Man walks home to Ireland from Istanbul without any shoes on to reclaim barefoot record

Wearing away the skin on his feet until they bled, Eamonn Keaveney (Ireland) has reclaimed his record for the longest barefoot journey with an epic hike three times as long as his last one.

Starting in Istanbul, Türkiye, he trekked 6,805.83 kilometres (4,228.94 miles) without his shoes on, arriving in his hometown of Claremorris, Mayo, Ireland, 369 days later on 7 March.

He walked further than the distance of the continental United States, covering many different terrains and battling through all types of weather.

He first set the record in 2016 by walking 2,080.14 km (1,292.54 mi) across Ireland, and almost doubled the previous record of 3,409.75 km (2,118.72 mi) set by Pawel Durakiewicz (Poland) in 2024.

And this isn’t even Eamonn’s only epic journey record. In 2023, he also achieved the fastest crossing of Ireland by unicycle (male) in 5 days 5 hr 23 min.

The 34-year-old civil servant told us: “Ever since [first breaking the barefoot journey record] I wanted to go on another big walk. Having walked around a country, crossing a continent seemed the next logical step - hence walking home to Ireland from Istanbul!”

Eamonn toughened up the soles of his feet by walking and jogging barefoot as much as possible. He also had to carry everything he needed with him and admitted that carrying a backpack full of supplies was actually the most uncomfortable part of his journey.

“Needless to say, my feet got an awful battering,” he said. “Even though my soles were quite thick, long days walking on asphalt would literally wear the skin away, sometimes to the point of bleeding.

“I had thorns and small pieces of glass pricking my feet - near the end of the trip, a blackthorn caused an infection in my foot that took me off the road for a full week.

“Other than sore feet, I'd say the toughest thing was the weather. It was brutally hot in summer, especially while walking through Hungary, and sometimes I had to stop for a day or two because of the heat. Later I ended up walking through winter and had the opposite problem!”

Eamonn, whose girlfriend Vienna joined him for the first half of his journey (but wearing shoes), says he feels like his feet got stronger and weaker at the same time.

He explained: “There was a constant tug of war between the soles getting thicker and getting worn away in places because of lots of road walking. But they were in surprisingly good condition - people would often ask to see my soles, and they were usually expecting them to look a lot worse!

“It only took a week or so for the soles to get better, as the skin regenerates quite quickly when I'm not walking. I did unfortunately stub one of my toes badly enough to get a small fracture, just a week before the end, and that took over a month to heal.”

Read about more records like this in our Adventure and Epic Journeys section.

Eamonn’s entire journey just took over a year. He started in Istanbul before heading northwest into Bulgaria, then on to Romania, Hungary and Austria.

“It was more direct after that,” he added, “through Germany to France, then England, Wales and finally Ireland, and on to my hometown of Claremorris.

“I plotted out a route beforehand, and I more or less followed its general direction, but it acted as more of a loose guideline and while I was walking I would have the following few days planned out at a time. It was hard to estimate exactly, but I was fairly sure I'd walk over 6,000 km - still, I was pretty pleased with the final result!”

Seeing a man walking down the road without his shoes on is bound to turn a few heads.

Eamonn said: “I got thousands of weird looks, anyway! But that's something you get used to quite quickly. In some cases I was walking through very rural areas that don't get a lot of visitors, which in itself made me stand out.

“But people were mostly just curious, and everyone that approached me and spoke to me was friendly. I was honestly surprised that I didn't have more trouble with shops and restaurants along the way, as I didn't have any shoes with me at all, but thankfully that was only an issue a handful of times.”

Eamonn was blown away by the kindness of strangers throughout his journey, and is particularly grateful to a family who helped him after he was bitten by a dog.

He said: “One encounter that springs to mind was near the start, in a town called Süloğlu in northwestern Türkiye. Just the day before, a dog bit me on the backside, so I needed a rabies shot, and as luck would have it there was a small hospital in the town.

“But I didn't even make it past the first house in town without getting invited in for coffee and breakfast by a Turkish man, meeting his daughter-in-law and grandkids. And before I left, the granddaughter drew me a little map of the town showing me where the hospital was!”

As for taking on another record-breaking challenge, Eamonn says he’s still recovering from this one after a whole year on the road… but he’d never say never.