This was supposed to be a regular family vacation. (*regular* is a highly subjective and personal term because…)
My family and I had been on a mission to visit all 63 U.S. National Parks. The most remote one to get to is the National Park of American Samoa, which is on a tiny island chain in the South Pacific. While trying to figure out the best way to get there, my wife found a travel hack: it was actually cheaper to fly all the way to Australia and take a 15-day Disney cruise back to Hawaii that happened to stop in American Samoa along the way.
But 15 days at sea is a long time. With 11 days at sea in the South and North Pacific, I decided I needed to break a world record.
The record of choice? Most cocktail sticks snapped in one minute.
The Setup
I’d actually broken the sister record for cocktail picks before, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. I set up a long table and lined up 100 diamond-cut toothpicks, each one exactly 6.6 centimeters long, laying them flat with the ends off the edge so I could grab them easily.
What started as me messing around quickly turned into a full-blown event on the ship. A crowd of passengers gathered to watch, and I had to recruit official timers and witnesses to make sure everything was completely legit. The ship’s onboard celebrity juggler, James Bustar, even stepped in to help judge.
The rules for this one are actually pretty annoying: If the two pieces don’t separate completely, meaning if even a tiny sliver of wood fiber keeps them connected, the whole toothpick is disqualified.
The countdown started, and I was off.
60 Seconds of Chaos
For one full minute, I just went to town on the pile, grabbing and snapping as fast as my hands could move. The room was electric, people were cheering, and wood fragments were flying.
When the timer hit 60, the table and the floor were a mess.
The worst part of this record is always the cleanup. We had to gather every broken piece, match the halves back together, and meticulously inspect each break to ensure they were clean cuts.
The record to beat was 58. Once we finished counting, my final score came out to 84 toothpicks cleanly broken in 60 seconds.
I didn’t just beat the old record; I cleared it by 26 toothpicks, which is about a 45% jump.
The Long Wait
The funny part is that Guinness World Records has such a massive backlog right now that even though I did this back in 2025, I’m still waiting on the official certificate to clear.
Either way, the trip was a massive success. We made it to American Samoa, which means my family and I officially checked off all 63 National Parks.
My name is David Rush. I try to break a world record every single week, even when I’m on vacation.
Want to see what record I tackle next? Stick around and subscribe to my channel for weekly updates!
