Many of us have grand ambitions. Whether it’s trying to set a world speed record or simply drifting for hours on end. But for a pair of University of Michigan alumni, they had something else in their sights. Could they break the record for the most states visited in a 24 hour period?
Well over the weekend of May 5-6, Aaron Frantz and Eric Hausman did just that.
Starting off at the Ohio-Indiana border, they set off on their quest.
After traveling to Detroit Metro Airport, they caught a flight to TF Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island. From there they did a loop of several North-Eastern states before making the run south to Virginia. Once they reached Old Dominion, they hopped a flight from Dulles just outside Washington D.C.
A short time later they landed at Charlotte Douglas International in North Carolina. There a friend picked them up for a quick ride to South Carolina. After snagging a quick photo, they immediately headed back toward the airport in Charlotte.
Once again they boarded their last flight of the record attempt. Touching down at Memphis International in Tennessee they checked off state number 18.
After picking up another rental car, they checked off the remaining five states.
The last state they entered was Kentucky at 12:38 pm EST. With a total time of 23:08, they’d hit 23 states in a 24 hour period.
This broke the previous record set by Gunnar Garfors in 2015. During that run the Norwegian notched 22 states in his record-setting run. Like Frantz and Hausman, he and his team also relied on air travel to make it possible.
If you’re wondering what the record is for most states visited without air travel, we have you covered. In 2003, Barry Stiefel drove through 19 states in a 24 hour period while behind the wheel of a rental Mercury Grand Marquis. We guess if you’re going to sit behind the wheel for an extreme length of time, comfort is your main goal.
There’s no word on whether Frantz and Hausman are submitting their attempt to the Guinness World Records folks. However, they did log all the data — they’re engineers after all. With a pile of evidence from two GPS units, a dash cam, cabin cam, and geo-tagged photos, we don’t see any reason they shouldn’t.
If you want to see the pair’s journey, you can check out their website State Record Run. There are even more photos and videos from their record run on their Twitter account.
You can also check out the video below highlighting their trip:
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