[HN Gopher] He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years,...
___________________________________________________________________
He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is
nearly over
Author : wallflower
Score : 227 points
Date : 2025-12-07 16:26 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2025.12.09-165741/https://www.washingtonp...
| bolasanibk wrote:
| It was not one continuous hike. He takes frequent breaks. But
| travels back to where he last stopped and continues.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby
|
| Still very impressive, but a little less impressive than I first
| thought.
| keiferski wrote:
| I don't really think this would be possible given the nature of
| visas. Many countries require you to apply for a visa from your
| country of residence, not merely the nearest embassy. I guess
| with infinite funds he could fly back and forth to handle that,
| but doesn't seem practical.
| rimeice wrote:
| Big community of people who motorbike around the world non-
| stop. It's definitely possible to prepare beforehand and
| actually more admin getting a vehicle through borders.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Biking is faster, you can arrange for all visas for 6
| months in advance but not for years. Even for 6 months to
| have them all approved with no gaps requires either a lot
| of luck or a very strong passport or both.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| It would be impossible to do without taking breaks, as
| explained in the article:
|
| > 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.
| reisse wrote:
| From Wiki:
|
| > They were detained by Russian border troop officers while
| they were crossing the Russian border near the Chukotkan
| village of Uelen, for not entering Russia at a correct port
| of entry.
|
| Illegal border crossing is absolutely not bureaucratic BS in
| any country.
| guerrilla wrote:
| That depends on your values. I think it's bureaucratic BS
| in every country. The world hasn't been like this forever,
| and still isn't like this for other animals.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| That would be amazing if some country tried to enforce
| visa rules on animals.
| guerrilla wrote:
| They do actually, for example with swine in Denmark.
| They've built fences for that purpose specifically.
| uhdhr wrote:
| If you enter a bear's den, especially if it has cubs, the
| bear will likely attack you.
|
| If you enter the territory of a swan, especially during
| nesting season, the swan might attack you.
|
| If a foreign object enters some animal's body, the immune
| system may attack that object.[0] Allergy might be
| related to the immune system misidentifying allergens.
|
| Squirrels can be surprisingly territorial.
|
| Ants have wars. [1]
|
| This is not surprising, since the consequences of
| territory being compromised can be severe. For instance,
| in this case [2], the territory was compromised through
| deception, like pretending to be one of them, and it led
| to the severe weakening or death of the whole colony
| through the mass devouring of their offspring.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_body_reaction
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_ants
|
| [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/commen
| ts/123ke...
| yawpitch wrote:
| So you're saying we are no better than animals, and
| shouldn't aspire to be?
| _heimdall wrote:
| We _are_ animals, we shouldn 't try to avoid that as if
| its a bad thing.
| falcor84 wrote:
| It was clearly a response to the grandparent's "... isn't
| like this for other animals". It's a fine thing to aspire
| to be better, but we just shouldn't be claiming that
| human behavior is any way less natural than that of all
| other animals.
| uhdhr wrote:
| Please define "better" in this context.
|
| One definition of "better" could be to seek to avoid the
| extinction of the human species and of civilization. With
| that definition, in the current situation, taking
| measures to help avoid nuclear weapon usage, could be
| considered in depth and genuinely "better".
| uhdhr wrote:
| You can also consider the subject in terms of IT.
| Firewalls can be argued to delimit territory, as can
| login systems. Sandboxes are probably the reverse, in
| terms of keeping something in instead of keeping it out.
|
| Some cells have cell walls, and viruses as I understand
| it have to penetrate that wall.
|
| Nuts and fruit sometimes have protective shells.
|
| An argument could be made that borders and territory are
| fundamental.
|
| For an agent that seeks to defeat border control
| mechanisms, it can potentially be effective to convince
| the target parties that border control mechanisms
| generally or specifically are harmful, are useless, or
| have drawbacks. This is not always completely false in
| all cases, for instance regarding immune systems
| misidentifying harmless allergens as harmful, causing
| potentially significant harm as allergy. However, if an
| agent uses such approaches, they have to be careful not
| to buy into that idea themselves, lest matters may become
| strange and weird. And, in the modern day, if an agent is
| especially successful and competent with defeating border
| control mechanisms, considering the extreme power that
| the human species holds these days, such as with nuclear
| weapons, it puts an extreme responsibility on such
| successful agents, at least in the current systems.
| Otherwise, the consequences might be extremely
| detrimental to the human species as a whole.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I agree, and one of their great concerns is keeping
| foreign spies from getting in. Even though Russia isn't
| in good graces with the world currently, I think it's
| I'll advised to go off-script with any nation's border
| checkpoints.
| bluedino wrote:
| Just this morning I watched a video someone shared on
| LinkedIn. A lion cub was being nursed by a ewe!
| uhdhr wrote:
| There are cases of pet dogs, having great relationships
| with their owners, eating the corpses of their owners
| after the owners died of some unrelated reasons. Possibly
| due to starvation in some cases.
|
| In that video, was the ewe and lion cub pets or wild
| animals?
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Humans and animals enforce their borders since millennia.
|
| The idea that borders are unimportant is very very
| recent. That is to say, its commie gobbledygook.
| uhdhr wrote:
| I am not convinced that the idea is recent, or rather,
| related ideas are not recent, going back thousands of
| years. It can be extremely complex, to put it very
| mildly. How well people that put their trust in some of
| those ideas fare, can likewise be an extremely complex
| topic, and can also be political. In some cases in some
| ways some of them might have fared well, in some other
| cases in some ways, maybe less so.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| A group of men crossing the border into another country
| was (usually) automatically considered invaders if its
| size exceeded a certain number.
|
| Eg Iberian Peninsula (Reconquista and later): Foreign
| parties >10 armed men could not cross without permission
| between christians and muslims.
|
| Chinese frontier zones, Scythians, Huns, Mongols, Turks
| etc all had similar rules. If you want to go back
| further, then Assyria, Egypt, Hittites, Greece had such
| limits.
| uhdhr wrote:
| You are correct that there are many examples of border
| control mechanisms, in different levels and ways. Maybe
| even usually the vast majority for many levels and ways.
|
| Some nations, countries or groups, or other levels, did
| play with some of those mentioned ideas of less border
| control mechanisms in some ways or levels, also going
| back thousands of years.
|
| Countries that were not successful with border control
| mechanisms, sometimes ceased to exist.
|
| But there are many different levels and ways, and the
| whole topic is, to put it very mildly, extremely complex.
| yawpitch wrote:
| Right, well we know which side of the enclosure of the
| commons you for some unaccountable reason assume you'd
| have born in.
| ginko wrote:
| Why do you think it's a communist thing? Communist
| countries (both historically and current) tend to protect
| their borders fervently.
|
| I'd say no-border cosmopolitanism is more of a classic
| liberalism thing.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| One must distinguish between "classical" communism
| (Stalinism, which is dead except in North Korea) and the
| modern variety, which is alive and well and I think is
| what you mean.
|
| There are many that think themselves "cosmopolitan", when
| it is a delusion and coping mechanism about being a
| parochial hicklib. A chip on their shoulder that makes
| them especially fervent acolytes of liberalism (as in:
| Obama flavoured, not the other kind), hoping it offsets
| their humble origins after moving to the big city, so
| folks won't get the idea that they are flyover country
| chuds that vote the wrong way.
|
| A cosmopolitan, as in one that truly knows the different
| cultures and people of the world because he has deep
| first hand experience, or has read so much that it allows
| to draw some independent form of conclusion, is either a
| strong proponent of borders or a fool.
|
| The core tenet that makes this communism-adjacent is the
| denial of differences: everyone is equal, "no one is
| illegal" etc pp. Ignorance of history and the nature of
| man is a must to take this position.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > parochial hicklib [...] offsets their humble origins
| [...] flyover country chuds
|
| Tell us how you really feel, good grief.
|
| > everyone is equal, "no one is illegal" etc
|
| This but unironically.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > Tell us how you really feel, good grief.
|
| This is not "how I feel" or my actual opinion of liberals
| in general. It is a certain archetype that I
| unfortunately know all too well.
|
| > This but unironically.
|
| You can just say you're a communist, you know. The core
| tenet will always be some appeal to equality, no matter
| how you like to describe yourself ("socialist",
| "liberal", "a decent heckin' human being" in Reddit
| speech or what have you).
