He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is nearly over

I no longer want to read about this person's journey or care to, because this is exactly the kind of person we need to stop hero worshipping. The irreparable damage to society from child abandonment is so large, that whatever he accomplished(?) by doing his stunt is negated.

I'm going to be unapologetic in saying that because this is irresponsible, immature behavior. He had a child, and then decided to leave for 20+ years to pursue his selfish interests while 100% abandoning his family and spouse to raise the child themselves. It's 100% trying to run away once he saw how difficult raising a family is and turned it into some BS stunt. That is also a relationship and pain and suffering that should never be forgiven, not during this immature person's lifetime.

Advice to others when you're thinking of doing this sort of thing where you abandon the people that love you to pursue some extreme interest. You may get exactly what you're looking for, with the cost of people never being close to you ever again.

> He found refuge, at first, in family life. In his early 20s, while stationed in Belfast, he met a local woman and had a child with her, Adam. In 1995, though, the marriage crumbled while the Bushbys were living in Hampshire, England. Adam and his mother returned to war-torn Belfast, where Karl, as a British soldier, was forbidden to visit. He found himself “alone, wondering where my life was going.” He created for himself the ultimate challenge: a journey that would show his paratrooper mates he was no runt.

He didn't leave until 3 years after he'd already been separated from them.

I'm not saying it's good that he didn't try to have more of a relationship with his son, obviously not. But it seems like it was already a complicated and broken relationship with the mother, across countries. Going on his trip wasn't walking away from an otherwise functional family.

https://archive.md/20250528132130/https://www.washingtonpost...

There's far more depth and mystery to be explored in raising a human than there will ever be as a tourist. The deep stupidity it takes to think otherwise is depressing to behold.

Some of these “make the news for being extraordinary” obsessions really seem to be something where the person in question should be talking to a therapist/psychiatrist before undertaking them.

Any of those types of “solo sailing the Pacific Ocean” or “performing [repetitive task] [longer/further] than anyone else” or “knitting 300,000 scarves for every sick child in the country” or “visiting every Rainforest Cafe” come across as untreated mental illness when you step back from the inspirational journalistic tone that these stories often take.

I always wonder what hole in people’s lives they’re trying to plug when they do crazy stuff like that.

He took the family's money, bought a plane ticket to south america for himself and a bunch of gear for himself. Who knows what he actually left them with. And then disappears for 20+ years.

I honestly hope that before this whole thing happened he was on his way towards a divorce so this abandonment was expected.

I bicycled around North America for a year in 1998-1999, and finished in Alaska. It was wild to live on a bike for a full year, and then meet people who had been living that way (on bikes and on foot) for years at a time. There were a lot of people just starting out on aspirational long trips, but there were also a handful of people who had already gone a long long way. Fairbanks was an interesting meeting point for many of those travelers.

I’ve had the exact opposite experience. For me, the ratio is like 75% "worst of humanity." Traveling actually taught me to be wary of anyone who approaches me, especially if they are strangers.

Of course, I’ve had a few good moments like someone sharing water with me even though he was thirsty too, or an American tourist in Italy letting me use his phone to call even on theirs expensive roaming . In my hometown, I even lost my wallet twice and had it returned. But on the road, the ratio of bad to good is much worse. It’s frustrating because nobody wants to hear about this; they just tell me to shut up and stop being negative when I simply want to vent.

I was scammed by an "official tourist bus" agency that sold me a bus+ferry ticket, only to find out it was bus-only, and they demanded money for the ferry in the middle of nowhere (I couldn't do anything). I’ve been stolen from countless times: pickpocketed in Italy and in Spain my phone was grabbed right off the table. I got scammed with a non-existent apartment reservation (had to fight with Booking) and was sold another place that had bed bugs. I was once refused water when I was severely dehydrated in the mountains; the guy in the closed shelter just ignored my screaming and begging while he smoked and washed dishes. I ended up drinking shady water from the river. I’ve even been asked to leave places just because someone wanted to pick a fight with me in rural areas.

Although, you definitely hear some tough stories that way.

I wrote about the ones I can remember here: https://opposite-lock.com/topic/45077/hitchhikers-over-the-y...

> Due to visa limits, Bushby has had to break up his walk. In Europe, he can stay for only 90 days before leaving for 90, so he flies to Mexico to rest and then returns to resume the route.

Given that he literally swam across the Caspian Sea in order to avoid Russia and Iran because of legal issues, nevermind bring imprisoned in Russia due to what sounded like bureaucratic BS, it's more impressive than I first thought.

After that he really slows down to a crawl and has long periods away from the trail entirely. Whats crazy is that he doesn't like... go home to visit his son and family or try to somehow help the people in his life, he just goes to South America until he can continue.

The fact that when he was forced to take extended (3mo+) breaks he still refused to go home is a bit telling.

FWIW his son joined him and they walked together for a while when he was in his 20s, seems like they reconciled.

Unfortunately there are some exceptions and I believe the highest risk area is India. A lady vlogger on motorcycle was recently gang raped there by 7 men.

Noraly/Itchy boots rubs me the wrong way far too often. Her content always **ends up being top notch and respectful**, but starts off with a sour taste after the title is "I should have never come here." and the content is a lovely journey......

Idk. This whole genre is: western person is achieving a "dream" life as a function of their birth and wealth status. Has a good time, seemed to enjoy the journey. But then pretends the trips are hampered by 1-2 (expected) events not normal for a westerner, and reflects that in the title for views.

I think the effect is more negative than not.

https://www.youtube.com/@chubbytrekka

https://www.youtube.com/@SophieTangTravels

Followed him a bit last year. A really sweet and enthusiastic person.

https://www.youtube.com/@EdPratt

There is a kind of psychological pain of cognitive dissonance when we discover this "Wait, but they are meant to be ${group_member} why are they so nice and kind to me?". But one can only experience (e.g. via travelling) and learn from these experiences, it's hard to convey to others that the world really is __much__ more kinder and nicer than our preconceptions demand it should be.

It's easier and less painful to box away people into nice and not nice groups. And it's often most common to label people similar to ourselves in the nice group. It's a narrow view of the world. Travelling opens up our preconceptions of people, the opposite of a narrow view: travelling broadens the mind.

People are more likely to be kind to you and give you your time when they're not in a cut throat corporate hunger games situation themselves.

Just as in history we learn of emperors and kings instead of the common person, most digital content is about the modern day lords, barons, emperors, and kings. They call them billionaires, presidents, CEOs, prime ministers, etc now, but they are the exact same as they always have been.

If you turn the screen off and take a walk, start talking with real people that actually provide value to society, the world is much kinder than we've all been made to believe.

The real people are a good people, as they long have been. Their stories may not be written, but the Earth itself carries their memories.

I did not understand what was meant with "suffering insult", so with the help of DeepL and his wikipedia page I could determine that he passed away due to a brain tumour.

An other link:

https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/19.11.2025-farewe...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plennie_L._Wingo

It was a challenging walk.

Perhaps this explains his motivation to just go on a ridiculous healing journey.

On the other hand we have sycophants like yourself, spending your time to brown nose the richest man in the world.