There are so many remote and out of sight places on our dear Planet Earth. As the word ‘remote’ should suggest, these places are mostly located in the middle of nowhere. Some are situated in the oceans and some of them are on land.
With so many mysterious places to visit, it’s quite difficult getting to all of them. The middle of nowhere actually appears to be all around us, as these undiscovered gems can be be found on every continent.
10. La Rinconada, Peru
A quiet mining town in the Peruvian Andes, La Rinconada is almost impossible to find. It counts among the most difficult places to find in South America. La Rinconada is known as the “highest” city in the world and has stunning geography that makes it so desolate. Located around 17,000 feet above sea level.
What is exciting about La Rinconada?
Take a truck ride up the incredibly dangerous mountain road up to the frozen glacier where the city resides. It’s going to be a long journey, so better prepare yourself and take certain precautions. Keep in mind it’s going to be exceedingly freezing up there, and the altitude will affect your organism significantly, as the air around you changes.
When you get to the top, which really is nowhere, you’ll meet a society of people making their living mining gold from underneath the ice. We’re sure you’ll be surprised at how many people actually call this glacier their home.
9. Easter Island
Easter Island is located some 2,000 miles west of the Chilean Coast. It is relatively small, measuring roughly seventy square miles, and is today home to around 4,000 people. There are a lot of rumors regarding the inaccessibility of the Easter Island, however, most of them aren’t true. It’s often visited by tourists, and there are a lot of packages offering to take visitors to Chile there.
What is exciting about Easter Island?
Easter Island is extremely small and it is famous for its remarkable isolation in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. The island has become well known for the massive rock sculptures, called Moai, that dot its beaches. The carved rock representations of humans are a mystery yet to be solved, however, most experts believe they were are actually vessels of their creators’ spirituality. They’re dated to have been erected between the years 1200 and 1500. The most impressive feat of all was transporting the heads around the island, which is believed to have been done on something like a wooden track.
8. Cape York Peninsula, Australia
The country of Australia itself is in the middle of nowhere, or at least that’s how a lot of people in the west see it. Suffice it to say that it has got its fair share of lost regions, waiting to be rediscovered. One such place is the Cape York Peninsula, mostly inhabited by Aborigines. The region has a population of only 18,000 people, most of whom are part of the country’s aboriginal tribes, and it is considered to be one of the largest undeveloped places left in the world.
What is exciting about Cape York?
The northernmost tip of the country can be reached along corrugated 4WD tracks that will rattle your teeth from your jaw. You’ll find the cape approximately 1000km from Cairns, which means days and days of driving, including crossing creeks inhabited by estuarine crocodiles. For your reward, you’ll find a rocky headland and, well, not much else. Now the only thing left to do is to turn around and clatter your way back.
7. McMurdo Station, Antarctica
McMurdo Station is located at the South pole of the earth. Antarctica needs no introduction as one of the most remote places on Earth, with only two towns and the rest of it being either ice or research stations such as McMurdo.
What is exciting about McMurdo Station?
It is located on Ross Island, near the northern tip of the continent. The almost perpetually frozen station is a center for international research and is home to as many as 1,200 scientists and workers during the warmer summer months. It’s one of the most desolate locations on the planet, but – although McMurdo is as far from a major city as any location in the world – it’s no longer as backwater as it used to be. Thanks to the airstrips it now boasts (three of them to be precise), McMurdo is the most frequently visited place on Antarctica. However, it’s still just visited by researchers.
Read more: Are There Any Urban Areas in Antarctica?
6. Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
Whether you call it the Empty Quarter (Rub al-Khali) or the Abode of Silence, the largest area of sand on earth is, well, rather empty. It covers an area of the Arabian Peninsula that’s larger than France, Belgium and the Netherlands combined.
What is exciting about the Empty Quarter?
The incredible solitude and remoteness of this place have lead to the formation of sand dunes as tall as 200 meters and more. Formed by mighty winds that sail the desert around the Empty Quarter, these dunes are still growing in size! The winds have 400,000 square miles to blow over, collect the fine sand and layer it on top of the dunes. It really is the middle of nowhere!
5. Pitcairn Island
Pitcairn Island is a chunk of land in the South Pacific, remote from everything and everyone, including their ‘homeland’ – Britain. With no other islands nearby, not for at least a couple of hundred miles, it truly feels like a paradise lost.
What is exciting about Pitcairn Island?
While the life of people here today is not that exciting by the 21st century standards, with their daily routines mostly revolving around cattle or fishing, it is the story of its origin that is really captivating. Pitcairn Island was basically inhabited by mutineers. At the end of the 18th century, a group of sailors, completely intoxicated by the beauty of the island, decided to rise against their captain. They burned the ship down and made the island their new home. The easiest way to gey to the island is by a boat from New Zealand, and it takes about a fortnight to reach it.
4. Olkhon Island, Russia
Travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway as it skirts Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake. You can appreciate the place’s remoteness – it’s about three and a half days by train from Moscow and three days from Beijing. Containing around 20% of the world’s freshwater, the lake also sports Olkhon Island near its center. This island is about 60 miles long, and the thing it’s most famous for is all the sun that it gets on an annual basis.
What is exciting about Olkhon Island?
The unusual rock formations around the island, including even a minor sea strait, have been formed by tectonic movements over an unimaginably long period of time. The views of the cliffs are quite magnificent, with their steep sides disappearing into the lake.
Read more: Europe’s Most Peaceful Destinations
3. Kerguelen Islands
The Kerguelen Islands is also known as the “Desolation Islands” for their sheer distance from any kind of civilization. The islands have no native population, but – like Antarctica, which lies several hundred miles south – the Kerguelens have a year-round population of scientists and engineers from France, which claims them as a territory.
The islands were first discovered in 1772, and have been visited by a number of different biologists and explorers. Captain James Cook is one of them, who made a brief stop on the archipelago in 1776.
What is exciting about the Kerguelen Islands?
There is no airstrip on the islands. Reunion is a small island located off the coast of Madagascar where you can catch a boat to the Kerguelen Islands, prompting a week-long boat ride.
The island is primarily a scientific center today that holds a satellite and a French missile defense system. The area even serves as a refuge for a French cattle that have become endangered on the mainland.
Read more: Islands in Southeast Asia You Shouldn’t Miss
2. Motuo County, China
A small community in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Motuo County is located in the laps of Himalayas with not even a beaten path leading to it. It remains as one of the few places in Asia still untouched by the modern world. The county is renowned for its beauty—Buddhist scripture regards it as Tibet’s holiest land—and is said to be a virtual Eden of plant life, housing one-tenth of all flora in China.
What is exciting about Motuo County?
The beauty of Motuo County is worth the daunting journey to its remote location. You need to cover frozen landscapes, suspension bridges, and other grueling obstacles. But, what you’ll realize is that it’s more than rewarding. You’ll find yourselves in a lost valley in the Himalayas, an experience that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Every attempt at taming the wilderness of Motuo County has failed, with nature simply rendering it obsolete.
Read more: European Cities with Most Visitors
1. Tristan da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha was first discovered in 1506 by a Portuguese explorer. Today, it belongs to the British, but in all honesty, it’s so remote that it seems as if it doesn’t belong to anyone.
What is exciting about Tristan da Cunha?
A single most remote inhabited place in the world. It is an archipelago of small islands located in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The country nearest to the island of Tristan da Cunha is South Africa, which is roughly 1,700 miles away. While the South American coast lies at a distance of about 2,000 miles. The islands now have a total population of 271 people. Most are descended from original settlers and make their living as farmers and craft makers. It’s still impossible to reach the island by plane, and the boat remains your only option to discover this amazing gem.