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I'm a Third Way Neo-corporate Georgist.
| miyoji wrote:
| > A cosmopolitan, as in one that truly knows the
| different cultures and people of the world because he has
| deep first hand experience, or has read so much that it
| allows to draw some independent form of conclusion, is
| either a strong proponent of borders or a fool.
|
| This is the most incredible No-True-Scotsman fallacy I've
| ever read.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Thanks, I was thinking about alluding to it even more
| obviously.
| falcor84 wrote:
| In practice, communist countries have always put a lot of
| effort into keeping their citizens in.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Borders of Westphalian nation-states being relevant is
| recent, unlike personal and tribal territories.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| "Borders didn't exist before the treaty of Westphalia" is
| a hell of a take. If you want to stretch the State
| Sovereignty / Non-Interference aspect of it to that
| definition you're going to have to make your case
| properly, because I don't see how such a position could
| be defensible.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > enforce their borders since millennia.
|
| In English it's "have enforced their borders for
| millennia"; the phrase "since [length of time]" is almost
| always grammatically incorrect and a giveaway that
| someone's not a native English speaker.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| It is not my native language, and I wouldn't have made
| this mistake if I wasn't in a hurry and on my phone.
| Unfortunately I cannot edit it anymore.
| pksebben wrote:
| This might be a little broad for most, but I find the whole
| concept of nationalism and border sovereignty kinda tired.
| Who cares? We were nomads before we settled in cities, and
| it's only the designs of the empowered few that ever made
| the idea compulsory.
|
| I'm saying this as someone who enlisted in the defense of
| said nations once. Most of the structures that make up a
| country these days are for the birds - let a guy hike for
| chrissake. I also lived where I could see Tijuana from my
| back yard and all the pearl clutching and self-fanning over
| "illegal immigrants" is a giant crock of blustery nonsense.
| We have bigger problems than normal folks just trying to
| live their lives.
| godsinhisheaven wrote:
| The whole concept of nationalism and border sovereignty
| has been with us for essentially all of human history,
| and I don't see it petering out anytime soon. Plenty of
| people care, for all sorts of reasons, many of which I
| would say, are good!
| pksebben wrote:
| That's partially true; the bit about borders and human
| history (so long as you sequester 'history' to 'recorded
| history') - but nationalism is actually newer than you'd
| think, and there were human societies for thousands of
| years before there were borders. More recent if you go by
| the current definition of border (formalized, surveyed
| borders are also relatively modern).
|
| Is nationalism going to peter out? No, of course not. Do
| some people care for reasons that are important to them?
| Sure, I don't want to tell anyone how to feel. I _am_
| just another jerk with an opinion like the rest of us.
|
| But if you were to ask me, it's take it or leave it. I'd
| be more than happy to see free movement in the world.
| Just another set of rules I'm not using.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Yes, hard borders are far more recent than people think.
| As late as the First World War you could travel the world
| without so much as a passport.
|
| _But_ : back then only a handful of very rich people had
| the means to do that, and taxation and social protection
| were _much_ lower than today. Those things are related.
| They (IMO of course!) are what make borders a pragmatic
| necessity.
| alva wrote:
| Passport equivalents go back to 1350BC
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| You could travel across the North American countries
| without a passport until quite recently. That only
| stopped being a thing after 9/11.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| What are those reasons?
| bluebarbet wrote:
| The most obvious one is that the modern welfare state
| relies for its legitimacy on social cohesion, i.e. a
| certain base of shared values and identity. You will not
| get people to consent to heavy taxation and
| redistribution if they feel that their society is full of
| foreigners. This observation is perhaps more relevant to
| Europe than the USA.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| And that's before mentioning the economics of funding a
| welfare state with a relatively static/shrinking tax base
| and growing, imported, welfare recipient class - the
| latter being practically unbounded in the case of illegal
| immigration.
| tomrod wrote:
| What, your ancestors between 600k years ago up to 150
| years ago are a joke to you? Human history began with
| European Great Powers?
|
| Gobekli tepe easily refutes your isolationism, as does
| stone- and bronze-age globalism.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Not really. Tribes generally lived in specific areas, and
| would go to war with other tribes if those tribes tried
| to expand into their turf. Or would go to war to expand
| their turf. That's basically the early version of
| nationalism and borders, with the tribe as the nation,
| and neighboring tribes understanding which area was
| whose. Even nomadic tribes would be nomadic within a
| certain area, and jealously protect the area they would
| go to at the start of every spring, for example.
|
| Even modern primates establish territories for their
| groups, and warn off and fight other primates attempting
| to encroach. So this general behavior is quite natural.
| The concept of open borders where anyone can just waltz
| in and live somewhere where they're not from or didn't
| marry into and haven't been invited -- that's actually
| the relatively newer idea, historically speaking.
|
| I'm not arguing for more closed borders today, but I
| don't think we're should pretend that the historical
| human condition has somehow been "open".
| nullstyle wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything
| Disagrees with you, and has several examples of tribal
| fluidity and more freedom of movement than you imply
| here.
| crazygringo wrote:
| If you're talking about "the freedom to escape one's
| surroundings and move away", the book has been widely
| criticized for that assertion, as Graeber is extremely
| ideologically motivated.
|
| If you left your tribe without being accepted into
| another (whether through marriage or some kinds of
| previous personal alliances you'd made), life would be
| pretty rough if you survived at all.
|
| Sure tribes would _split_ sometimes when they got too big
| or disagreements split them. But that 's not about the
| individual level. That's akin to nation-state secession
| today.
|
| There's no evidence that people were just regularly
| packing things up and going off and joining whatever
| neighboring tribe they wanted to, whenever they wanted
| to. And this is the type of thing where the book has come
| under such heavy criticism:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything#Meth
| odo...
| nullstyle wrote:
| Been awhile since I've listened to the book (all cards on
| the table), so I can't be specific. Nor am I an expert in
| anyway. My takeaway is that the pre-historical Americas
| had many diverse ways of organizing people that doesn't
| quite match up to the implied-risk-game of territory that
| I was responding too.
|
| In starting to read through some of the criticism's of
| the book just now, I was reminded of the seasonal hunting
| parties where many smaller groups would band together for
| better kills. That's what I mean with "tribal fluidity".
|
| And by freedom of movement, the impression that I had
| coming away from the listen was that there were many ways
| in which someone could find themselves in a role where
| the could migrate through several communities and still
| live. looking at things again presently, I stumbled
| across https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopewell_tradition,
| which I think illustrates what I was trying to convey.
| "Border sovereignty" doesn't make much sense to me as a
| concept in that world... i think things were much more
| fluid. There weren't border checkpoints throughout
| prehistory.
| crazygringo wrote:
| There are definitely a lot of diverse ways of organizing
| people _within_ a tribe.
|
| And you're absolutely right that tribes could join forces
| to accomplish objectives. And the Hopewell tradition is
| mainly about trade and cultural dissemination -- of
| course trade involves traveling with goods to other
| tribes.
