Official

23 states in 24 hours: Michigan engineers claim road-trip record

‘Engineers are easily sidetracked by interesting-but-terrible ideas’

Two bow tie-wearing Michigan engineers say they broke the world record this month for most states visited in 24 hours, after they visited 23 states in 23 hours and 8 minutes.

Aaron Frantz and Eric Hausman are friends from their alma mater, the University of Michigan, where they both worked on the school's solar car team and competed in the World Solar Challenge in Australia in 2013. That's partly what inspired the stunt. "Engineers are easily sidetracked by interesting-but-terrible ideas," the two explain on their website.

Their achievement would break the previous record of 22 states set in 2015 by Norwegian adventurer Gunnar Garfors and his entourage, though it's not clear where this record is kept, who will certify it or when.

Frantz and Hausman logged their journey using two GPS devices, a dash cam, cabin cam and geo-tagged pictures in each state. They took three flights — from Detroit to Providence, R.I.; Dulles (Va.) to Charlotte, N.C.; and Charlotte to Memphis, Tenn. — and used four cars, helped along the way by friends and others.



They took advantage of the tightly packed cluster of states in the Northeast and made use of areas where multiple state borders converge in order to visit the most number of states in the shortest amount of time. The trip started in a corn field where Michigan, Indiana and Ohio meet and ended at the border of Illinois and Kentucky.

Coincidentally, we featured Eric Hausman in a "Translogic" episode on the UM's solar car and the World Solar Challenge back in 2013. Interesting stuff. Here's that video:

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