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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

One of the most shocking facts about the lower 48 is that it's impossible to get more than 115 miles from a McDonalds.

That's not on a road - that's anywhere in the lower 48.

I always assume nearby a McDonald's would likely be a gas station.

Growing up in Australia and now living in the Yukon this blows my mind. I just drove 35,000 miles from Morocco to Cape Town in South Africa, and there were zero McDonalds that entire time. [1]

The Lower 48 is extremely densely developed!

[0] http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon... and http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon...

[1] http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview

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I've done a lot of expedition-style driving (can't stand the words "expedition" and "overlanding" as they are used today) and that straight line distance is very deceiving. I've been to many places that are many more that 115 road-miles from a McDonald's. A few places come to mind: deep in the southern part of the Owyhee Desert along the NV/ID border (one of the least-populated places in the Lower 48), and out in the Wah Wah Mountains [0] of southern Utah.

There are some photos of these places on my IG: https://instagram.com/desertdefender

[0] https://instagram.com/p/BjRFEeZDxBI/

I'm a big Utah fan but always limited by being there with a rental car. This spot looks amazing:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk63o62gzUm/?taken-by=desertdefe...

That spot is my favorite campsite anywhere. Here's a video pan that shows it a little better: https://instagram.com/p/Bi0dm0Tj2Vz/

Part of why I love it is the pure awesomeness of the location: it commands a view over a large part of the UT/AZ border clear down to the Grand Canyon. It gets beautiful sunrises and sunsets and it's breezy but not wind-whipped. The camping is pretty bad if you sleep in a ground tent because of the deep sand but we slept in our trucks so it was fine.

The other thing that I love about the place was how I first found it. I was combing Google Maps satellite view in a SF hotel room late one night and found the almost-invisible track out to the edge of the cliff. A few nights later, I was there, driving it. I headed out to the spot alone, well after midnight. Camping alone is always a little freaky but camping at the end of a five mile dead-end trail was really spooky. The trail is super gnarly and overgrown. There are washouts and the last half-mile is in deep sand. I went to sleep that first night on the point not knowing what lay before me. I woke up the next morning and was stunned at the incredible view that I'd stumbled upon. It will always be among my favorites.

I love your instagram, and based on your description here it sounds like you're ready to head out far and wide!

I'll be back in the Yukon in ~18 months, it would be great to show you around.. and I highly recommend Alaska. After that you really should consider a run down to Argentina - it's simply stunning and totally achievable.

West Africa was like another planet entirely. I wild-camped like you describe virtually every day for an entire year - always in stunningly beautiful places down nasty tracks far away from other people. Now East Africa continues to impress each and every day!

I'd love to make it up to Alaska. I do most of my trips with a core group of friends that I've been traveling with for the last ten years or so. It's tough to coordinate schedules so we usually end up doing about 7 days together in the late spring. Given the distance involved with a Yukon trip, it just hasn't been feasible to get up there. We're thinking about a Baja trip but I would have to ship my truck to L.A. from Kansas because it just takes too long to get down there at 55 MPH.

Africa is a dream. I would have loved to have driven down the west coast before Mauritania got so dangerous. I once read a book called "My Mercedes is (not) For Sale" that got me hooked on the area. Suwame Magazine is a place that I want to see before I die.

> Given the distance involved with a Yukon trip, it just hasn't been feasible to get up there.

Get on the Alaska Marine Line ferry from Bellingham Washington up to Haines or Skagway, AK. In the off season it's cheaper and faster than driving, and you'll see tons of stuff you want to see - whales, eagles, glaciers, icebergs, etc. etc.

> I would have loved to have driven down the west coast before Mauritania got so dangerous.

Don't believe the hype. I personally met hundreds of people that drove it, and dozens that have driven it every year for 10+ years, and not a single person has ever had problems. Not even once. There are a lot of roadblocks where they check your paperwork - they're keeping everyone safe!

> My Mercedes is (not) For Sale

I read the same book to help build my stoke, loved it too!

Oh sure, it's 115 straight line miles, but in my opinion that is still extremely close and populated.

In many other countries it's nothing to get 1000 straight-line miles from a McDonalds, or gas station, or other "development"

Most countries don't even have have a width of 1000 miles so I find this claim questionable.

I love your blog, stumbled across it a while ago.

But I do need to mention that there are multiple McD's in Morocco, having been to them myself when I visited :)

http://www.mcdonalds.ma/nos-restaurants/r%C3%A9seau-maroc

Thanks!

Absolutely, there are McD's in Morocco, and again in South Africa. It's the 35,000 miles in the middle where there are none :)

35,000 miles on the road. Crow flys is clearly far less.

Only 24 people have been more than 10000 miles from a McDonald's.

and everyone alive before 1953 :)

>One of the most shocking facts about the lower 48 is that it's impossible to get more than 115 miles from a McDonalds.

I wouldn’t think that is true in Nevada. But from the link wow.

Your definition of "extremely densely developed" is very different than mine.

That's an interesting phrase, "densely developed", because it's very much not the same thing as "densely populated". The African continent between Morocco and cape Town contains a hell of a lot more people than the lower 48 does.

More people, yes, but also insanely more space. [1] The USA is tiny compared to the continent of Africa. [1]

People per square mile is very low in many African countries, though obviously there are many that are densely populated too

[1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/74/0a/a1/740aa1f79bac5ebb964f...

3.6x the population in 3x the space.

1.2bn vs 325m people.

10m square km vs 30m square km

Wow - what a drive! I just roughly clicked your path on Africa in Google Earth. It came up with 12,000 miles. So did the double mileage come from side treks, or is there that many switchbacks and turns to make things double when you are going overland?

A bit of both. I imagine you could do Morocco to Cape Town in about 15,000 if you tried, but that would be skipping A LOT of countries and beautiful places.

Huh, the "McFarthest" spot happens to be in the Standing Rock reservation.

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