28 Years Walking Around the World: How Visas and Borders Shaped Karl Bushby's Journey

On November 1, 1998, former British paratrooper Karl Bushby set out from Punta Arenas in southern Chile on a journey that hardly anyone considered realistic: to return on foot to his hometown of Hull in Great Britain. He originally estimated it would take about twelve years to cover the entire distance. Nearly 28 years later, his so-called Goliath Expedition is nearing completion—according to official figures, he had covered approximately 49,110 kilometers by August 30, 2026.

What makes this story particularly instructive for visa applicants and travelers is not so much the physical feat as the administrative side of the journey. In an interview published in January 2026, Bushby described how his progress depended not only on distance, jungles, bodies of water, and extreme conditions, but also on visa requirements, stay limits, closed borders, and transit permits. Over the years, these bureaucratic hurdles were compounded by conflicts, funding problems, and geopolitical upheavals, which repeatedly altered his route.

Particularly revealing is a rule he has imposed on himself: He is not allowed to use any means of transportation to actually move forward and may not return home until he has completed the entire route. However, interruptions and trips between individual stages do not break the continuity of the actual route. Nevertheless, visa regulations regularly force him to leave countries and re-enter them later in order to stay within the permitted length of stay—a practice he himself refers to as “visa hopping.”

“If it were up to me, I’d just keep walking. But the regulations force me to switch back and forth between visas,” Bushby told the BBC. This statement highlights a problem familiar to many long-term travelers: even when the physical journey is planned as a continuous journey, national entry requirements impose clear time limits that can prevent continuous presence in a country.

In January 2026, Bushby was in Mexico after having previously reached the Hungarian city of Győr. Such jumps between continents are part of the complex logistics required when an itinerary collides with changing visa requirements, different length-of-stay limits, and varying entry conditions.

For travelers who wish to visit multiple countries with different visa rules, this case serves as a prime example of how important careful advance planning is. Anyone who needs a visa for a longer trip or to visit several consecutive countries should find out well in advance about validity periods, maximum stay durations, and possible extension options. The overview of all visa types provides an initial idea of which options are available for the respective destination.

If you’d rather not navigate the complicated deadlines and forms yourself, you can start the process using our application form—we’ll review your documents and guide you through the entire process to ensure your travel plans aren’t derailed by unexpected visa hurdles.