It seems that Talkeetna, Alaska, and Medford, Oregon, have the lowest average wind speeds in the United States at 4.8 mph. I can’t find any similar international measurements.
I can only imagine that if one wanders out of Talkeetna after a snow, it’s going to be pretty damn quiet out there.
ETA: Antarctica doesn’t seem like a particularly non-windy place. The cite below says that average winds at the South Pole are almost 10mph, which is about as windy as your average place in the US.
Since the OP is asking for a science-based answer, maybe this could be a interesting GIS exercise. Maybe someone with GIS know-how can find a place that:
See the OP; specifically the part ruling out ‘indoor environments’.
But wouldn’t your own body (with your clothes flapping the wind) constitute a pretty substantial noise obstruction - especially to your own ears?
My guess would be the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. But the caveats in the OP are so confusingly written and contradictory that I honestly don’t know if it would qualify or not.
It isn’t on the “surface” but it is technically an “outdoor” environment “(“Surface” ruling out indoor environments, caves, orbitals or similar places.)” Nope, not an indoor environment, cave, orbital, or similar place. And it has water but it isn’t “splashing” water as specified in the OP.
So, who knows?
Any desert is all-but-silent when the wind isn’t blowing. You only have to go a few miles outside Las Vegas & it’s silent. Rivers & seashores are only audible for a couple of miles tops unless you’re near something Niagara Falls.
Freeways are audible for ~10 miles in otherwise-silent conditions. Most airliners at cruise altitude are inaudible, but those climbing or descending are not.
So take a map of the southwest US, draw a 10-20 mile buffer around any freeway or state highway and any town and any river with water. Draw a 50 mile buffer around anyplace with an airliner-served airport. Viola; everyplace else is silent when windless. There are millions of acres of that silence.
But you can’t silence those darned birds.
Aokigahara in Japan is known for being extremely quiet.
It appears LSLguy has described my property in NE AZ.
Boyoboyoboy, though, when the wind is blowing, get your earplugs.
The view of the night sky, though, is beyond amazing. Stars all the way down to the horizon! On moonless nights, you can actually cast a shadow by starlight!
~VOW
Would anywhere out at sea qualify? Say the Doldrums. On a calm day, you wouldn’t even have the sound of waves lapping against your boat.
And doesn’t NE Siberia have a bit of a problem with volcanoes? I imagine they’re pretty noisy.
Pripyat?
When you’re out in the open, wind is a major noise maker. Being surrounded by buildings (while still being outdoors) cuts down on the amount of wind you hear. And there won’t be many people to bother you.
Granted, it wouldn’t be a fun or healthy vacation, but it would indeed be quiet.
Then how about a helium balloon ride?
From your cite:
I would think think might qualify as one of the NOISIEST places in the world.
The day I went up to Kala Pattar to take a look at Mount Everest, it was very quite. I’m sure it can get very windy there, but there wasn’t any wind at all when I was there. Its over 18,000 feet, way above the tree line. No birds. The wind at the peak of Everest was blowing the snow off the mountain, but that was over 10,000 feet above me and over 2 miles away.
Perhaps this calls for a scientific experiment! Let’s go down to the quarry and…
Just kidding.
the northern part of Death Valley is the quietest place I’ve ever been.
Not answering the OP directly, but where I live is the quietest place I’ve ever been.
I currently live in the jungle on top of a hill on an island with no motorized transport.
During the day there are noises of the jungle fauna, dogs barking, people talking, radios, planes flying overhead, distant ships’ horns, and delivery carts putting by. During the night in the summer you can hear a/c units, cicadas and crickets.
During the night in the winter there is… nothing. Literally nothing audible. I’ve lain there at night listening for anything to be heard at all, but there is just the sound of my own breathing. It’s reminded me that I have tinnitus. But otherwise it’s bliss, and I’ve never slept so well in my life.
There have been many times out in Canyonlands where I could hear my own heartbeat. Not sense it; HEAR it.
Personally I was surprised to find that, even with tourists carrying on in the parking area, White Sands National Monument was astonishingly quiet if I walked a few dozen yards to put a couple of dunes between the noisy rabble and myself.
The white dunes are composed of gypsum sand, and sound-absorbing panels are made of gypsum board, although I can’t say if the dunes work the same way exactly. It was, however, eerily quiet – most of the desert life is nocturnal and/or very small.
Presumably the white sands area is much larger than the parking lot, and far enough out in the dunes it ought to be pretty quiet. Maybe not the quietest place on earth – it IS in the United States, not exactly a quiet zone – and there’s a missile test range nearby. Also, I am compelled to point out there have been some pretty loud noises in the area in the past. But it might be one of the quieter places in the US.
.
Suggestion:
Surveyor Generals Corner, which is the (almost) intersection of the Australian state boundaries of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
It was thought that until 1968 fewer people had been there than have walked on the moon.