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https:\/\/www.idonate.ie\/fundraiser\/BarefootAcrossEurope Barefoot Across Europe 2025 \u2014 Eamonn Keaveney’s journey from Istanbul to Claremorris<\/p>\n\n This walk I\u2019m doing, barefoot, is on the back of a 2,000-kilometre walk I did in 2016 around Ireland \u2014 at the time a Guinness World Record for the longest barefoot walk. That was for Pieta House, for suicide and self-harm prevention.\n <\/p>\n
\n Ever since finishing that I wanted to take on another big walk. I considered walking across the US but there was something not quite right about it. Sometimes an idea has a sort of pull \u2014 walking across America didn\u2019t, it never fit.\n <\/p>\n
\n I was living with a bunch of people in Drumcondra, most from Brazil. In a random discussion one day about how many continents there are, they understood five, with America being all one from Canada down to Chile \u2014 and Eurasia being all the one continent too.\n <\/p>\n
\n It made me think of where Europe meets Asia, historically held to be Istanbul, Turkey. I thought: ‘that\u2019s the walk \u2014 if I walk from Istanbul to Ireland I\u2019ll have walked the continent of Europe’. These things take a lot of planning, a lot of money, it\u2019s a self-funded trip. I felt a bit daunted, but it felt right.\n <\/p>\n
\n I started walking barefoot at college, I heard it had health benefits. I\u2019m not a barefoot purist, there\u2019s plenty good reason for wearing shoes… Doing a barefoot challenge attracts attention to the cause. I\u2019m doing it for Jigsaw, the youth mental health charity, and Friends of the Earth.\n <\/p>\n
\n I started on March 4 in Turkey. I\u2019ve gone through Bulgaria, Romania. Hungary took a long time \u2014 I wanted to do some trails, which I enjoyed. I\u2019ve come through Austria. I\u2019ve done more than 3,800km. The only border with a lot of checks was Turkey into Bulgaria. It\u2019s a nice milestone, moving into another country \u2014 another chunk\u2019s behind you, you\u2019ve a sense of achievement.\n <\/p>\n
\n I\u2019m not going to sugar-coat it, it\u2019s been difficult. The very first day I stubbed both big toes, cut them badly. Just days before coming into Bulgaria, going past a farmyard a very angry dog bit me on the backside… a frightening enough experience. Luckily I was close to a town with a hospital, they were very good to me. I had to get a full course of four rabies jabs over two weeks. It made life awkward, making sure I was passing a hospital at specific times.\n <\/p>\n
\n My feet aren\u2019t in the best state \u2014 worn down from a lot of walking on tarmac recently. Just as rubber on shoes wears away, so does skin on feet. It grows back, stronger, but doing too much mileage quickly wears it down too fast, it doesn\u2019t have time to regenerate. I\u2019ve had to slow the pace.\n <\/p>\n
\n Gravel\u2019s the worst, it slows you down, batters the flesh. Any kind of muddy dirt track, ideally dry, that\u2019s the nicest but you won\u2019t get anywhere fast. Hungary had a good bit of that.\n <\/p>\n
\n My average daily distance is around 25km, the longest day was 40km, the shortest five.\n <\/p>\n
\n I\u2019ve been camping a lot. I\u2019m mildly terrified that winter\u2019s coming, the cold. I don\u2019t know how feasible camping will be\u2026 I tell myself I\u2019ve made it past obstacles already, chances are I\u2019ll make it past the next ones.\n <\/p>\n
\n Why Jigsaw? It provides free services to people least capable financially of accessing services. Where Pieta House helps at the crisis point, Jigsaw helps before people get to crisis point \u2014 both do much-needed work.\n <\/p>\n
\n And Friends of the Earth \u2014 I\u2019ve seen in real life the effects of climate change. Walking through Hungary, the country\u2019s drying out. They\u2019ve had several heatwaves, people told me this used to happen for a week, now it\u2019s happening for three months. The earth\u2019s so dry in places you see huge cracks in the ground. Many streams and rivers are reduced to a trickle or gone entirely.\n <\/p>\n
\n Walking every day I\u2019ve a lot of time to think. Reflections on the nature of people mainly. No matter where I go, what country, people have been very helpful, offering me food, water, lifts I had to refuse.\n <\/p>\n
\n Also shoes \u2014 outside a shop in Bulgaria, a bunch of men gathered talking to me. We couldn\u2019t communicate much, but one went off on his moped. He came come back with a pair of shoes! I had a job convincing him I didn\u2019t need them!\n <\/p>\n
\n Just yesterday in a caf\u00e9, I went to pay for a coffee, a pastry and they said it was on the house.\n <\/p>\n
\n My partner, Ellie walked with me for six months \u2014 wearing shoes \u2014 as far as Vienna. I miss her. It\u2019s more difficult on your own.\n <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s probably changed me in subtle ways. I\u2019ve certainly been struck by the common humanity of everyone. And there\u2019s a sort of quiet strength in doing something you weren\u2019t sure you\u2019d be able for, and overcoming it.\n <\/p>\n
\n I\u2019m looking at crossing Germany now, then heading north to Calais, taking the boat to Britain, heading to Wales, Rosslare \u2014 I\u2019ll be on the home stretch then. I\u2019ll go to Dingle, Europe\u2019s most western point, and then to Claremorris, County Mayo.\n <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s the trip of a lifetime, just with sore feet.\n <\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.idonate.ie\/fundraiser\/BarefootAcrossEurope Barefoot Across Europe 2025 \u2014 Eamonn Keaveney’s journey from Istanbul to Claremorris<\/p>\n