Roll call
British adventurer and former paratrooper Karl Bushby walked home to Hull, United Kingdom, on Monday. He had come all the way from Chile, never using motorized transportation, in the 50,000-kilometer journey that started on 1 November 1998 and took him 28 years to finish.
The BBC reported that the 57-year-old was crossing his hometown’s Humber Bridge while pushing his cart loaded with his belongings on Sunday as locals welcomed him.
To get home from South America, Bushby trekked across the bandit-infested Darién Gap into Colombia, crossed the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska and Russia, swam the Caspian Sea to bypass Iran and Russia in 2024, and swam the English Channel from France after being denied access through the Channel Tunnel.
For the strait crossing, he spent 14 days walking across shifting plates of ice in temperatures as low as -30 C.
The self- and sponsor-funded intercontinental walk was inspired by a rough path he sketched on a world map when he was a paratrooper. He showed it to the other soldiers, who told him that walking that path could not be done, according to the BBC.
But Bushby proved them wrong.
Meanwhile, an American blogger’s travel to 56 countries on all seven continents was as challenging as Bushby’s “Walk of Life.”
Cory Lee, 36, was accompanied by his 57-year-old mother, Sandy Gilbreath, who served as his caregiver, secretary and helper. Throughout their 24 trips in 2025 and 17 trips so far this year, Gilbreath lifted Cory in and out of planes, taxis, trains and trams.
That was because, at two years old, Lee was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type 2, or SMA, a progressive genetic disorder caused by the loss of motor neurons in the spinal cord, CNN reported. By age 4, he had started using a power wheelchair.
Despite his disability, Lee graduated from college with a degree in marketing. After learning of the lack of accessible travel when he wanted to visit Australia, he started a travel blog for persons with disabilities (PWDs).
His online audience grew, he was invited to give speeches and attend business conferences, and travel destinations paid him to promote them, according to CNN. Lee said travel not only kept him alive but also showed able-bodied people what PWDs were capable of.