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Content warning: This article contains mentions of depression, addiction and thoughts of self-harm or suicide.
Cassie Aran and Lauren Lee, two best friends from Tampa, Florida, are attempting to set a Guinness world record so unique it has only been attempted once before — by them.
The pair of social media influencers are currently trying to trek roughly 700 miles across the eastern U.S., each driving a toy car and raising funds to help people struggling with their mental health.
And they started out from Philly.
Aran and Lee dreamed up this barely-believable quest back when they were kids.
“We always wanted to see how far they could go, but our parents at the time obviously wouldn’t let us even go out of the neighborhood,” Aran recalled. “So now that we’re adults, we had this crazy idea to see how far these things could actually go.”
Their first attempt at long-distance toy car travel was across the state of Florida in 2024, from the Friendship Fountain in Jacksonville to the southernmost tip of the continental U.S. in Key West, where they were greeted with a welcome party and the keys to the city.
That trip took about two months to travel about 600 miles. And the cars used barely held on till the end.
“My car was limping to the finish line. Like it barely made it,” Aran said. “It had to be pushed right after and it was unusable after that.”
That attempt didn’t make it into Guinness’ book. Aran said it was due to a dispute over a fee Guinness wanted for the record attempt, since the drivers were fundraising towards Best Friends Animal Society.
“Basically, we had a choice at that point, which was to either go for the record or to keep saving animals. We couldn’t have both,” she said “So, we decided to keep saving animals and to drop the record.”
This journey aims to cover an additional 100 miles in the same time span. Aran said it was hard to give a firm arrival date, since the trip is at the mercy of the weather, mechanical issues and anything else that might or has already come up. They hope to make it by the end of November.
The cars they are using are the Freddo Rocket 2-Seater Kids’ Ride-On, a model that can go up to 11 miles per hour. Each one has two 24-volt batteries, a 600-Watt brushless motor, rubber tubeless air tires, suspension and LED lights.
“It is the best toy car on the planet that you could find for this journey, but at the end of the day we are humbled all the time with the amount of things that go wrong along the road because we’re using it for something that it’s not normally for,” Aran said.
Freddo Toys is supporting the record attempt by shipping parts, providing a mechanic to call when things break down and paying Guinness’ fee.
The cars are very heavy and to get them over obstacles like fallen trees requires about 45 minutes of unloading and reloading them so they are light enough to be lifted. Though they plan to spend their nights in hotels, driving after dark has to happen when things often and inevitably go wrong.
To be recognized by Guinness World Records, their cars are carrying multiple trackers that are constantly monitoring their speed, pace and location. Whenever they stop and start, they need to find someone to sign their witness book for Guinness to verify with. Local police that have pulled them over are often the reliable signees for this book. They also have to keep a logbook of the entire process and a 10-minute video summarizing their entire day.
While they’ll be meeting some friends along the way — and making some new ones — no one is following them with supplies. So all they have is what they can fit in the cars.
The Florida trip was in sunny weather. This one is along the Northeast during fall and winter. Lee said that the sun has been a saving grace so far, but the nights are already getting too chilly for the hoodies they’re currently using.
“The other night when we got stuck, I was so cold, and I just kept thinking like, ‘Wow, we’re just starting. Like, how is this going to feel in two months up North? And I’m this cold now,’” Aran said. “I do think I’m going to need just a little bit more supplies, but unfortunately for me to get more supplies in my bag, something is going to have to go.”
The route took months of planning to figure out a workable route for the toy cars, one that had usable sidewalks and bike lanes.
“I’d be driving and (Lee) would be like, ‘Sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk — shoot the sidewalk ended.’ And we would have to back it up and test another route,” Aran explained. “So, it took weeks of sleeping in a car and just trying to find the perfect route to submit to Guinness World Records so they could see that this was truly possible.”
Earlier this year, Aran witnessed someone attempting to take their life at Niagara Falls, New York, which is why that was chosen as the finish line and why the pair are also fundraising for To Write Love On Her Arms, a nonprofit that helps people struggling with depression, addiction and thoughts of self-harm or suicide.
“This particular cause really touches us,” Aran said. “So after that happened we decided to choose this route as the main route, so that we can make a difference, so that happens to less people.”
The pair wanted to start from somewhere iconic and weighed up between Philadelphia, New York City and Washington D.C. The nation’s capital seemed too far a distance for the cars to make. Even though this record attempt is the first of its kind, they wanted to set it with the highest distance possible, and Philly felt like the spot to do that.
Aran went to Rowan University for school, so she was pretty familiar with trips into Philly. Thankfully, neither of them knew of the fate of of hitchBOT more than a decade ago, or the violence some Philadelphians have wrought on other small vehicles taking over the sidewalks.
The Philly portion of the trip was one of their shortest times in a single state. They got in their cars at Independence Mall and then made their way to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, where they crossed into Camden and New Jersey.
They described their relatively short stay as “amazing” and “magical” though.
“Every single person we passed just had a smile on their face, they had nothing but curiosity and positive good vibes, nothing but nice things to say,” Lee said. “We stopped for a long time on the Ben Franklin Bridge when we were between Philly and Jersey, just to take it in and, honestly, just take a moment to say goodbye to Philly because we really did enjoy it.”
Reaching Niagara Falls and setting the world record would be fulfilling a childhood dream for the pair, but the fact they are doing it with each other means more than the achievement.
“As nice as it is to get on a page in the book, it’s all these nights of being in the hotel with each other and on the road, only having each other as support,” Lee said. “That really is so much deeper than like us getting printed on a page.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. The hotline is staffed 24/7 by trained counselors who can offer free, confidential support.
The post Philly to Niagara Falls … in a toy car? Meet the women attempting this world record appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
