Two friends and travel enthusiasts have broken the World Record for Most Countries Visited in 24 hours, setting foot in 30 countries
At a glance:
- Cédric Waldburger, 34, and Rainer-Marc Frey, 59, visited 30 countries in 24 hours, setting a new world record on August 23, 2022.
- The Swiss entrepreneurs will be submitting their project to both RecordSetter.com and Guinness World Records.
- The trip was an adventure planned throughout the pandemic, taking Waldburger and Frey two and half years to coordinate the trips by car, taxi, helicopter and private plane.
- Each ton of CO2 produced on the trip will be offset twice.
As the “revenge travel summer” eases into Fall, friends Cédric Waldburger and Rainer-Marc Frey have outdone every other European tourist by travelling to 30 countries in Europe in a single day – and set a new world record.
On Tuesday, August 23, 2022, the two started by car in Poland and crossed into Slovakia and the Czech Republic – checking off the first three countries on their list. From there, the two Swiss founders and investors hopped borders travelling by car, taxi, helicopter and plane, crossing European borders at record pace.
“Travel and aviation is a passion that connects us. The challenge of planning such a long and complicated trip to visit 30 countries within 24 hours was what appealed to us,” said Frey.
In order for a country to count toward the world record, Frey and Waldburger had to put both feet on the ground, not just drive through or land on the runway and take off again.
“The biggest challenge in breaking this record comes from navigating the various aviation and other regulations in the different countries,” said Waldburger. In all, planning took more than two and a half years.
It took them 14 hours to break the previous world record, which was set at 19 countries in 2014 by Gunnar Garfors, when they arrived in San Marino to make it 20 countries, but they still had 10 hours in their day, and so they continued on their journey by plane to Dubrovnik, making Croatia country number 21.
More than two years of planning between corona isolations all paid off when their plane landed in Budapest, Hungary, at 11:15 p.m. In all, Waldburger and Frey put both feet on the ground in 30 European countries.
They celebrated their accomplishment with a drink at 1 a.m. – and a long sleep-in the next day.
The 30 countries they visited were: Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Italy, San Marino, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Hungary.
In Bulgaria, country 26, the crew was greeted by the local airport staff who had heard about the world record they were setting and greeted them with a certificate.
“We’ve gone through countless iterations to find the most efficient routing,” Waldburger said. “We knew that the record could only be achieved in Europe, where the density of countries is higher than anywhere else.”
After beating the previous record by 11 countries, the experienced and passionate travellers believe it’s not impossible to beat their record – but they’re pretty confident it will take some time until someone succeeds, given the time they invested in optimizing their route.
“It all came down to the details,” said Waldburger. The Swiss entrepreneurs had to consider airport opening times, finding a crew that had all necessary certificates to fly the required number of hours and perform the required number of starts and landings in the time frame. The weather, permits, local regulations, customs, and fuel availability contributed to their logistical planning.
One concern they’ve had from the start was CO2 consumption and the impact the project would have on the environment. After carefully considering various options, they decided to compensate twice for every ton of CO2 produced via certificates and projects on myclimate.org.
While their trip has yet to be officially entered into the books, they will be submitting it to both Guinness World Records and RecordSetter.com with pictures and GPS tracks in all countries. Their flights could also be tracked live via flightradar24.com.