|
| But none of that changes my point. Even if tribes allied
| for a purposes, they still had their distinct geographic
| areas. If if people traveled to other tribes to exchange
| goods, they were just visitors traveling through.
|
| "Border sovereignty" was absolutely real, just as it is
| in primates. There weren't literal manned border
| "checkpoints", but you can be sure that as soon as a
| tribe got wind of a stranger approaching, they'd
| immediately investigate and either allow them in (if e.g.
| someone friendly temporarily traveling through) or send
| them back in the opposite direction with force if
| necessary. The idea that the norm was that some stranger
| could just waltz in with their family and they'd be
| welcomed to stay and share the land is not supported by
| evidence.
|
| (Even though that's definitely the anarchist ideology
| that Graeber was trying to push in his book, because
| that's exactly where he gets criticized for ignoring most
| of the evidence and cherry-picking examples.)
| phantasmish wrote:
| The US (where "open borders" are often characterized as
| national "suicide" by right-wing figures) _had open
| borders_ well within living memory.
|
| By ship? No. But you're from Argentina and made it all
| the way up to the Rio and want to cross to work on US
| farms or whatever? Yeah whatever man, totally fine, just
| walk in. Anyone from the Americas was welcome, no
| waiting, no _la migra_ hunting them, no nothin'
|
| We didn't change that until the '60s, and the only reason
| it didn't cause a ton of problems immediately (farms _at
| that time_ were already heavily dependent on migrant
| labor operating a bit under the table, and their lobbies
| were not quiet on the issue) was that enforcement was and
| has been, at times (and especially at first) mostly
| rather half-assed.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > The whole concept of nationalism and border sovereignty
| has been with us for essentially all of human history,
|
| Quite the opposite. The modern concept of "border
| sovereignty" as intertwined with the nation-state is a
| Westphalian construction. (Students of world history will
| recognize why this timing is not a coincidence). And even
| then, they didn't exactly catch on immediately.
|
| Sovereign nation-states are a tiny piece of human
| history. They're not even the majority of _recorded_
| human history.
| guywithahat wrote:
| It's not just a human thing; people who study wolves find
| they maintain surprisingly strict borders between
| different packs, and this behavior continues though a lot
| of other mammals and even some smaller animals like
| certain birds and insects.
| marcusverus wrote:
| > Who cares?
|
| The vast majority of people care.
|
| > We were nomads before we settled in cities, and it's
| only the designs of the empowered few that ever made the
| idea compulsory.
|
| Reasoning from pre-agrarian living patterns is, quite
| frankly, hippy nonsense. And no, we didn't settle in
| cities because of "the designs of the empowered few", but
| because agriculture leads to more permanent, prosperous
| settlements, which attract raiders, and settling close
| together allowed for common defense. In other words, as
| soon as people earned a living by their own planning and
| sustained effort, (as opposed to merely collecting the
| bounty of the earth) they settled down and drew borders
| to protect what they had built from people who wanted to
| just show up and reap the rewards of their effort, at
| their expense!
|
| > I also lived where I could see Tijuana from my back
| yard and all the pearl clutching and self-fanning over
| "illegal immigrants" is a giant crock of blustery
| nonsense.
|
| We can't have borders because you could see Tijuana from
| your back yard?
|
| > We have bigger problems than normal folks just trying
| to live their lives.
|
| Defending borders is the most basic function of the
| state. It quite literally does not have anything better
| to do than to defend its borders.
| nephihaha wrote:
| "I find the whole concept of nationalism and border
| sovereignty kinda tired."
|
| Well, it looks we'll have some kind of global government
| within a couple of decades. It won't be better than what
| we have now, in fact it will be even less accountable.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "not entering Russia at a correct port of entry"
|
| I'm laughing at the lack of nuance in laws in general. Some
| guy crossed the Bering Straight on foot as part of a 27
| year quest to walk around the world and the law makes no
| exception.
|
| I remember as a teen being hauled into a police station
| because a friend and I had been exploring the storm drains
| ("sewers") with a home-made flame thrower (okay, so the
| movie "Alien" had recently come out... Yeah, we left the
| flamethrower behind in the sewer when we popped our heads
| out and saw police).
|
| Someone in the neighborhood had called the police because
| she had seen us going down the manhole opening. (The police
| said the report came through that some kids had "fallen"
| into the sewers.)
|
| So I'm sitting in the police station with good cop and bad
| cop sitting there musing over my case. "How about 'Failure
| to use a sidewalk when a sidewalk was available'," bad cop
| said as he read from a book he was paging through. That got
| a laugh all around...
|
| They let me off after an hour or so of this.
| BryantD wrote:
| To be completely fair, Russia did decide to make an
| exception in this case, although it took a couple of
| months (during which Bushby was detained) to get there.
|
| I am a little bit torn in this case. From our vantage
| point it's obvious that Bushby wasn't running an
| elaborate long scam to get into Russia. In the moment...
| I don't know, former UK special forces guy? Long history
| of espionage between UK and Russia? Two months seems too
| long; it's also not as easy as your case of a teenager in
| the sewer.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I saw that. Six months (if I recall) is kind of a long
| time...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Fair enough, but I interpreted "for not entering Russia at
| a correct port of entry" as he had a visa to enter the
| country, but he just didn't land at a recognized "port of
| entry", which given he walked/swam across the Being Strait,
| is unsurprising. But I don't know the full details of the
| situation.
| paganel wrote:
| > Given that he literally swam across the Caspian Sea in
| order
|
| Why didn't he take the ferry there?
| anentropic wrote:
| I guess it didn't fit with the goal of 'walking' around the
| world, probably wanted to avoid motorised transport
| falcor84 wrote:
| > At the start of his quest, Bushby made two rules for
| himself, neither of which he has broken.
|
| > "I can't use transport to advance, and I can't go home
| until I arrive on foot," Bushby said. "If I get stuck
| somewhere, I have to figure it out."
| em-bee wrote:
| _In Europe, he can stay for only 90 days_
|
| that doesn't make any sense for two reasons. first, he only
| entered the EU in september this year, so either the 90 days
| are not up yet or he should be in mexico now. is he? but why
| would he fly to mexico when he could just go to the UK?
|
| but more importantly, he is a british citizen. getting a visa
| to walk through europe, especially now that he already has a
| track record of walking for so long should really not be an
| issue.
| nly wrote:
| There is no Europe wide long stay non-working visa for UK
| citizens. 90 in 180 days is the Schengen visitor option,
| no?
| slow_typist wrote:
| 90 days within any period of 180 days visa free.
| Everything else is bureaucracy ...
|
| https://uk.diplo.de/uk-en/02/visa-information-2441822
| ritzaco wrote:
| have you tried? I'm a South African living in Europe and
| visas are a nightmare.
|
| Many europeans have never had to apply for a real visa in
| their life (I don't mean the online ones, or the apply on
| arrival ones, I mean the ones where you submit a 20 page
| form of personal details and hotel bookings and letters
| from friends you'll be staying with and bank statements and
| a full travel history) and they assume that I'm just making
| life difficult for myself by not doing some simpler option
| that they assume must exist.
|
| I don't know about what visa options UK citizens have for
| the EU since brexit, but I'd be surprised it was as simple
| as "I feel like spending more than the 90 days I get".
| em-bee wrote:
| _I 'd be surprised it was as simple as "I feel like
| spending more than the 90 days I get"_
|
| why? that's exactly what i think he should be able to do.
| it's not like he spent 27 years walking across the planet
| in order to then misrepresent what he wants to do in the
| EU.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| That's not the way it works.
