Man from Ireland is strolling 3,400 miles barefoot throughout Europe for report

A person has been strolling hundreds of miles throughout Europe utterly barefoot, aiming to realize the official Guinness World Record for the longest barefoot journey by a person. 

And his journey has prompted a health skilled’s warning for others who additionally would possibly ponder comparable excessive feats involving long-distance walks with out sneakers.

Eamonn Keaveney, 33, set out from Istanbul in March 2025, starting a shoe-free trek of three,400 miles that may finish in Ireland, information company SWNS reported. His route has taken him by means of the Balkan Mountains, alongside the Blue Trail in northern Hungary and throughout the Danube cycle path in Austria.

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Keaveney has been on the road for over 300 days, ever since leaving his hometown in Ireland last year. He’s currently walking through County Wexford in his home country, heading toward Davidstown, the same outlet said.

The journey has been bringing challenges, including injuries to his feet, weather extremes and an unhappy encounter with a dog that required rabies shots for him afterward.

“A fairly obvious difficulty has been sore feet, whether from rough terrain or thorns and the like hurting my feet,” Keaveney said.

Long-term barefoot walking leads to several physical adaptations, according to Brayan Cruz, a personal trainer at Crunch Fitness in the New York City area. 

“A multi-thousand-mile barefoot journey is appropriate only for a small, highly conditioned population.”

“The skin on the soles thickens and forms protective calluses, which help shield the foot while still maintaining enough sensory feedback for balance and gait control,” Cruz told Fox News Digital. 

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Cruz mentioned this challenges the frequent assumption that barefoot strolling reduces sensation.

“A multi-thousand-mile barefoot journey is appropriate only for a small, highly conditioned population with years of progressive adaptation and strong injury management strategies,” Cruz added. 

For most individuals, analysis helps restricted, managed barefoot publicity as a supplemental coaching software somewhat than an endurance objective, based on the coach. 

“Individuals with neuropathy, circulatory disease or a history of stress fractures should avoid barefoot training altogether.”

‘I could beat that’

Keaveney has a historical past of maximum endurance challenges.

In 2016, he walked over 1,200 miles barefoot round Ireland, setting a Guinness World Record for it.

Two years later, he climbed 10 mountains in 10 days, once more with out sneakers. 

The thought of the barefoot walks started years earlier throughout Keaveney’s sudden encounter with a report ebook.

“Many years ago, I was in a bookstore sheltering from the rain when I saw the Guinness World Records book and decided to have a look,” he advised SWNS.

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“I spotted the record for the longest barefoot journey, and I thought, ‘I could beat that.’”

Ever since his preliminary journey in 2016, he’s needed to go on a fair greater stroll, he mentioned. The logical subsequent step after strolling round a rustic? Walking throughout a continent.

“A couple of years ago it struck me that if I walked from Istanbul to Ireland, I’d have walked the length of Europe.”

During his present stroll, he is been elevating cash for Jigsaw, which supplies free psychological well being help for younger individuals, and Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group.

Early on, in Turkey, Keaveney was bitten on the bottom by a canine and needed to get vaccines for rabies.

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Despite the difficulties, he mentioned the surroundings and the individuals he is met have saved him going.

“In general, I’m very lucky to have basically spent the entire last year outdoors.” 

“I’ve had numerous offers of water, food and even shoes.”

He added that he’s been met with loads of human kindness. 

“In every country I’ve gone through, I’ve had numerous offers of water, food and even shoes,” he mentioned.

Currently, Guinness World Records lists the official longest barefoot journey at 3,409.75 kilometers (round 2,118 miles) by Paweł Durakiewicz in January 2024. Keaveney has reportedly exceeded that by now. 

Anton Nootenboom, a Dutch veteran, surpassed Durakiewicz’s distance throughout a barefoot stroll throughout the U.S., based on some media retailers. Nootenboom posted on-line a couple of 2,169 mile-long trek from Los Angeles to New York.

Notable walks throughout America

In the U.S., a number of different people have accomplished noteworthy coast-to-coast walks whereas sporting sneakers, together with Walter O. McGill III, who walked greater than 3,200 miles from North Carolina to Santa Monica Pier between 2014 and 2015.

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Musician Mike Posner walked 2,851 miles from New Jersey to California in 2019. He apparently plans to make one other lengthy trek whereas mountain climbing the Continental Divide Trail, which is roughly 3,100 miles.

Other long-distance walkers embody Bill Bucklew, who walked greater than 2,500 miles to boost consciousness for Parkinson’s illness, and Holden Ringer, who trekked hundreds of miles from Washington state towards Washington, D.C., pushing a stroller he named “Smiley.”

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The bestselling nonfiction journey ebook “A Walk Across America” by Peter Jenkins, printed in 1979, is taken into account a basic at the moment. Jenkins shared the westward journey he started in Alfred, New York, and resulted in Florence, Oregon.

“I started out searching for myself and my country,” Jenkins wrote, “and found both.”