After nearly 27 years on the road, British adventurer Karl Bushby is about to keep a promise that sounds almost too unbelievable to be real: hand delivering a postcard he has carried across continents, jungles, ice, and borders for more than two decades. Bushby, now 56, is on the final European stretch of his long walk home and is expected to cross from Hungary into Austria, where the postcard will finally reach its destination in Vienna.
Bushby began his journey in November 1998, setting off from Punta Arenas, Chile, with one extraordinary rule for himself, to make it all the way back to Hull, England, without using transport along the route. The trek, known as the Goliath Expedition, covers about 36,000 miles and was originally meant to take around 14 years, but visa problems, world events, financial struggles, and other delays stretched it into a much longer test of endurance.
The postcard became part of that story in 1999. An Austrian architect living in Chile, Michael Bier, had heard about Bushby’s attempt and decided to ask a favour. He left him a note and enclosed $100 as a contribution toward his expenses, asking whether Bushby could deliver a postcard to his old neighbour in Vienna when he eventually passed through Austria. Bushby agreed, and he has kept that promise ever since.
What makes the story so remarkable is not just the postcard itself, but where it has been. While carrying that small piece of mail, Bushby has crossed some of the most difficult terrain on earth, including the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama and the frozen Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. Reuters also reported that he later swam across the Caspian Sea in 2024, adding yet another extreme chapter to the expedition.
The card, written in German, was meant for Bier’s friend Dieter, nicknamed “Kerdi,” and mentions Bushby’s huge walk from South America back toward London. After all these years, Bier has continued following the journey from afar. When Bushby recently called to say the delivery was finally getting close, the moment was both funny and moving. Bier described it as what could be the world’s slowest postcard arriving at last.
There is something almost symbolic about that postcard surviving the whole trip. It has travelled through a world that changed completely while Bushby kept walking through it. When he started, there was no social media pressure, no constant need to document every step, just a man, a road, and a goal that most people would never even attempt. Now, as he nears the end, the journey has become bigger than an adventure. It feels like a record of persistence itself, stretched across nearly three decades. This interpretation is an inference based on Bushby’s route, the length of the expedition, and his own comments about how much the world has changed since 1998.
Bushby has admitted he is tired and ready for home, but he also knows finishing will close the chapter that has defined most of his adult life. According to recent reports, he hopes to complete the journey in 2026, bringing one of the most unusual and stubbornly determined adventures of modern times to an end. And somewhere in Vienna, a postcard that has seen more of the world than most people ever will is finally about to be delivered.
