British adventurer Karl Bushby enjoyed an emotional reunion with his mother and family on Monday as he arrived back home after a 28-year, 50,000-kilometre (31,000-mile) trek from South America, crossing four continents on foot.
Cheers erupted as the 57-year-old former paratrooper was greeted in the street outside his mother's house in the northeastern UK port city of Hull.
Bushby, who set off on his odyssey from Chile in 1998, had two golden rules for his journey -- avoid all forms of transport to advance and not return until he completed his challenge.
He was met in the centre of Hull by a crowd of up to 1,000 cheering people before being reunited with his mother, Angela, 36-year-old son Adam and a 12-year-old granddaughter he had never met.
Speaking after the reunion, Bushby paid tribute to the kindness of the strangers he had met, from hotel owners to the "poorest of the poor" who had given him bowls of rice and something to drink along the way.
"And that would happen throughout the world," he said adding that the world had been his "support network".
The route back to his home city has seen him walk the length of the Americas, across the frozen Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia and then through parts of Central Asia and Europe covering jungles, mountains, and deserts.
The journey had been full of logistical headaches and scary "Indiana Jones" and "I think I'm going to die moments", he told reporters.
Bushby had already been applauded Sunday as he crossed the iconic Humber Bridge near Hull in thick mist, ahead of his final push into the city centre and then on to his mother's home where he grew up.
"So many people have followed Karl on his epic journey. We have all felt inspired by his spirit, tenacity and dogged determination," Hull Mayor Maria Coward said ahead of his arrival.
"It's quite emotional. I'm proud of him and what he's done. What an achievement," neighbour Laura Chaplin, 47, told AFP as he returned home.
British leader Andy Burnham's spokesman said it was "an extraordinary achievement and the prime minister welcomes him back to the UK".
Bushby began his adventure when he was 29, after his marriage broke down and his wife returned to Northern Ireland with their son.
He was forced to pause the journey several times, including when Moscow refused him a visa. The 2008 financial crisis and then the Covid-19 pandemic caused other hold-ups.
At those times, he stepped away from the journey, living notably at a base in Mexico, then once the situation had been resolved, he would resume from the exact spot where he had left off.
Erin Anderson, 28, a theatre marketing officer among the crowd in Hull, said she thought Bushby was "amazing".
"I've been following him for the last eight years. He's been walking for as long as I've been alive. It's brilliant".
Bushby swam across the Channel from France in early October to arrive back in the UK.
Legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog and a film crew accompanied Bushby on his homecoming, making a feature-length documentary about the journey entitled "Walk of Life".
The production company behind the film has been supporting Bushby's progress for the past 16 years, providing financial and logistical assistance.
Bushby said he would now be focusing on the documentary as well as writing a book and making the adjustment back into normal life.
"I'm still in that shocked phase," he told AFP. "Over the last few days it's been the last time I've been camping in my tent... last time spending all day on the road.
"Each one of those has been an emotional event and then walking down my childhood street into my childhood home with mother (there), that's been quite something," he said.
He added that he still had the drive for adventure but ruled out any more big walks.
"I think I'm hanging my boots up -- 28 years is a good run," he said.