Randal Olson's optimized route hits 18 European countries in 24h38m, chasing the land record

randal_olson · x · 2026-11-13

Data scientist Randal S. Olson used route optimization to chase the world record of visiting the most European countries by land in 24 hours (18 countries, set in 2014).

Key findings:

Simulating the 2014 record route in its published country order gives 24h54m; starting from the Netherlands and reordering the same 18 countries cuts it to 24h38m, saving 16 minutes.
A 19th country (heading south to Greece) would take 27h47m.
Earlier runs in 2012 and 2014 averaged 3% faster than model estimates; applying that, the new route could take 23h49m with 11 minutes to spare, budgeting 2 minutes per country stop for documentation.
Main risk: a single short border queue after the clock starts could erase the margin.
Full route maps, stop lists and downloads are on the site, with an open challenge to beat the estimate.

Original post →

Randal Olson's optimized route hits 18 European countries in 24h38m, chasing the land record

More from Fun