|
| I live in Norway, have residence and stuff. I can travel
| freely through most of europe without much hassle - but I
| can only travel 90 days out of 180 days - then you gotta go
| out of the area (or back to your home country if it is
| inside), stay out or home for 90 days, and then start anew.
| The closest border to me - one to Sweden - has no real
| security. A customs office because there is border shopping
| in the area and I know they very occasionally stop folks. A
| crossing an slightly inconvenient distance north just has
| signs.
|
| Anything outside of this requires paperwork.
| em-bee wrote:
| the paperwork is exactly what i am talking about. with
| his track record getting a visa should not be an issue.
| anticodon wrote:
| He crossed the border illegally and was carrying a firearm
| with him. Maybe it's ok in the USA to cross the border
| illegally carrying a firearm with you, but I assure you it's
| not legal in all the other countries in the world and penalty
| would be very severe.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| > Maybe it's ok in the USA to cross the border illegally
| carrying a firearm
|
| By definition anything illegal is illegal, and no, you
| cannot bring a firearm across the border into the USA
| without a paperwork process.
| shmeeed wrote:
| Wait, he was carrying _what?_
|
| Did it not occur to him that this might be a bad idea?
| tennisflyi wrote:
| Very common hiking technique - section hiking
| ericmcer wrote:
| Totally valid if you are just doing like the PCT in sections
| for fun, but for a sponsored grand adventure that you write
| books about I don't think section hiking is valid.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I was gonna say the same, it sounds like he did 17k miles in
| his first 8 years. That sounds tremendously far but it works
| out to ~5 miles a day. So either he was only walking for 2-3
| hours a day or he was only walking every couple days.
|
| 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.
| compounding_it wrote:
| >The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.
|
| I realize that a lot these days. People are not inherently so bad
| but greed is a nasty drug that has the potential to ruin the
| best.
|
| When you have nothing to offer but kindness and compassion, it is
| very simple to see the humanity side of things in this world and
| it can feel really amazing.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Idk, people are usually nice in my experience. News, forum
| opinions and youtube videos are not remotely representative of
| how things work in real life.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Why do you think that is? The reality distortion field of the
| internet I mean
| survirtual wrote:
| A group of very mentally ill, insecure people with a lot of
| material wealth control the internet and media.
|
| They get to write the narrative.
|
| We can analyze just one small tool in the belt of narrative
| control: censoring. If you've been warned or banned on
| Reddit, you can imagine how this works. If you've said
| something against the mold of what they allow, you will get
| censored. With so many people commenting, some subset of
| people will always say what you want to see. You censor or
| derank opinions you don't want, and boost opinions you
| want. This is a defensible form of writing a narrative
| without actually having to artificially write anything.
|
| Of course with AI, you can now just write anything and seed
| ideas.
|
| Give such sick people the reigns, and you get a false
| reality has little connection to what's really happening.
| keepamovin wrote:
| OK, but applying the idea from critical legal theory that
| "the purpose of the law is the protect status quo power"
| to mental health to infer that diagnoses must similarly
| reinforce archetypes with social/economic/political
| utility for the system - how does that gel with the idea
| that people capable of aquiring great wealth (a measure
| of 'system utility') are highly mentally ill?
|
| Aside from that, I'm not saying you're wrong or right
| about that theory, I'm just wondering how it falls down
| around that idea.
|
| On this topic of interenet behavior, maybe I'm not really
| sure or maybe I am, but my view is it's less about some
| sort of diempowering imposition of external/elite evil
| upon a innocent and good mass population, but rather
| about the medium itself enabling latent negativities in
| the populus to surface. Which doesn't mean the population
| is itself not good and innocent - it is also
| multifaceted. Thus, such dynamics might operate in a
| "Stanford Prison Experiment" kind of "cover and
| permission" way.
|
| My view of many of these dynamics are its more about
| emergent self-regulating properties of a system than it
| is about top-down control. In a sense, that's a lot more
| liberating and empowering for people, because then they
| are not cast as victims of some evil from on high, they
| are the architects of their experience, for good or bad.
|
| The view you espouse, while seeming to empower the
| downtrodden by taking aim at hidden sources of evil
| power, I feel in fact disempowers by playing up the fake
| victim narratives that disempower and confuse people. In
| other words, your idea, while seemingly edgy and
| incisive, may in fact be what any such extant "evil
| elites" would want you to think, if they hope to have
| control! Haha :)
|
| Anyway, I'm not trying to cut down your idea here in this
| topic - personally I believe people are very much in
| charge of their experiences, that's what I've found in my
| life - but in this kind of mass topic, who knows? Anywa,
| thanks for responding. Just some food for thought and
| maybe discussion. Have a good one :)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _diagnoses must similarly reinforce archetypes with
| social /economic/political utility for the system_
|
| Unless extreme wealth is part of the diagnostic criteria,
| this model says the diagnostic criteria would be designed
| to reinforce archetypes in the general populace, and that
| the status quo powerful would simply not _receive_ such
| diagnoses. That doesn 't stop other people from reviewing
| the checklists and drawing their own conclusions. (I,
| myself, haven't done this, so I'm not sure whether the
| "powerful people are diagnosable as mentally ill"
| conclusion is valid.)
|
| > _Thus, such dynamics might operate in a "Stanford
| Prison Experiment" kind of "cover and permission" way._
|
| The Stanford Prison Experiment is actually a good
| example: Philip Zimbardo had his thumb very firmly on the
| scales, and excluded that information from his write-up.
| The claim that "people are just like that" has been
| fabricated enough times that I'm deeply suspicious of it.
| kakacik wrote:
| Highly functioning sociopaths. And this diagnosis never
| goes alone in otherwise perfectly balanced individuals,
| does it. Most of them have missing/broken father figure
| syndrome which manifests in various bad and rather
| unfixable personality traits.
|
| The societies we humans build always allow such persons
| to rise to the top - it doesn't matter if market
| democracy or brutal communism, fascism etc. The last type
| that didn't work well was some sort of feudal kingdom
| style where power was shared among elite across
| generations, inherited and rarely claimed by more
| competent, ambitious and vicious folks from lower ranks.
| But this is also how we got most of the progress in past
| 150 years, so its a double-edged sword. I wish I had a
| solution, maybe some Deus Ex-style of neutral AGI, but
| who would build such an AGI when everybody competent
| wants more power and manipulate others to their favor.
|
| Heck, we often celebrate them by looking at their
| achievements, conveniently ignoring what utter piece of
| shit they are as humans (Ford is a prime example - a
| great inspiration for Hitler among others, and musk
| doesn't go far and look how uncritically he was
| celebrated also here for a long time and often still
| is... but the list is very long, basically almost all
| billionaires and high power folks).
|
| With great power comes great impact even if they don't
| try, and who doesn't like some ego boost. People imitate
| them, follow them, subconsciously accept their values
| more easily. They literally imprint their values on rest
| of the world and we allow it due to our laziness,
| convenience and inherent sheepish mentality of masses
| which we are part of whether we like it or not - just
| look at how most folks need some form of a role model.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Intresting. I'm not saying (to pick some well-known
| execs/founders/leaders at random) Jobs, Musk, Zuck,
| Bezos, Huang, Trump, Xi are "high functioning sociopaths"
| but Jobs and Bezos both had missing biological fathers.
| Musk had a violent one. Zuck, not sure - but something
| seems weird with the dad, it's never spoken of tho. Huang
| was raised without parents present (only communicating
| via casette tape shipped on boat - wow!), living overseas
| from age 9, in a violent type of environment. Trump's dad
| was a disciplinarian tough on his brother, but Trump
| found ways to stand up to him. Xi's father was
| purged/rehabilitated by the Communists and they had to
| live in caves, farming dust and being bitten by lice, etc
| for years. I don't know any of them personally and I'm
| not speaking to their actual stories, as I don't know.
