The front-page headline caught my eye, and I couldn’t stop reading. In 1999, Britain’s Karl Bushby decided to walk an unbroken path around the world. He sketched out the route on a piece of paper and started his journey of … what, a million steps, ten million, I have no idea.*

It began with a bar room bet and became an obsession, and now his 27-year, 31,000-mile expedition is in its final months. He just entered Hungary and has less than 1,000 miles to go. If all goes according to plan he will reach his hometown of Hull, England, next September.

Bushby started his walk in Punta Arenas, Chile in 1998, when he was 27 years old. Now 56, he’s given a huge chunk of his adulthood to this project. But from the sound of it, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You need to see how the world really is, and the people who are living in it,” he told the Washington Post. “It’s one of the best educations you’ll get.”

Bushby’s journey has taken him from the southern tip of South America, through the treacherous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama, through North America to the Bering Strait. He crossed this on his first try, navigating ice and frigid water, only to be arrested in Russia for entering at an incorrect border.

In another leg of his journey, he swan across the Caspian Sea to avoid entering Russia again. That took 31 days. He rested at night on support boats. (Although he began the trip with only $500, he gained notoriety and sponsors along the way.)

“I’ve had to do every inch of this thing by either walking or swimming,” Bushby said. “Every time I stop, I have to start from that point and continue.” When he began, he walked 19 miles a day. Now he walks 15.

Bushby said the main lesson he’s learned is that the “world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.” Over and over again he’s been rescued by the kindness of strangers. “The world will wrap itself around you and help you achieve things and keep you moving,” he said. “It’s been absolutely astounding.”

*That would be 13.5 million to 16 million steps, AI informs me.