I’d think you could get more than 69 miles away from people in Mongolia or the Sahara or Siberia. Maybe even Alaska. Probably Antarctica too. Also, probably on the ocean in many places.
But Collins was orbiting the moon, which is about 2200 mi/3400 km in diameter – so about every hour or so he would be on the opposite side of the moon, 2200 mi away, and then 69 miles above that. So probably further from any other human than has been ever recorded.
For me, probably when I was driving through southeastern Colorado, on Highway 10 between Walsenburg and La Junta. It took about an hour, and I don’t think I saw anyone else on the road during that time. The area was also completely (to my knowledge) unpopulated.
In my case, probably never more than a few hundred feet. I wonder who among us could claim to have never been further away from another human than another Doper.
I assume the world record-holders on that one would be Abby and Brittany Hensel.
I’d say at least several miles.
I did a road trip out of Vegas one year, to visit Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater. I took a smaller highway on the leg between those two, and at one point decided to take one of the sideroads that turned off that highway into the desert. After a while, I parked and got out, and couldn’t see any sign of civilization other than the road for as far as I could see. It wasn’t all the way to the horizon due to some small hills, but as I said, it was at least a few miles in any direction.
Back in the 1980s, I lived on the Hi-line in northern Montana (towns strung at intervals along US Hwy. 2). The trip to Billings, MT, where I had business a couple times, was about 250 miles. One leg of the trip, southbound from Malta, MT, to the next sign of civilization, a lone diner at Grass Range, was 114 miles. There were no visible towns , settlements, or houses along the way. I think at one point, there was directional sign to a tiny town (as in less than 100 people) about 7 or 8 miles west of Hwy. 19, but you sure couldn’t see it. There were no other signs for other towns. I very seldom saw another car.
I knew a woman who had a panic attack driving that stretch because of the isolation. I completely understood. No radio reception, so I’d sing the Sixties hit, “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon.”
I think that’s the farthest I’ve been from other people when completely alone.
I suppose there must have been moments when he was 69 miles, plus the diameter of the moon, away from the rest of the party.
Edit. Oops I see you went on to mention that.
Whilst I am most interested in cases of actual solitude, if people want to mention cases where they went somewhere really remote as part of a very small team, I’m not gonna report them for messing up the thread or anything, so go ahead, anyone who has an interesting story about remoteness to tell…
Nitpick: He shares this record with Richard F. Gordon Jr. (Apollo XII - 45 lunar orbits), Stuart Allen Roosa (Apollo XIV, 34 lunar orbits), Alfred Merrill Worden (Apollo XV, 74 lunar orbits), Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (Apollo XVI, 64 lunar orbits), and Ronald Ellwin Ewans Jr. (Apollo XVII, from Wikipedia: “During the flight, Evans and five mice orbited the Moon a record 75 times as his two crewmates descended to and explored the surface. He is the last person to orbit the Moon alone and, at 147 hours and 43 minutes, holds the record for the most time spent in lunar orbit.”) And the distance to another human was in each case moon diameter + orbital height, that is slightly over 3,500 km.
As for me, looking at the map of Scottland, even five km seem optimistic, but possible.
Alexander Selkirk, the real-life inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, spent more than four years (1704-1709) as a castaway on a South Pacific island. That island is about 400 miles off the coast of Chile, so in terms of mere distance he wouldn’t break the record of Michael Collins and others in lunar orbit; but I guess the length of time he spent there all alone might partially make up for that to consider him for this record.
Many years ago during a motorcycle trip, I stopped on Utah highway 95 about ten miles south of Hanksville to take some pictures. I was there for a good 10 minutes, and I didn’t see anybody coming either direction while I was stopped. It’s empty desert for miles and miles on either side of the road, so it seems likely that during my stop, I was at least 10 miles away from anybody in any direction.
I once drive from LA to Palm desert, and i remember there being a long stretch of empty road. But there might have been a car just out of sight ahead or behind me. And it was a long time ago.
Hmm, more recently, i did some solo hiking in Umbria, Italy, and went to the top of a little mountain pretty far away from the nearest home. Maybe i was as much as a kilometer from others? Probably not, i encountered other hikers from time to time. I also did some solo driving in Italy. I avoided the toll roads, and the secondary roads i traveled on were surprisingly empty. I might have been a longer or two from others once or twice.
I took a solo road trip round northern Scotland when I was much younger.
Probably during the northwestern part of that I was at least several miles from the nearest person once or twice.
Oh, absolutely. I had to visit remote radar sites there as part of one of my jobs. Flew out in a small plane at lower altitudes and there was absolutely nothing resembling human habitation on the ground we passed over for hundreds of miles between Anchorage and coastal Alaska.
This fellow might be a contender:
The pilots who fly trans-Pacific cargo are often a couple thousand miles from land accompanied by just one other person who’s within arm’s length. So yin & yang. Doubtless there’s some ship (or sub) closer to them both than the nearest land, and perhaps as close as directly below them, so 6-ish miles away. And the occasional other airplane out there.
I’ve not done that, but I have taken an empty airplane across the middle of the Gulf of Mexico up to 300 miles from land. Enough other airplanes around there I was probably within 50, and maybe even 30 miles of somebody the whole time.
After we set aside the very few Apollo command module pilots who did solo lunar orbits while their pals were exploring the surface, the wackos who do solo transoceanic sailing are probably the true thread winners. But even then there are planes overhead and ships elsewhere on that ocean. Even if the sailor has no idea where they are.
I can’t think of an instance where I’ve been farther than shouting distance from another person.
Of note, even with this qualifier, the absolute record is still an Apollo astronaut (I think Collins, but it could have been on any of the missions): The one who stayed behind on the command module was, at times, the diameter of the Moon away from the two on the surface, and of course much further away yet from anyone else.
Even though I have traveled extensively in the less densely populated parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, and like to hike, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been even a quarter mile away from any person. For one thing I’m almost always with someone else.
There’s a section of woodlands I hike alone with my dog that is very lightly used, but looking at the satellite pictures a minimum of three or four houses on the perimeter of the woodland would need to be unoccupied for me to be 1/2 a mile from any other person. Assuming there is no one in the woods except me. These are some big assumptions and it’s likely they’ve never been met.
There are some large (by east coast standards) state parks around. But whenever we go there there are dozens of cars in the parking lots, and hikers and bikers on the trails. Even in winter, I doubt I’ve ever had a half mile radius unoccupied around me.
It’s an interesting question.
I would guess that I was briefly 5-10 miles away from the nearest human when I was driving through some of the backroads in New Mexico. But, that was dependent on the other (very light) traffic on the road.
The most isolated I ever felt is easy though. I took a bike ride through Grand Teton National Park one year, when it was closed to motorized traffic, and there was snow on the ground. I didn’t see another person for the entire day - it was very eerie, like some apocalypse movie. Even though I didn’t really think that anything could happen, it was still disturbing to think that no help was available if I got injured somewhow.
Probably no more than 5 miles. Not a lot further than that with someone else either.