot in Europe.
06:37Now, only about 3,000 kilometers separate him from his own front door in England.
06:41But there's one last massive problem.
06:44You can't just walk from France to the UK.
06:47The path is blocked by the Channel Tunnel, which is for high-speed trains.
06:51It's incredibly hot down there, there isn't enough oxygen, and it's just not made for
06:55people to be walking around.
06:57It is completely, totally forbidden.
06:59So, after everything he's been through, is he really going to be stopped just 50 kilometers
07:04from home?
07:05Well, there might be a way.
07:07See, the Channel Tunnel isn't just one tunnel.
07:09It's actually three.
07:10Two big ones for the trains, and a smaller one right in the middle for emergency services.
07:15His big hope is that he can get one final piece of special permission to walk through
07:19that service tunnel.
07:20If he can, he'll complete his journey totally unbroken and entirely on foot.
07:25When he finally takes that last step, which is expected to be sometime in 2026, he will
07:30have walked 58,000 kilometers.
07:33Just to put that into perspective for you, that's like walking around the entire planet
07:36at the equator one and a half times.
07:39It is an absolutely monumental achievement of human spirit and endurance.
07:43I think this quote from Carl himself just perfectly sums up his whole philosophy.
07:49Through deserts, jungles, frozen seas, and years of red tape, when the path was blocked,
07:53he never, ever stopped.
07:55He just found a new way forward.
07:57So as we wrap this up, just remember this.
08:00Right now, as you're listening to this, Carl Buschby is out there somewhere in Europe,
08:05still walking, heading for home.
08:06His story is just such an extreme example of perseverance.
08:10But it really leaves all of us with a powerful question, doesn't it?
08:13When you're faced with an obstacle, what path will you take?
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