|
| All this tho -- can the mother have no impact? I don't
| think so. Children are raised by their mothers. Why put
| the blame on dads, if solely? Seems not fair. A
| bifurcation in blame in society that can only cause a
| fracture that leads to greater wrongs later.
|
| Also, while such questions are intriguing -- much of this
| talk of what's wrong with the internet, points the blame
| at a few rich people. This seems misguided, and misses
| the point that the internet is largely "us" - all of us.
| If we are doing something "wrong" but deflect, we're
| never going to get better. Even if some bad people are
| trying to push buttons, we're the ones that have to take
| responsibility for how we act and to do good.
|
| When I'm chatting online, I'm sure as hell not talking
| with Bezos - he can't text that much, least of all in the
| hot-tub. I'm talking with some random. And we each have
| to take resopnsibility for our behavior. If the rando I'm
| talking with says, "Why am I bad? Because Jeff Bezos made
| me this way." It sounds totally ridiculous. And it is, of
| course. I think the hijacking of a question about "why is
| the internet negative sometimes" into a 2-minutes-hate on
| rich-elite is the wrong approach to solutions and
| understanding.
| mmsimanga wrote:
| Not OP and not an expert but seems the aim is outrage which
| leads to more engagement and more advertising clicks, more
| followers and so on. Distorting news and social media from
| reality. I must say I too have found that people are nicer
| than what news portrays. I had the pleasure of being able
| to visit New York a few years and the people were just
| people and pleasant.
| keepamovin wrote:
| That's a good point, that optimization thing. Sort of
| "algorithmically driven mad" or bad! Ha. Could be
| happening. It's why it's important to disengage right?
| From the loops of brain hijacking/hacking. A quieter
| internet, for a more civilized age.
|
| That reminds me, I'm making a text-based terminal
| browser. It might achieve that! Haha :)
| mmsimanga wrote:
| Absolutely. I have social media accounts primarily to
| view links people send me but I am not an active user. A
| quieter world works for me.
| anomaly_ wrote:
| The internet is basically full of maladjusted people with
| sad lives. Strong chance that the post you read on HN,
| Reddit, X, etc is written by someone profoundly unhappy
| with their lot in life.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Yeah I think when you see that kind of unhinged
| negativity that's right, sure, it's a projection. But I
| believe the internet can be really good as well, it's
| just you have to ignore the stupidity that's visible and
| sort-of, idk, curate your experience (?) to be good.
| Seeing and responding to the best possibilities in any
| situation. :)
| wongarsu wrote:
| And it's not just that those people are more online, they
| also post a lot more, and don't stop a conversation when
| they should.
|
| For many years the prevailing notion was that anonymity
| turns people into dickheads. But they did studies on
| this, and it turns out it's just that the real-life
| dickheads just dominate the discussion and the reasonable
| people post way less
| keepamovin wrote:
| Is that true? Can you post some studies you saw? That's
| fascinating if true. "The dickheads" post more - because
| they find an environment to take out their evil desires
| where they believe there are "no consequences", sounds
| like it makes sense. But I'd like to see the evidence.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It might have been "The Distorting Prism of Social Media:
| How Self-Selection and Exposure to Incivility Fuel Online
| Comment Toxicity" by Jin Woo Kim et al. [1][2]
|
| 1: https://academic.oup.com/joc/article-
| abstract/71/6/922/63636...
|
| 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rJ20sca3fg6epXwVbGj7H
| dNfCH4...
| energy123 wrote:
| They're nice to you if the culture is such that they get
| social capital/status for being nice to you and negative
| reward for being mean.
|
| If the social permissions change like Rwanda in 1994 then
| your nice neighbors would sooner chop you to pieces.
| survirtual wrote:
| Most people have significantly less than what we are spoon fed
| by media and the internet at large.
|
| 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.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| There's a kind of stereotype we have of people that we have not
| met. The truth is that those groups of people that we think are
| nasty people are often kind and nice and full of empathy and
| compassion.
|
| 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.
| nly wrote:
| It's not the people it's the situations they find themselves
| in.
|
| 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.
| artemonster wrote:
| Interesting what would a woman say after attempting something
| similar
| mykowebhn wrote:
| A couple of Youtubers who are also round-the-world travelers whom
| I enjoy watching, one a Dutch motorcyclist and the other a German
| cyclist.
|
| Noraly, the motorcyclist, has already traveled through South and
| North America, Africa, and Asia, some multiple times. Currently,
| I believe she is in Tajikistan about to enter Kyrgystan.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIs9nkveW9WmYtsOcJBwTg
|
| Max Roving, the cyclist, has already cycled through Afghanistan
| and he is currently trying to ride Africa north to south. He just
| completed Algeria and is about to enter Morroco.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@MaxRoving
| mykowebhn wrote:
| There's also this couple, each has their own channel, who are
| filming their walk from England to Vietnam.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@chubbytrekka
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@SophieTangTravels
| patresh wrote:
| I also enjoy watching Charles, a French-Canadian cyclist
| currently cycling from Canada to Europe. As a geologist he
| regularly explains rock formations and rock types he
| encounters.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/Charlesenv%C3%A9lo
| tasuki wrote:
| > currently cycling from Canada to Europe.
|
| Isn't there, like, the ocean? Or does he go the Karl Bushby
| way over the Bering Strait?
| sgt wrote:
| And they've been very safe, as far as I've heard. I think
| generally you can use common sense and be extremely safe all
| around the world.
|
| 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.
| nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote:
| With extra danger due to sharing your location online all the
| time.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I assume this is mitigated by delaying the uploads by a
| month (which you may need anyway due to sporadic internet
| access & not always having the time to edit videos).
| pncnmnp wrote:
| There is also AussieEspanol, who is attempting to travel from
| Argentina to Alaska in a tuk-tuk (an auto rickshaw) -
| https://www.youtube.com/@aussieespanol/videos
|
| Followed him a bit last year. A really sweet and enthusiastic
| person.
| mrcaramelpants wrote:
| There's also Ed Pratt who does round-the-world expeditions by
| unicycle
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@EdPratt
| _rpxpx wrote:
| There is nothing so wonderful that it cannot be ruined by
| turning it into a youtube channel... The really brilliant
| people I've met doing things like this always absolutely
| refused to mediafy their experience. Turning your adventure
| into a continuous TV show is great way to kill the adventure.
| We're now so used to everyone running their own shopping
| channel we don't even notice it. Read Thesiger's books for an
| account of real experience. The film I urge everyone to watch
| is Cronenberg's Videodrome - truly the film of our times.
| yawpitch wrote:
| I've met some really brilliant people who only finished the
| challenges they gave themselves because they had a
| community's encouragement.
|
| Seems to me you might want to relax your filters a bit and
| meet some of the _other_ brilliant people.
| _rpxpx wrote:
| I think the central message of that article is precisely
| that he is completing the adventure only because of
| community encouragement - but that that is the assistance
| of all the incredible people he met along the way,
| strangers on the ground who supported him and helped him on
| his way, and his friends and family at home. The community
| is the real people on the ground, and it is the real and
| living community of the humans who inhabit the entire
| world. The commercial transmissions with you as TV star are
| totally unnecessary, and actually only get in the way...
| Thesiger said that the greatest thing about his adventure
| across the Arabian Desert was his comradeship with the
| Bedouin. You just can't have that while waiving a selfie-
| stick and grinning into the camera...
