Sort of a half-bucket list half-serious travel question. I’m looking to travel to the most remote and/or exotic locales in the US (including Territories). Got any ideas? What areas should be on my list?
For the purposes of this question, I’m looking for good subjective opinions that can, and should, consider things other than or in addition to absolute raw distance from major cities, population size, distinct population demographics by numbers, etc. and identify places that emphasize social isolation, cultural distinctions, Non-English speaking communities or other concepts that just make the places exotic or interesting. The places don’t have to be islands, and don’t absolutely have to be inhabited, but there should be some reasonable possibility of traveling there. Other than perhaps Midway Atoll, the US Minor Outlying Islands are mostly out because they are so difficult to get to, not only because of lack of infrastructure but because you need permits to enter that appear to be hard to get.
For example, other than perhaps San Francisco, are there any “gay towns”?
Supai, Arizona. Although it’s adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park and it only takes a couple hours to get close to it from Flagstaff, Wikipedia calls it the most isolated community in the continental U.S. You can only get there by helicopter or foot/animal (around 10 miles) once you reach the plateau it’s located under. Mail goes out by mule train every week.
Culturally, they aren’t isolated more than the average Indian tribe since they make money from tourism, (combined of course with the differences from city life that come from being in an isolated small town.)
I have a feeling this physical isolation is partly on purpose, because on some maps there is a Jeep trail that leads to Supai. So there may have been a road there at one point that could have been improved but at some point they decided to just close it. Then again it may have been from the Grand Canyon park itself and I think there was a legal challenge the Supai Tribe had to go through to get as much land as they currently have back.
Try Kaktovik, Barter Island, Alaska. Remote, Inupiat village, need to fly in on a rather small aircraft. Polar bears roam freely and come in to feed on discarded whale carcasses. There’s a place to stay called, laughingly, the Waldo Arms Hotel. It’s a series of welded together shipping containers, but is comfortable, and the food isn’t bad.
To answer this part specifically, Rehoboth Beach, DE is well known for having a large gay presence. A lot of shops are gay owned and I believe part of the beach is specifically a gay hotspot. Not that the whole town isn’t, but you know what I mean.
Now, while I’m at it I might as well mention Punkin Chunkin, the Apple Scrapple festival, and muskrat sandwiches, all part of southern DE culture. Really, anything south of the canal in DE is going to be a whole different world than northern DE. Delaware isn’t remote by any stretch of the imagination but I figured I would mention those cultural high points just in case they tickled your fancy.
Beaver River is an extremely isolated community in the Adirondack region of upstate New York. It’s mostly a summer resort but it has a handful of year-round residents. The “town” isn’t connected to the power grid - it uses generators for electricity. There’s also no roads that reach the town - you have to get to it by boat in the summer or snowmobile in the winter.
I’ve heard that Columbia, Missouri has the highest per capita gay population of any city other than the Bay Area. Is that true? I used to live in that region and visited Columbia many times, and didn’t see evidence of it but maybe it’s because I wasn’t looking.
Right now on another website, we’re having a big discussion about Barrow, Alaska because one of the posters is thinking about taking a job there. That place is awfully isolated.
Kaskaskia, Illinois, can only be accessed via State Route 15 from US 61 - in Missouri.
Grand Isle, Louisiana, can only be accessed via State Route 1 - a three hour drive from New Orleans. Nice beaches and the warmest water I’ve ever been in.
From the link, our classiest President seems to think Bohemian Grove is gay:
Despite what the movie/comic says, Barrow gets way more than 30 days of night. Also, parts of Alaska and elsewhere have pockets of Old Believers, who split from Russian Orthodoxy for reasons of, among other things, the need to cross yourself with two fingers and not three.