We all need some space
aperiodical.com
aperiodical.com
Absolutely get far, it's good for the soul but, PSA about being out in nature and rural areas:
What made these places desirable was your absence. Loitering in your cars in front of peoples properties is an abuse of the peace the people who live there have invested in and created. Respect the peace of those places you go. If you are out at night, always turn off your car and all lights and be quiet. The most welcome guests are the ones who leave.
Thankfully, for our neighborhoods collective sanity, after at least a dozen interactions with him, he's stopped idling in front of his house.
Other times it's loud vehicle sound systems. I imagine the person inside either isn't aware how annoying it is or doesn't care that they're broadcasting bass to the entire neighborhood.
in the winter people need the heat on, and in the summer the A/C, and the rest of the time perhaps they're listening to NPR or a podcast or something.
Not making excuses for anybody, not saying they're not annoying, not saying there aren't workarounds, I'm just saying that's when I have the urge to leave my car running. Transferring what I'm listening to to my phone, to transfer it back later, my phone stopping charging, my care locking me in, etc. it's just simpler to maintain steady state than try to imagine all the ways in which I'll be disappointed doing it a different way.
I don't obsess about the same things you obsess about.
Unless the ISS or the Tiangong is passing overhead.
If I recall correctly, they are actually planning the deorbit of the ISS to land around there precisely because of its proximity to literally nothing.
Well, apart from the two Russian cosmonauts also on board. He was the sole American, not the sole human. Cassidy, however was part of the largest group in space, 13 people, when a Shuttle with 7 crew joined the 6-person ISS Expedition 20.
[Edit] The astronauts who have been genuinely alone and far from the rest of humanity were the Apollo command module pilots who stayed in lunar orbit while the other two crew descended to the surface.
I think what most people are thinking of when they think of wilderness solitude is density of people. The next nearest person might be only 5km, but depending on conditions, I'm not likely to realize they exist. At densities of < 1 person/sq. km., most people start getting that feeling of being "really far out there".
They haven't done California or Washington but New Mexico is the most remote in the west so far with 11.5 miles to a road. Even Texas only ranks in at 6.6 miles.
Zero light pollution, no radio transmission devices, fantastic night skys with stunning views of the milky way.
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=10.00&lat=-26.70316...
Apollo Command Module Pilots are the obvious ones. But here on earth?
Pilots, of course. But not on commercial aircraft, and not pilots flying over land. That leaves military pilots in single-pilot jets, think aircraft carrier. And on the civilian site there is a small group of ferry pilots who are transferring small propeller planes from continent to continent by making small pit stops on islands, think Scotland → Iceland → Greenland → Newfoundland. Because of limited storage of avgas on the plane they often fly solo. And pioneers like Amelia Earhart.
Crossing oceans by sailing is another possibility. But bigger ships have bigger crews, just alone for watchstanding. Fishermen, operating alone, don’t sail so much out, I think. The only people doing it really alone are single handed sailors crossing oceans or circumnavigating the world like Dame Ellen MacArthur.
(Ant)arctic explorers are the last one I can think of. People, who are travelling the icecaps alone, on foot, dragging their stuff, replicating the original journeys. Or maybe with dog sleds, if dogs don’t count.
I'm British but I've been to places like the US, Scandinavia, Russia etc that have huge open expanses.
Never more than 10m away from someone else is obviously just wrong. That's less than following distance on a motorway.
If you live your entire life in a high-density city, you may never have been on a motorway.
(Although I think one can still do better than being literally within 10m of an individual at all times, which is a bit extreme.)
100m is probably a bit more of a challenge without deliberately doing it, but I've only been there for a handful of days to a handful of locations, not 20 years. I suspect you could probably do 250m at the right time of day/night at a few places though.
poverty.
Or just like, go to any park anywhere.
But most people living/visiting these open spaces are traveling with their family/friends, not alone.
Especially now, with my girlfriend I think in the last year I have not been more than 100 m from the nearest human. Maybe riding my bike back from SF's business district, but those have security guards in them, so realistically 20 m.