| yawpitch wrote:
| There are incredible people along the way, there are
| _also_ incredible people watching and cheering on people
| who vlog. Communities can -- and very much _should_ -- be
| much larger than just who you happen to have found
| yourself physically near.
|
| And yes, I can assure you, you can absolutely have both
| while engaging in blogging, vlogging, serialized writing,
| or any other form of serialized expression.
|
| Not all of vlogging has any relationship to your straw
| man.
| _rpxpx wrote:
| I can only say that, in my own experience, you can't.
| Traveling pre- and post-smartphone are two completely
| different realities. The thing tethering you to a
| gigantic global faceless 'community' has the cost of
| weakening or blocking your engagement with real immediate
| physical people, and chance events and immediate
| experience. There is definitely a trade-off, no matter
| where your preferences lie. The last time I stayed in a
| hostel it was in Lima, Peru. It was mostly young people
| traveling. On every bunk in the room, a guest staring
| silently into their glowing palms. The joy of traveling
| used to be having very intense and focused encounters
| with completely new people who you would probably never
| speak to again...
| senordevnyc wrote:
| _" There is definitely a trade-off, no matter where your
| preferences lie."_
|
| That's a much more reasonable position than the idea that
| sharing your journey on Youtube "ruins" it, or "kills the
| adventure". Different people prefer different things.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It depends. I find those interesting to watch.
| Reubachi wrote:
| Off topic but related to your comment,
|
| 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.
| jve wrote:
| Amazing
|
| This reminds me of an adventured died just a few months ago at
| age of 40 after suffering insult. He has crossed ocean on a
| rowboat and more.
|
| https://boredofborders.com/adventures/
|
| DeepL Translation of wiki:
|
| Bardel's largest and most notable expeditions involve crossing
| oceans and traveling around the world without external
| assistance. On May 4, 2016, he and his traveling companion Gints
| Barkovskis set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Namibia to
| Brazil. After 142 days, they safely reached the coast of South
| America, becoming the first two-person crew to cross the Atlantic
| Ocean in a rowboat. [6] During the voyage, both men encountered
| serious health problems (vitamin deficiency, skin inflammation)
| and Barkovskis broke his ribs, but neither wanted to interrupt
| their journey, and the expedition ended successfully. [6]
|
| After crossing the Atlantic, Bardelis continued his journey in
| South America and began a new stage in 2018. From Brazil, with
| the support of Gints Barkovskis, he traveled by tandem bicycle
| through South America to Lima, Peru, completing the approximately
| 5,400 km stage in 102 days. [7] Bardelis then set out alone in a
| rowboat to cross the Pacific Ocean in June 2018. He covered a
| distance of approximately 26,000 km from South America to
| Malaysia, spending a total of 715 days on the journey; with this
| achievement, he became the first person in the world to cross the
| Pacific Ocean from South America to Asia in a rowing boat. [7]
| During this sea expedition, he had to overcome several stormy
| periods and was forced to stop at islands, but in the end,
| Bardelis became known worldwide as the first ocean rower in this
| direction. [7]
|
| https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%81rlis_Bardelis
| yolo3000 wrote:
| Sad to hear. Just watched his documentary 'Beyond the deep' on
| Prime this year. Trailer here
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFlSp17rTjY
| fransje26 wrote:
| > This reminds me of an adventured died just a few months ago
| at age of 40 after suffering insult.
|
| 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...
| jve wrote:
| Woops, translated it wrong. Insult I meant Stroke. But he had
| stroke earlier.
| trymas wrote:
| Not OC, but funny that in my native language "stroke" is
| "insult" - so I understood that and didn't catch it that in
| english it doesn't make sense. :)
| K0balt wrote:
| For such a brave and spirited fellow, it is surprising to learn
| that he was so sensitive that he passed away from having his
| character besmirched.
| fhd2 wrote:
| Quite a fascinating adventure, even if it's not continuous.
|
| Good teaching moment for why estimates of big endeavours tend to
| be off, too. He appears to have slightly overestimated his
| average walking speed and greatly underestimated breaks (only
| some of which were by choice from what I gather).
|
| The total journey appears to be 58,000 km (36,000 miles).
|
| Expectation: 8 years, which translates to a daily average of
| almost 20 km (~12.5 miles). That's about 4-6 hours of walking
| time at my speed. Every. Single. Day. In sickness or in health,
| on country roads or through frozen wastelands. Seems optimistic
| even without anticipating any delays?
|
| Reality: After 8 years, he had actually finished about half the
| distance, which I already find impressive. As of October, he has
| 2,213 km (1,375 miles) left. That means he traveled 55,787 km
| (34,664 miles) in around 27 years. That puts him at a daily
| average of almost 6 km (~3.7 miles), so probably 1-2 hours of
| daily walking time. That's actually not bad considering all the
| delays, but quite a bit less than anticipated.
|
| New estimate: He expects to be home "by 2026", let's say January.
| Based on that premise, his new estimate is that he will walk
| 2,213 km in ~4 months. That's a bit more than 17 km (~10.5 miles)
| per day. Relatively close to his original, comparatively
| uninformed estimate, funnily enough.
|
| All that said, I don't think I'd have the willpower to see this
| through, especially considering all the setbacks. Mighty
| impressive.
| 9dev wrote:
| The rest of the journey is going to take him through the EU
| though, no major obstacles to expect here, so the 17km daily
| seem very much doable.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| > ...take him through the EU though, no major obstacles to
| expect here...
|
| But, but...stifling of innovation. Gdpr. Etc.
| junon wrote:
| Isn't this the guy that abandoned his wife and kid to do this?
| This isn't heroics.
|
| EDIT: Yeah same guy, this was posted to Reddit a while back.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1pfdkfs/...
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Had to go around the world to find milk
| gizmo385 wrote:
| Is there a source for this that isn't just a random Reddit
| comment?
| szszrk wrote:
| I have no such thing, but a few comments later another
| redditor gives a bit different perspective:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1pfdkfs/.
| ..
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| That is messed up.
| nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote:
| That would haunt me and totally fuck up any fun from
| travelling.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Do you have first hand knowledge of the situation? No? Then
| don't fucking judge and shut the fuck up.
| Cupprum wrote:
| I kind of agree with your comment, but it can be written in a
| nicer way
| asacrowflies wrote:
| No. Lol . Do we need to follow such stupid rules of no first
| hand knowledge of his feats.... Should the article even be
| here? Lol
| K0balt wrote:
| His wife took his kid to another country where he was denied
| entry. She's the villain here, if there is one.
|
| FWIW his son joined him and they walked together for a while
| when he was in his 20s, seems like they reconciled.
| fakedang wrote:
| Would completely understand if the wife took the kid to
| another country after his idiotic decision to embark on such
| a trip for a bar bet. If it were my dad, I would have moved
| to that country myself without any qualms forever.
|
| Also after he left, his wife literally became a single mom,
| and had to move to receive family support.
| corentin88 wrote:
| Reminds me of Mike Horn, who travelled around the globe trying to
| say on the equator as much as he can. That being the longest
| round-trip.
|
| He walked a bit, but mostly sailed though.
|
| The book (Equator) worths the read. Especially the part in
| Africa.
| lrkwa wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Hadn't heard of it.
| tasuki wrote:
| I admire his determination! From the photos it appears he mostly
| walks on busy roads... that doesn't look much fun?
