When were you most isolated from the rest of humanity, in terms of time or distance? Obvious recent events have me thinking about this. I’m curious about your stories of the furthest distance or longest time away from the rest of the world. No hard and fast rules, just tell about when you (or a small group) were most isolated from everyone else – how long and how far away were you?
For me, nothing earth-shattering. I think my time record is 4 days alone camping on a small island (with my dog). For distance, there were a few times delivering planes where I’m sure I was 10 miles from the nearest human for brief intervals.
I’ve been in some pretty far-off places, but always with a few other people. I’m not sure I’ve ever in my life been further than a few hundred yards from all other people.
I’ve lived (am still living) near off-grid in rural Arkansas. It would be a long walk outta here.
Of course my family is here. So not absolutely alone.
After my children grew up and left and Mr.Wrekker would go on extended hunting/fishing trips, I spent many days alone here. 13 days was the longest, I can remember.
I can be perfectly happy alone.
A bit like you Beck. Just my Wife and I and two dogs though.
Colorado Mountains, nearest neighbor is 1/2 mile away, and they are part timers. We had a land line but finally canceled it because it became so unreliable. I put a cell phone antenna on house and that does quite well. Two Sat dishes, one for Internet and one for TV.
Closest town is the highest incorporated town in the US. It’s 4 miles away. Downhill. It has ~ 400 people.
We still have tons of snow, so spring is a while away. My wife still snowshoes to walk the dogs. I should get on tractor to break up the snow around where we park so it melts a little faster with the coming spring/mud season. Sort of pointless but may do it just to get out for a while.
We are able to work remotely over Sat dish, but it’s as expected very slow because of latency. It’s all good though.
I guess we where already self isolated before this happened. Not a heck of a lot has changed except working from home.
I believe the all time social distancing record actually belongs to Command Module Pilot Al Worden. Somewhere I saw an article ranking the CM pilots in “farthest from humanity” order, but I can’t find it anymore.
Back in '77, The Master weighed in on where one should go Earthside to win the prize. But you’d need a fair-sized yacht to manage it.
Vacationing on St Martin, we rented a tandem kayak (aka divorce boat) from Kali on Friar’s Bay. Most people who rent kayaks take them out a hundred yards or so, then come back. we decided to push things a bit.
From St Martin the island of Anquilla is about a 16 mile ferry ride. We decided to see if we could do it in a kayak. About midway we realized we should turn around. We didn’t have our passports, so technically we could get into trouble for being illegals, plus we were getting a little hungry and tired. There was nobody anywhere near us. We could see St Martin and Anguilla, but they were both pretty far away.
For comparison, people have paddled from Cuba to Florida, roughly 100 miles, and that’s the Atlantic Ocean. The Caribbean was tossing us around a bit, yet it’s nothing compared to the Atlantic.
Physically away from other people: Not much to offer here. Not interacting with a lot of people: Week-long silent retreat without a sangha. Maybe two other people in cabins and a handful of staff, none of whom I interacted with except to write a note asking for an extra serving of rice to be left for me, for example. One a small ship in Antarctica for about two weeks, so a limited number of people around. Plenty of people while walking across Spain, but few interactions. Currently, except for my lovely wife and a few shouted conversations across yards with neighbors, my interaction has been remote with only a handful of exceptions (like curbside grocery pickup) since March 13.
I took a bike ride around Grand Teton National Park in late winter, before it was open to vehicular traffic. Once I passed the ranger station, I didn’t see another person for around 6 hours. I had packed my lunch, and just enjoyed the isolation.
It was a very, very unusual experience. I don’t think i’ve ever felt that isolated - except for the very rare airplane that I could hear, it ws easy to believe that I was the last person on earth - there was no evidence of any other people that I could detect.
It depends on how large a group. I was on a sailing ship in the Atlantic for three weeks. There were about 30 of us. In one sense, we were quite crowded, but there was also very little contact from the outside world. I wondered how big a news event there could be in the world without me hearing about it. We stopped one afternoon and went swimming, about 1,000 miles away from land.
After our fist landfall, most of the crew trainees left and we sailed another three days to Grenada. When I was off watch I had the whole salon to myself, so things were much quieter. We were also never out of sight of land for that part of the trip, so it didn’t feel nearly as isolated.
I did a solo hike across the Grand Canyon. On the second day, I probably went about ten hours without seeing anyone.
