Before we could kick off Project Remote and investigate the remotest locations in every state, we had to develop a suitable definition of remoteness. Being remote evokes feelings in human beings. How remote a person feels varies with a person’s experience, perspective, and comfort zone. The feeling of remoteness is a qualitative, biased metric. For Project Remote, we needed a quantitative, non-biased, definition that we could apply evenly for all states.
Remoteness can be defined in an unlimited number of ways, quantitatively and qualitatively. We also needed to think about what the message of this Project would be. Surely the presence of trails decreases the feeling of remoteness but we want to encourage people to get outside not discourage hiking. One of our main objectives with this project was to bring attention to the extent of the roads in our country, as well as the ecological impact of these roads.
Our definition: the remotest location within a state is the point that is the farthest straight-line distance from a road.
What are your thoughts on this definition?