| bwv848 wrote:
| Yeah thru hikers avoid roads like the plague. Judging by his
| route he could've walk a lot existing trails. Go southbound on
| Great Divide Trail and Continental Divide Trail, then somehow
| cross Mexico and central America into Andes, there you can
| follow Greater Patagonian Trail all the way to Tierra del
| Fuego. The European part can just reuse Trans European Alpine
| Route, then cross Black Sea and take the Transcaucasian Trail,
| afterwards maybe the work in progress Snow Leopard Track? It's
| gonna be a lot more difficult but definitely beats highway
| walking.
| nly wrote:
| Doing it solo, do you really want to be in isolated places
| all the time?
|
| If you're hungry or sick being by a road has advantages
| bwv848 wrote:
| Yes, in fact if I have the opportunity to walk these trails
| I would take it in a heartbeat. I am sorry but you really
| have to thru hike to understand it. Being tired and hungry
| all the time is the least concern
| K0balt wrote:
| When Karl was preparing to cross the ice from Alaska to Russia, I
| worked with him a bit on a kite-flown camera system to help him
| get a Birds Eye view of the flows to chart his course. I
| engineered a ruggedized wireless camera in an aluminum housing, I
| don't remember much about it other than I was doubtful that the
| resolution would be able to give him the data he needed on on
| small low resolution screen. (This was before consumer drones
| were common or affordable). We built some devices, not sure if he
| ever used them or if they helped. I urged him to do a lot of
| testing to make sure they would be worth the weight.
|
| We spent a lot of time at college coffee house in Fairbanks
| Alaska working over the ideas and overall design.
|
| Nice fellow, strange aspirations, indomitable spirit. I'm glad to
| see his trek is nearing completion, and I wish him well on his
| further adventures. Good luck and Godspeed, Karl.
| japhyr wrote:
| When was he in Fairbanks?
|
| 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.
| K0balt wrote:
| Honestly, I don't really remember. More than a decade ago,
| but I think maybe I was already working on my sailing
| adventures by then and working the summer in Fairbanks? Or
| maybe that was before, I'm not really sure. Too many
| relationships, kids, and big life changes between here and
| there to have a sense of the thing. I'm sure you can look it
| up? IIRC he was in Fairbanks for quite a while. Was a bit of
| a fixture at the coffee house.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Interesting. I hitchhiked through Fairbanks four decades
| ago... Kind of the gateway to the Arctic Circle for a lot
| of travelers I suppose.
|
| Perhaps this guy was waiting out the weather--for it to
| turn favorable to continuing his travels.
| K0balt wrote:
| Iirc he was there for more than a year, flew home for a
| while, came back? Not sure. I do remember him being there
| during a summer and also during winter. I think one year
| the ice was impassible and he was waiting. But I don't
| really remember, such things might have been mere
| conversation crystallized into memories. He seemed a kind
| and pleasant man , though, of that I am sure.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| I spent alot of time in Fairbanks throughout 2006 and 2008,
| doing aerial surveys from plane. Fairbanks was a good
| airport to get stuck at, and you do meet some interesting
| non-traditional travelers. I've never met the guy in the
| article, but I've met a few bike/hike travelers there who
| were either moving horizontally or vertically across Alaska
| (no small feat at all), and I always thought it sounded
| like an adventure.
| tomrod wrote:
| I would be interested in learning about the logistical
| details. Calorie requirements? Sleeping? Costs? etc.
|
| A blog or a book format would make for killer reading!
| jraby3 wrote:
| I rode a bicycle from Canada to Mexico (in about a month)
| with a close friend. We bought a book called Bicycling the
| Pacific Coast (before smart phones).
|
| I had a cheap $150 univega bike and my friend had a $3000
| cannondale. His broke mine didn't :)
|
| We were amateurs. We hitchhiked to a bike shop near San
| Francisco to fix it. Had some saddle bags with our tent and
| sleeping bag, clothes and water.
|
| It's very doable. Hardest part is just showing up.
| japhyr wrote:
| I read a book called _A Walk Across America_ in college, by
| Peter Jenkins. I liked the idea of traveling under my own
| power, but I didn 't want to spend years walking. I kept
| when I got my driver's license, and I was bike commuting in
| NYC at the time, so biking was a natural fit.
|
| I was teaching at the time, so the first summer without any
| obligations I rode across the northern US. Then I rode
| across the southern US the next summer. I loved it, and
| wanted to live outside for all the seasons. So the next
| year I quit my job and circled the continent: Seattle to
| Maine, down to Florida, across to California, then up to
| Alaska. I moved to Alaska a few years after the trip ended
| and spent 20 years there. We moved to North Carolina last
| year, because dark southeast Alaskan winters were getting
| old, and all our family is on the east coast.
|
| I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to do that trip in
| the era of paper maps, and truly being out of touch for so
| much of that time. It pushes you to meet so many new people
| in all the places you visit, instead of staying in constant
| contact with people you already know. It was also nice to
| not see satellite imagery of the road ahead. Every day was
| a surprise. :)
|
| I did write a book, The Road to Alaska:
| https://www.amazon.com/Road-Alaska-Eric-Matthes-
| ebook/dp/B07...
|
| One of my claims to fame is writing one of the best-selling
| Python books of all time (Python Crash Course), and one of
| the lowest-selling travel books of all time. :)
| macintux wrote:
| _A Walk Across America_ was amazing reading when I was
| college aged. I 've never forgotten the story about the
| accident when he and his (then-girlfriend?) were walking
| along a quiet highway, I think in Nevada, and they
| decided to walk on the wrong side of the road, against
| his usual rules, because it had a shoulder.
|
| And, she landed in the hospital after a car hit them.
| japhyr wrote:
| I think they got married in New Orleans, before they
| started the rest of the walk together.
|
| Peter and Barbara didn't do so well after that trip. One
| of their kids took a road trip with his mom recently,
| retracing their route from New Orleans to Oregon. He
| wrote a book about their road trip, and it was a pretty
| interesting read: https://www.jedidiahjenkins.com
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Any tips or build plans for KAP (kite areal photography) using
| modern action cams? I build a clothing hanger setup but the
| imagery was unusable due to vibrations
| timonoko wrote:
| Superstable "Picavet" with heavy video-8 camera, before
| digital cameras was even invented.
|
| Note propellor and gears making slow 360 degree pans.
|
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/SFP9Rf1w9Xs93sfu7
| kalli wrote:
| Feels like the right thread to shamelessly plug my app that lets
| you do these types of walks/runs virtually:
| https://www.inthelongrun.app
| ourmandave wrote:
| It's always when sad when you complete a game you love.
|
| I suppose he could do other challenges like walk the same route
| the other direction or whatever.
|
| Or _maybe,_ SpaceX will drop a new DLC expansion _Mars_ so he can
| keep playing.
| ritzaco wrote:
| This is a cool story but I'm really confused by the details. Like
| he seems to fly around and do pieces of this at a time, but then
| there's the weird bit of him walking 3000 miles in the US to get
| to the embassy, though that wasn't part of his 'walk'?
|
| Also next time don't skip Africa xD
| mewse-hn wrote:
| I also got confused by the timeline of him getting deported
| from Russia. I think he's allowed to fly out as long as he
| returns and continues the journey on foot. You can see on the
| world map of the journey he makes steady progress from
| 1998-2006 but then he doesn't finish crossing Siberia until
| 2017.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "99.99 percent of the people I've met have been the very best in
| humanity," he said. "The world is a much kinder, nicer place than
| it often seems."
|
| I wish everyone could experience this, internalize this. Sometime
| in my 20's or 30's I cast off any fears that I had about people
| and the world in general. And it was like a huge weight was left
| behind.
|
| I started to believe that it was paying too much attention to the
| news (especially cable news when it became a thing) that had come
| to shackle me with fear. Getting out in the world, traveling,
| making yourself vulnerable even (and nixing cable) were all
| things that made me start to love the world and people more. (My
| kids know me as the _Pollyanna_ of the family.)
