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Comment by fhdkweig | Hacker News Reader

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fhdkweig

To sum it up in one word: visas.

Turns out walking thousands of miles is the easy part.

for another source,

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/exhibition-charts-karl-...

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby

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I’ve driven my personal vehicles through 65 countries on 5 continents. It’s not that hard.

Sounds like you won the passport lottery.

Some citizens are not as fortunate to live in a country which issues passports accepted in so many places.

I also won the passport lottery.

I don’t know. I had to apply for visas at embassies for like 20 of those in a row, around $150 USd each.

One of the world's most active overland travel scenes in the 1990s and early millennium was in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. These travelers had relatively weak passports, but they started with the countries that would let them in, and then they eventually used that travel experience to visit more discriminating countries (those are more likely to issue a visa if they see you have a passport full of stamps yet always went back home). This is why so much of the travel-book industry about overlanding far-flung countries is in Polish or Russian, not English. There were -- and still are -- organized clubs to help people out with this. Where there is a will, there is a way.

It's a bit mysterious how did he get from Russia to Mexico in 2006? The official website linked says just "displaced".

Is it? He took a plane, surely

That's what I thought but then the article says it's supposed to be "with unbroken footsteps". I thought that literally was impossible in modern society and i guess it is

People always assume he's been walking continuously for all these years, and it's understandable because the headlines are always written to imply that.

He doesn't. He walks some, marks where he stopped, takes a break, continues from where he left off.

The article says he would “decamp” to Mexico at times and then pick up where he had left off. I read this as he’d take a break and fly (presumably) to Mexico and then fly back to where he left off.

Depends on what you mean by “unbroken”.

I’d assume that when he ran into legal issues like after crossing the Bering Strait the authorities would transport him via a car or bus so it’s not like he never took a motorized transport.

Bushby's walk has been extensively covered in the press (and in his own book about the Americas leg). Mexico served as his base while waiting for visas, permissions, and sponsorship, so he was flying back there and then, once he could continue, he flew back to the exact coordinates he had left off and started walking again from there.

I haven't heard of it until this fall.

I found a copy of Giant Steps in a European bookshop circa 2008, so he was never an obscure figure. In any event, within the overland travel community especially, Bushby comes up occasionally for his walking across the Darien Gap (a region which is the bane of people traveling up or down the Americas), as well as for his Bering Strait crossing.

Had a developer who worked for me who did something very similar. Lived all over the world, would get short term visas, and return to Mexico if needed to await his next visa. He had a friend that let him use his mailing address for work and mail and slept on his couch or in hostels while awaiting a new visa. He loved the life. Lived on a dozen different beaches while he was working for me. Apparently a Mexican visa is one of the easiest to get.

Isn't that a crime?

Under which legal system?

When I enter a country outside the EU they usually as me if I want to go their for vacation or work.

I had the impression, that would prevent people from travelling countries and working there without work visa.

aren't you supposed to be legal resident in the country where you're applying for your visa...

> sponsorship

The first thing that always crosses my mind when I see these feats of endurance - walking for weeks/months/years is always how the hang did they pay their way - food, accommodation (even if it's just a tent) clothing, medical supplies, none of it's free

I think the commenter was referring to visa sponsorship. Visa sponsorship is a bit more involved than just money. Someone is putting their name on government paperwork saying that if something goes wrong with this visitor, all bills can be forwarded to me. It isn't like a goFundMe or Kickstarter where a whole bunch of people are chipping in on a person or project; it is one person putting their livelihood on the line to vouch for that visitor's trustworthiness. And if the country requires sponsorship for their visa program, and no one is willing (or if you don't know a single person in that country), you cannot enter.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=visa+sponsorship+meaning&ia...

No, I was speaking about general sponsorship of his expedition costs (which got expensive starting from the Bering Strait), not visa sponsorship.

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