When I was there, it was Californians the locals were all complaining about.
“Californian” meaning anyone from anywhere other than Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas, Alberta, or Sasketchewan.
Then how are you supposed to measure this?
If a road is 6" away but you do not notice it for some reason can we say you were 20 miles away from anything because you walked directly away from it?
I can see living in a cabin with no phone or even no electricity.
But who lives in Arkansas with no vehicle?
Do they eat only what they can hunt and grow on their own?
Never go into town to buy a sack of flour?
You should visit Arkansas.
I have. Thrice. Last time, I started going blind. But I don’t blame the water.
Back to the question. A point between the east ends of Joshua Tree NP and Mojave NP, about equidistant from Needles, Cadiz, and Vidal, would be force a crow to fly at least 25 miles to any townsite. A west-central point in Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta NWR between Organ Pipe Cactus NM and Yuma looks like about 35 miles from anywhere. And a point in the Auburn Cliffs below Grand Canyon NP may meet the 50-mile test.
I am no longer fit for such hikes. This exercise is purely mental.
By distance from towns (or other points of interest), like the OP says.
I agree. If you are 6" from a road you aren’t 20 miles away from anything. But the answer “See post 18” was not answering the question you responded to.
The problem is if you are lost in the wilderness you have no idea which direction has the closest something. Is it better to take an outward spiral approach or better to walk in a straight line? It really depends on whether there is a chance you can walk 100s of miles and never find anything and if you are always within 10 or 20 miles of something.
In most cases, I would follow the water. Go downhill. Eventually you will encounter a bridge or something. Maybe even a town. You can be pretty sure the water doesn’t go in a circle. (The biggest problem with wandering around lost.)
Problems:
The terrain in the immediate vicinity of a creek is often rougher than places farther away. You have to “approximate” going downhill, working out where the creek is heading and finding a smoother route. (The Oregon Trail mostly kept quite a few miles away from big rivers like the Columbia and Snake.)
In some areas, the water ends up in a endorheic basin. You reach the end and you’re at a salt pan, salt lake, etc. Places that generally don’t have people around.
It might be an interesting corollary question, though. If you were in the Owyhee outback, you would have to go some fifty or sixty miles to reach some sort of town – but there are only a few that are that close, and if you fail to head straight for one, you end up going a lot farther.
The related question would be formed: how far could one go in a straight-ish line (consistent vector, adapting for terrain) without coming close to a town (close meaning, say, three miles, which is, I think, about how far one can see on level ground).
Could one start in that corner of the desert and head in a direction that would take them to the Pacific without encountering a town?