The World's Largest Hand-Drawn Maze...Almost

If you are a fan of doodling, you’ve probably hand-drawn a maze at some point in your life, right? I know I have, but I’ve never drawn any kind of maze like this before. Just to give you an idea about how big this will be when it’s finished, it will take the solver around 40 hours just to get from the beginning to the end. It’s conceivable that the person solving it could spend an hour on the wrong path before discovering that it’s not the right way to get to the end.

Joe Wos, a professional cartoonist, hopes to set the first Guinness World Record for the largest hand-drawn maze. In order for Guinness to accept his submission, he has to follow their rules which means it has to be solvable, he has to be the only person who draws it, and it has to be at least 10 square meters. In addition to that, he has to have five people watching him each time he works on it. Wow, that’s serious business. If all goes according to plan, he will finish it by the end of this month and get in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest hand-drawn maze.

It didn’t occur to me how complicated it would be to draw this maze until I started reading about it all. Since this isn’t like the hand-drawn mazes I used to create on paper restaurant napkins where I could just start over if I made a mistake, Joe has to be very strategic about his drawing. He told the Huffington Post, “One path has to remain open, but I have to keep about five paths available just in case I draw myself into a wrong path.” Can you imagine getting to the end and realizing you goofed up, and it’s not solvable? Joe says this requires his complete concentration, which now makes complete sense to me. He says that at this point, he’s 99.4% sure it can be solved. About 20 people have offered to attempt solving it. After this is finished and someone solves it, Joe will get his well-deserved world record.