|
| I suppose I am armchair _psychologizing_ now, but I often see
| fear behind a lot of people 's behavior (and even some friend's)
| and I feel sorry for them: I see them missing out on a lot of
| life experiences.
| tsoukase wrote:
| I would, no thoughts, help/accompany/host him in whatever
| occasion I meet him in my small, distant hometown, if he
| happened to pass by. Of course, it plays a role that he is on
| foot and in the edge of survival, so he can cause no damage. I
| wouldn't have the same attitude with someone more luxurious.
| Poverty with philosophy/culture is guaranteed human.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| The most uplifting part of the article. Great to read it.
| nabeards wrote:
| 100% agreed, it's been my experience traveling for the past ten
| years as well.
| Jonovono wrote:
| Ironic coming from him being a dead beat dad whose son hates
| him
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I had not heard that.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Ah that sucks. I would also guess that an attractive 28 year
| on a global walking adventure might have left a few kids in
| his wake. He should probably avoid 23andMe.
| stackskipton wrote:
| He had a son before he started.
| macintux wrote:
| Some of my favorite (or at least most durable) memories are
| from giving hitchhikers rides. I wouldn't recommend it for
| everyone, and the pandemic really put a damper on that, but
| I've given ~20 people rides over the years and never regretted
| it.
|
| 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...
| asacrowflies wrote:
| Considering this mans character of child abandonment. I don't
| think we should take his assessments of moral character
| seriously.
| tkfoss wrote:
| I imagine world like savannas -- don't tease the lions, avoid
| packs of hyenas and you ll be mostly fine.
| quentindanjou wrote:
| That's quite cool!
|
| How does someone get the funds necessary to do something like
| this? I guess there are sponsors, but before getting known, is it
| just being wealthy?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| The article explains this.
| quentindanjou wrote:
| My comment mention "before getting known". The article only
| mention "familly and friends" help. That's quite a light
| justification, just getting food every day for a year before
| getting sponsors is quite a big sum of money.
|
| I don't think we can say "The article explains this" while
| there is literally only one sentence in the article about it.
| hybrid_study wrote:
| I'd be more impressive if he walked it backwards.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| If he made it all the way he would beat the record set by by
| Plennie Wingo in 1931-1932 when he walked from Santa Monica, CA
| to Istanbul, Turkey backwards. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plennie_L._Wingo
|
| It was a challenging walk.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Ugh, I looked this up and it completely ruined it for me:
|
| https://refuga.com/karl-bushby-the-man-who-chose-to-walk-aro...
|
| _This is how much he had to sacrifice. Leaving his only son when
| he was just five and not being able to watch him grow up like any
| other normal father. He also sacrificed a father /son
| relationship that may never be restored. "Out of everyone I knew
| in this world, I knew my son least of all." Karl didn't have any
| means of communication with his son for years but managed to
| reach him after contacting one of his friends on Facebook. While
| he was away, his son was suffering from depression and self abuse
| and had to use medication and therapy._
|
| That's not sacrifice, that's abandonment. I have a young son not
| far from that age and trying to imagine how he'd feel if daddy
| just walked off nearly brings me to tears.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Yeah that is nuts, whenever I think about doing a huge
| hike/bike adventure I always stop becuase... I can't abandon my
| dog for 4 months haha. This dude abandoned his son forever?
| justinator wrote:
| Talk about "my dad left to get milk"
| sebastiennight wrote:
| At this point, the milk has become yoghurt, the yoghurt has
| become cheese, and the cheese has become a cow again. (Is
| that how it works?)
| F3nd0 wrote:
| (Not quite; you need to add yoghurt to the milk, in order
| to make yoghurt. For the rest, though, all you need are
| bacteria for the cheese and cow to develop naturally.)
| johnsmith1840 wrote:
| Fed the cheese to a cow
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Yeah, ruins the whole story. He's a bum and a dead beat.
| aggregator-ios wrote:
| Thank you for posting this.
|
| 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.
| contingencies wrote:
| Yes.
|
| As a point of interest, the English do have a sort of stiff
| upper lip thing going on since forever. It's normal in
| English upper class families to send kids to boarding school.
| This was partly enabled by empire, but seems to have
| persisted. I have English friends who think nothing of living
| on another continent to their children.
|
| On the mental bearings of extreme travelers, I used to do
| some long distance (multi-week) cycle touring and offered
| accommodation to others through platforms for this purpose
| while living in China. They say you have to be half-mad to
| get in to cycle touring in the first place. Some of these
| people were very much in a weird mental place. After a bad
| experience with a German woman I stopped participating in
| these systems. Some of them would turn up broke with no shoes
| really in need of help. A subset of the people who finish go
| on to become motivational speakers. Most of them probably
| wind up happy, but grizzled and impoverished with more
| physical than mental health.
| lillecarl wrote:
| I can only speak from personal experience, but a bad
| father/mother is worse than no father/mother.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I have a 2 year old daughter and I'm about to have a son in
| February. Walking away from them is unfathomable. I can't
| imagine the regret I'd feel at my old age, having lost the few
| short years where I get to watch my children grow up, just so I
| can walk to some places.
|
| 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.
| jesterchester wrote:
| Your comment makes no sense. I separated from my first wife
| when she was six months pregnant with my first daughter and
| divorced my second wife when we had two kids 3 y/o and 9
| months old. Kids and pregnancy was very taxing and didn't fit
| my life goals so separation was definitely the right decision
| because after that I found my dream job and built a
| satisfying career at a successful tech company.
| fwip wrote:
| Jesus Christ, dude.
| asacrowflies wrote:
| It's really nuts when they don't even see the problem
| bragr wrote:
| They know. That's why it is a brand new throw away
| account.
| F3nd0 wrote:
| I'm inclined to believe it was written in jest. Then
| again, I shouldn't be too surprised if it wasn't.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| this post reads like a parody you'd find on linkedin
| lunatics. I mean, sure, how could the joys of raising a
| human being compare to a slight bump in relevant kpi's?
| stetrain wrote:
| Seems like the "right decision" should have happened a
| little earlier. Or at least before repeating the mistake a
| second time.
| luqtas wrote:
| not defending his goals, nor himself (vasectomy your high
| corporate climber, please) but men don't any authority
| about abortion
|
| edit: and yeah, i got the ick from the walking guy too
| GlitchInstitute wrote:
| this has to be satire :D
| p1esk wrote:
| I'm not defending this guy, but many fathers leave because
| they don't want to have family. It could have nothing to do
| with any of his other plans.
| ksdnjweusdnkl21 wrote:
| I like to follow some adventures people take. Like cycling
| across continents for years. Especially since I have a small
| child so it is totally impossible for me to do. Even basic
| travelling for holidays is a challenge. Sad to see someone
| abandon their family to do that, seems like some kind of mental
| health issue.
| throwaway613745 wrote:
| I have a 6 year old and yeah....this angers me.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yeah... What a terrible person.
|
| 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.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| what a waste of a life, I can't help but feel disgust.
| ssalka wrote:
| For those interested, National Geographic has the "Out of Eden
| Walk" [1], a journey along the path of historical human
| migration, led by Paul Salopek. He started in Ethiopia in January
| 2013 - nearly 13 years ago - and just recently made it to Alaska.
| The planned end of the trip is at the southern tip of South
| America.
|
| [1] https://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/
| jwilber wrote:
| The article didn't even mention that, at 29 years old, he
| abandoned his 5 year-old son to go on his middle-aged crisis
| journey. Some person to celebrate.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Really curious what his footwear of choice is.
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