I’ve spent hours at The Racetrack in Death Valley and the Great Gallery in Utah (each around 30 miles from the nearest paved road) when no one else was there. Both of those are fairly regularly visited though. The most “out-in-the-boonies” non-tourist place I’ve been to was on an arrow head hunting trip with a 4x4 group in the middle of Nevada about 2 hours from Benton Hot Springs on some old mining roads.
I reserved Snowbird Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park for 2 days a few years ago and at nighttime I was probably several miles away from the nearest person. I did see hikers during the day, though, and absolute furthest I probably got as the crow flies was 3-something miles since I’m sure someone drove down the main highway through the park during the night.
I’m sure I’ve been more isolated somewhere on a long isolated road but I think this is my maximum if you take both time and distance into consideration.
The furthest I’ve been from all other people would probably be a solo walking trip I took in New Zealand, in the Kahurangi national park. I walked for 2 days (camping out in a hut) and saw 2 guys out hunting deer on the second day, that was it. It was here, ish, and it was winter, so dead quiet. I took another overnight walk elsewhere in the same park which was probably not far off the same distance away from anyone else. Gorgeous place.
On my first field project I camped for a couple of weeks alone at a glacial lake in the Trinity Alps of northern California. Some other hikers probably passed through, but sometimes I think I might have been the only person (or at least among very few) in 100 square miles.
Since the OP allows for small groups, a few times in Panama I’ve backpacked with one other companion and a guide to places that were probably at least 10 miles from the nearest Indian village, for several days at a time.
When I worked for the New Zealand Wildlife Service, I often camped for several days alone on the island where I worked where the only other people were the ranger and his wife. Sometimes I was camped on the other side of the island from their house, 10 miles away. I also regularly camped with small parties on remote islands or high mountain valleys accessible only by helicopter.
A few years ago I did a solo trip up in Olympic National Park taking a circuitous route from Whiskey Bend to Sol Duc Falls. I’d have to pull out my journal to see the exact route, but it was six or seven mostly rainy days, and I didn’t run into anyone from the second day to my last night camp up at Heart Lake, so approximately five days. I’ve been longer without talking to or otherwise interacting with people but that is the longest I can recall being physically distant enough not to see anyone.
Now, the most remote place that I’ve ever been while not completely alone would probably be a tiny flyspeck island in Georgian Bay, that wasn’t even labeled even on the most detailed maps we had, visited by my Scout troop on a canoeing trip. There were about 20 of us on the island, but no other humans for as far as the eye could see. We figured that, since it didn’t already have a name on the map, it fell to us to name it, so that’s now Troop 515 Island.
On the corridor trails that’s usually extremely unlikely, unless you’re on the N Kaibab in winter. Off trail, though - numerous times I’ve gone a week or more without meeting anyone, although you will see people from a distance in boats on the river.
Hiked inPuckaskwa – first night there was someone in the nearby campsite, but the second night we had the south end of Picture Rock Harbor to ourselves. Possible some one was at the north end or White River, but it was late in the season.
I’ve been on some solo hikes, but I’m guessing I was never more than a mile or 2 from someone else.
We flew into Finger Lake in Alaska on a ski plane and spent several nights there. We were in our own cabin and were able to go cross-country skiing or out on a snow machine. Pretty much on our own much of the time other than for meals.
We spent a lot of time with just our tour guide while on safari in both Botswana and Tanzania. Just us and thousands of migrating animals was exhilarating.
One of my jobs in Alaska took me to remote radar sites, literally on the edge of the continent. Some of the sites only have four people, so if you want to be alone with your thoughts while staring out toward Russia, it’s certainly possible.
We spent a night during winter at a Forest Service cabin in Alaska. We hiked in, towing a sled with our camping gear and food. Sat at a rustic table reading Robert Service poems by the light of a propane lantern, while a fire crackled in the potbelly stove, then listened to wolves off in the distance.
There were many times that I spent time standing in a stream in Alaska, fishing and just enjoying the quiet and the surrounding mountains and forest; or sitting in the middle of a huge blueberry patch, filling my berry bucket, while my wife did likewise some distance away and nobody else anywhere to be seen.
You must take into account how slow I was. I got it into my head that I could do the whole hike in two days, with an overnight at Phantom Ranch. I left Cottonwood Campground at around noon and don’t remember seeing anyone until I got to the North Kaibab trailhead at about 11:00. Anybody with any sense was off the trail or way ahead of me.
