How you, like this German guy, can become a birthday time traveler and keep the party going
Some people have awesome birthdays, but few make it last long enough to set a Guinness World Record. Sven Hagemeier did by hopping on planes and crossing time zones long enough to make his birthday last almost two days.
Hagemeier of Leipzig, Germany, notched a 46-hour record-breaking birthday last year when he turned 26 on Aug. 4.
He did it by flying from Auckland, New Zealand, to Brisbane, Australia, and then to Honolulu. Hagemeier crossed the International Dateline once to go “back” in time and even squeezed in a quick hour and a half sightseeing tour in Auckland, according to Guinness World Records.
Touching down at midnight in Hawaii, where his wife was waiting to greet him, was the biggest birthday gift of all; Hagemeier knew he had clinched the record.
Of course, that record relies on calculating local times where he touched down during his travels. The Guardian estimates he spent a much shorter 13 hours and 10 minutes in the air.
And he’s not the only birthday time traveler either. When Paris Hilton turned 21 in 2002, she had five bashes in different cities and time zones to prolong the partying, each carrying a price tag of $75,000, according to “Paris Hilton: A Biography.”
Guinness says Hagemeier beat out Nargis Bhimji of Karachi, Parkistan, who in 1998 celebrated her birthday for 35 hours and 25 minutes after flying from Karachi to Singapore and then to San Francisco.
Guinness keeps lots of unusual travel records: the fastest time to travel to all London Underground stations (16 hours, 14 minutes, 10 seconds set in 2015) and fastest time to travel to all New York City subway stations (21 hours, 49 minutes, 35 seconds, also set in 2015).
Oh, by the way, this year Hagemeier stayed home and celebrated his 27th birthday with family and friends.
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