This reminds me of something I saw on a backpacking blog sometime last year. Project Remote, a family that's finding and hiking to all the "most remote" place in each state of the USA.
Here's some of the statistics:
The most surprising one to me is: Least Remote: Kansas (0.8 miles from a road).
As someone who lives in the very densely populated greater Boston area, Kansas doesn't exactly strike me as a prime candidate for not being able to get away from roads.
Their website seems to have been commandeered by some Indonesian online casino scam thing in late 2024 and is now offline. I'm unsure of the ongoing state of the project.
I'm extremely surprised that Wyoming is more remote than Alaska! I wouldn't think Alaska has that many back-country roads running through it.
Edit: they have another page describing Alaska. It seems that the linked page might only describe the contiguous US? But also, wow. This seems stupid:
> Thoughts of roadless Alaska came to mind and our amazing, wild trek through the Brooks Range of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We hired a bush plane to drop us off in a nameless valley. At 50 miles from the nearest village or road, we were awed with excitement and healthy fear. We agreed to meet up 9 days and 35 miles later at a flat spot where he could land on the tundra marked by a heap of moose antlers. He looked at us awfully cock-eyed when we told him we had no satellite phone. He asked, “well, why not?” We told him that we were deliberately here to remove ourselves from civilization and contact with it. Watching our pilot fly away, we realized we were as far from towns and roads, and therefore, humans as we could possibly imagine.
I've been to this area and being close to a road does not mean human contact. I drove on that road for nine hours and saw a handful of people/buildings.
"Towns" on a map might literally be a single home up there. It's as remote as can be even alongside utility roads.
Uncle_Brumpus · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240621094642/https://www.projectremote.com/remote-statistics/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20240621094642/https://www.proje...
The most surprising one to me is: Least Remote: Kansas (0.8 miles from a road).
As someone who lives in the very densely populated greater Boston area, Kansas doesn't exactly strike me as a prime candidate for not being able to get away from roads.
Their website seems to have been commandeered by some Indonesian online casino scam thing in late 2024 and is now offline. I'm unsure of the ongoing state of the project.
sebmellen · · focus · HN ↗
Edit: they have another page describing Alaska. It seems that the linked page might only describe the contiguous US? But also, wow. This seems stupid:
> Thoughts of roadless Alaska came to mind and our amazing, wild trek through the Brooks Range of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We hired a bush plane to drop us off in a nameless valley. At 50 miles from the nearest village or road, we were awed with excitement and healthy fear. We agreed to meet up 9 days and 35 miles later at a flat spot where he could land on the tundra marked by a heap of moose antlers. He looked at us awfully cock-eyed when we told him we had no satellite phone. He asked, “well, why not?” We told him that we were deliberately here to remove ourselves from civilization and contact with it. Watching our pilot fly away, we realized we were as far from towns and roads, and therefore, humans as we could possibly imagine.
staplers · · focus · HN ↗
"Towns" on a map might literally be a single home up there. It's as remote as can be even alongside utility roads.