What's the most middle of nowhere place you've been to? Places like the Kerguelen Islands, Saint Helena, Greenland, etc.
Obscure places
What's the most middle of nowhere place you've been to? Places like the Kerguelen Islands, Saint Helena, Greenland, etc.
Boring answer but the Great Divide Basin and norther High Plains are probably the most ass end of nowhere place I've spent any notable amount of time.
I feel the same even though I've been to remote parts of Baja, Wyoming, places in the rockies where there's only 500 people in the whole county, all over the mojave desert, but there's something just really eerie about rural Nevada. It has this look like human civilization was found there once but vanished. Towns out there are 3/4 of the way to being ghost towns, a few people live there, but most shit looks abandoned.
The Najavo Nation, it's actually is a sovereign entity within the United States, almost legally a different country.
Most of the West is still wild
Reservations in the US are considered sovereign nations that are completely separate from the US. They don't pay taxes. They don't adhere to US law. And the Federal government has essentially zero authority to enforce any law on a reservation. The reservations have their own tribal courts. You also can't sue a tribe in a US court. Now here's where it gets interesting. If a Native American isn't a US citizen, they can pretty much do anything on a reservation and the US government can't touch them. A lot of women get raped and murdered on reservations in the US and almost no one is ever held accountable. Another problem is that tribal courts have no authority over non tribal members. Any US citizen can walk onto a reservation and steal shit with almost no legal repercussion, but conversely, they can steal your shit and drive onto the reservation and no one from the US can touch them. I've driven into dozens of reservations and never once had a problem. Every one I've been to was super chill. They want you to spend money at the casino, buy some fireworks, gas up your car and get the fuck out. But if I were a chick, or a small group of girls, I'd stay the fuck off the reservations.
I live near indians in the southwest, there was a long standing dispute between 2 nearby tribes that in the modern era played out like gang warfare. Guys would roll out to the other reservation and off somebody they had a beef with and go home. Maybe rape the guy's girlfriend while they're at it. A lot disputes involved illegal drugs and trafficking migrants. Eventually the 2 tribes leaders came up with an agreement to put a stop to it and turn over criminals to the other reservation.
You're wrong about any US citizen being able to commit a crime on the reservation though. If you do something illegal there (including things that might not be crimes outside the reservation) you're prosecuted under a tribal court, which is a polite way of saying you're fucked and not going to get a fair trial at all if you're white. I like to do urbex shit and offroad places but I stay tf off reservations. If caught you'd probably get a trespassing charge and would pay a big fine whereas outside the reservation you'd just be told to leave.
As far as indians being prosecuted for crimes off the reservation, indians are only subject to indian law when inside "indian country" a legally vague term that has generally been interpreted to mean the borders of an indian reservation but the supreme court recently ruled that the eastern half of Oklahoma is technically indian country too, due to ambiguities over what was left for the indians in the settlement era. Outside, they're the same as any other person. An indian that flees back to the reservation could be extradited by the tribe, but its on a case by case basis and might not be done by in all cases. Federal law always applies on indian reservations, if you commit a federal crime, they'll pick you up. It's states that have little jurisdiction, though tribes can and do refer people to the state for prosecution, for acts committed on the reservation, but its up to that particular tribe and their agreements with other governments.
If you're white and you commit a crime on a reservation, all you have to do is drive as fast as you can until your off the reservation and no one can touch you legally. No US citizen has ever been extradited for a criminal trial to a reservation.
They don't have to, the tribe can refer you to state authorities for prosecution, or, in certain cases, it's a federal crime. If you murder an Indian it's federal. If you rob one, the state can still prosecute you. This is all spelled out in current federal laws governing tribes. Trust me bro. I used to work on a reservation. Before the advent of indian casinos this might have been true when whites rarely ever did more than pass through a reservation, and nobody gave a shit about indians at all but ever since, with the insane number of trashy individuals casinos attract, legal affairs have become a major focus for tribes. Most crimes there are indian on indian though, and subject to tribal court so nothing fucking happens. They're constantly fighting and stealing from each other.
