Karl Bushby has identified romantic relationships as the single greatest challenge of his 28-year walk around the world.
The British adventurer, 58, made the candid admission during an interview with YouTube channel A Mug Of Life, revealing that two failed loves have cost him a combined decade of emotional turmoil. Bushby launched his Goliath Expedition from Punta Arenas, Chile, in 1998 at age 28, pledging to circle the globe without boarding a single flight.
His mother Angela has remained in Hull, UK, throughout the entire journey, reportedly seeing her son only three times since his departure nearly three decades ago. That family separation, however, pales against what Bushby describes as the deeper wound of romantic loss.
“When people ask me what is the hardest thing about what I do, it’s been the women, it’s been those relationships, hands down,” he said in the interview. He described it as the “toughest” thing he’s had to deal with during his historical trip.
The first relationship Bushby detailed was with a Colombian woman, one he said represented “seven years effort.” Later, during his trek through Asia, he entered what he called a “three-year relationship with a Japanese girl.”
“I fell madly in love,” he continued. “And then come the pandemic, that separated us and put distance between us and then eventually that would go. Perhaps it was never really her lifestyle anyway. It’s not the best.”
Bushby noted that the pandemic’s disruption of his second major romance came despite his expedition having weathered multiple global crises before. “We were always absolutely committed, do or die kind of thing,” he said of himself and his support network. “Once you have that mindset, every obstacle, there’s always, you’re going to find a way around it. Even if it just means waiting. Like pandemics and financial crises.”
The adventurer revealed that he had actually anticipated this particular hardship before ever setting foot on the trail. “In my first diaries, sitting in home before I began, we wrote about this,” he explained. “And those diaries talk about how I’m going to fall in love and I’m going to get burned and I have to understand what that means.”
He added: “So we’d factored in these things along the way, but it doesn’t make it any easier when it actually happens, that’s for sure.”
Bushby’s route has carried him tens of thousands of miles across some of Earth’s most punishing landscapes, from South American wilderness to Asian terrain, all without the aid of aircraft. The self-imposed flight ban has meant crossing borders by foot, boat, or surface transport however possible, extending the journey across nearly three decades as he methodically closes the distance back toward British soil.
The emotional cost of his romantic failures stands in notable contrast to the physical dangers of his expedition, which have included extreme weather, remote wilderness, and the logistical nightmare of securing permissions and funding for a continuous surface journey. Where Bushby and his team found workarounds for financial shortfalls and border complications, love proved less negotiable.
“It doesn’t work,” he said flatly of maintaining relationships while committed to the expedition. “It might work for some people, but it’s not worked for me. There’s been a couple of relationships… Twice, two of them, you know I fell in love.”
Bushby is currently pressing through the final stages of his Goliath Expedition as he works toward completing the loop back to his starting point and, ultimately, his hometown of Hull.