>If a Native American isn't a US citizen, they can pretty much do anything on a reservation and the US government can't touch them.
Yeah this is complete bullshit lmao
A great article if you can figure out how to bypass the paywall.
I went to Toronto once
The road from Page Arizona to Durango Colorado was so remote that it felt like another country. You'll see some small towns on the map and get excited to do some exploring. When you get there, this is what main street looks like.
Marathon, ON. Probably not 'nowhere enough for this thread, but compared to suburbia it is very remote.
Faroes has this bizarre, land before time type of vibe to it
Remotest is St Kilda. I mean it’s part of the U.K. and you can do day trips there. But it’s still a huge pain in the arse to visit. I can get to Melbourne quicker. The outlying stacks are absolutely covered in seabirds and the sound was unlike anything I’ve ever heard.
Yeah it’s people who are either fishermen or farmers. The land feels very alien
I visited a few barely-inhabited islands in Orkney. Not particularly obscure but still quite remote.
Fairbanks, AK
Thinking about it, I have to conclude that I’ve never really been anywhere extremely remote. I’ve been to hundreds of small/irrelevant towns, villages, or rural areas on a few continents, but none of it was inaccessible. The closest was probably a village in Bolivia that required a full day’s drive across a part of the Altiplano that didn’t really have roads in order to get there, but the thousands of backpackers who’ve visited the salt flats of Uyuni have all had broadly similar experiences, even if they didn’t specifically go to the small cluster of quinoa farmers’ houses I happened to visit. And I once stayed for a few days in a tribal village in Northern Thailand that was accessible only by foot, and wasn’t yet on the Tha Phae Road “hill tribe trekking” circuit, but it wasn’t much farther from urban areas than any of the ones that are now (and were then) tourist attractions. There were probably people in elephant pants smoking Burmese heroin they were told was local opium just over the hill in the next valley.
Even less remote than these, my parents retired to the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico for a few years. It’s just a short hop by air from San Juan (so maybe four hours from Miami), it has a small, low-key tourist industry (although the big resorts have all failed so far), and the island is home to a few thousand locals, but it feels like the back of beyond nevertheless. Semi-wild horses roaming around, two slightly grungy little villages, some abandoned military facilities, and among the weirdest, seediest little populations of full-time resident white folks from mainland USA I’ve seen just about anywhere. Eight out of ten of them seemed to be running away from something. But not hard to get to nor far from civilization.
Des Moines, Iowa
I used to do federal contract work in West Virginia. Absolutely beautiful state but having been to the boonies out there gives you a very "hills have eyes" feeling. Creeped me the fuck out.
the drive to Langjökull glacier in Iceland
not the glacier itself, just the drive
Spitzbergen, Narsarsuaq Airport, Parque Nacional Bernardo O'Higgins.
Hiva Oa, Marquesas islands.
How do you get to Marquesas, I want to go one day
You get a plane from Papeete, or alternatively you can get a room on the supply ship, that also leaves from Papeete. Then there's small ferrys that go from the bigger islands to the smaller ones.
I'll add that while the islands are very interesting to visit, there is little tourist infrastructure, so it helps to know someone or at least find a book to know where to go.
The "supply ship" is the Aranui ,5, and it is hybrid cargo and tourist cruise ship. Very expensive.
Pullman Washington it’s like being on the moon
go cougs
>Chicoutimi, QC, Canada
In 1996 there was a major flood that destroyed all the houses in the neighborhood of Le Bassin, except for that little white house that became popular amongst the media because it never gave up despite being right in the middle of the flood. So they decided to make a museum out of it.
Yemen desert
As an Australian, in all honesty its probably somewhere I've been many times and never thought much of it.
Johnston Atoll
Nice boobies!
I've travelled a lot but the only time I felt that real middle of nowhere vibe was in the Laos/Chinese border
Mt. Møysalen, Norway. There was like only 10 other hikers there that day which I met over the course of 12 hours. Its on the edge of continental Europe so naturally its remote but it just felt like having the world to yourself.
I stayed a week on a cattle ranch in McPherson County, Nebraska. With a population of 399, it's the fifth least populated county in America.