Every square inch of the Nebraska Sandhills is ranched and grazed. No water? It's one of the largest wetland areas in the US. This past summer, due to two wet years and a wet early summer, the huge lakes in places that have been dryland for the last 100 years. Your last shot is of Toadstool Park in extreme NW Nebraska, nowhere near the Sandhills.
i am amazed that you think that a road is in an area means it's not in the middle of no where i can drive down roads down south for miles and see nothing but trees to me that's just as middle of no where as the Mojave desert much of which also has a road by the way
I’m from Scotland in the UK and once travelled from California through Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The scenery was stunning and the sheer space into which you could probably fit our entire country several times was exhilarating. It was a magical experience. You do have some stunning scenery over there in America.
And I think the same about Scotland! Love your country! The sights, the people, the history, and the land. I could listen to someone from Scotland talk for hours. Being from south Louisiana I can’t say that I love y’all’s food bc we have the best food 😘 but y’all’s food is interesting. Just needs more spice!
Once met a guy in Taos, NM who told me the biggest difference between Europeans and Americans is that Europeans think 100 miles is a long way and Americans think 100 years is a long time.. :)
25 yrs ago, on my bike with no plans, in a little town in southern S Dakota, I looked southward and mentioned to another biker that I might try that direction. A local guy heard me and asked, "How far can you get on a tank?" I said, "About 150 miles." He said, "Son, there ain't nothin' on that road for 200 miles." Saved my skinny keester. Many thanks, again.
He was exaggerating, If you were in southern South Dakota, you would have hit US 20 about 30 miles into Nebraska. It is the middle of nowhere, but there are towns with services. Would have been hard to go 20 or 30 miles w/o a town with services.
I remember a road trip we took six years ago. It was the middle of the night and we were driving through the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. I was sleeping with my head propped up on the window. I opened my eyes and thought I was seeing smoke. Nope! It was the Milky Way and it was the first time I'd ever seen it. I told everyone in the car that I thought I was seeing the Milky Way, so we pulled over in the dusty, dry dirt and took pictures in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert under billions of stars. A memory and sight I will never forget!
Yep in my brief stint with Astronomy the buffs all go on about what they call light pollution. It very much affects your ability to see things with a telescope.
Yeah, I heard growing up in Arkansas, that we were "country" or "rural." And we are culturally. But my entire conception of rural changed when I drove through central Wyoming
I almost got in trouble driving from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City, left Grand Junction with a little over half a tank, barely made it to the gas station in Thompson Springs with less than 30 miles remaining. I was white knuckling it the whole way there lol.
@@davidlittle5693 same. I made the turn onto highway 6 headed towards Price. Forgot to check my gas level before exiting the highway. Halfway between the exit and Price, I noticed I was on E, 12:30 AM. Coasted in on fumes and with the whitest knuckles I've ever seen.
@@TronisEdison move anywhere out west away from the big cities. Even some smaller towns away from the big cities will make you feel further from home you've ever felt. The mystery is beautiful.
To me it’s just depressing. I live out in SoCal, so I’m used to a desert. I’ve lived in the Mojave desert my entire life, and I don’t like it. However. Driving through parts of Nevada makes my home look like a rainforest
No kidding. I live in San Francisco and for the longest time I drove no further east than Reno/Tahoe. The one time I took a road trip and drove to Yellowstone, the road between Reno and Salt Lake City was REALLY empty and depressing...I was very surprised how quickly the landscape turned bleak once I left the limits of the Biggest Little City in the World. We chose not to drive that road on the way back.
I've made three drives across Nevada on U.S. 6. It makes highway 50 (the so-called "loneliest road in America") look like a metropolis. One gas station between Ely and the California border (250 miles).
As a Brit, this blows my mind. I simply can't even imagine how big these spaces are until I visit it myself. Sure there are some "empty" spaces here, maybe if you climb up a large hill or mountain but you will always see a village or at the least a few cottages at the bottom. Couldn't imagine being on a road with nothing for 200 miles, thats like driving from London to Leeds and not seeing anything or anyone.
Yes, i recently road tripped from Louisiana to Washington. From Winnemucca, NV, up through NW Nevada and SE Oregon, you are on two lane highways for 100's of miles. You'll see a sign "Next services 88 miles" then 88 miles later, see your first tiny old gas station, followed by "Next Services 86 miles". It is pretty mind blowing
@@comedian376oh man you seen some of the best scenery then I’ve done from WA-VA-NVlasvegas-WA back n forth and then again from WA-VA haha it’s a lil scary tbh specially driving at night and being all by yourself but no doubt it was a great experience it’s surprising how empty is the US…
My lifeblood is untrammeled land, but... in much of this country it isn't really untrammeled. The farthest you can get from a road in the 48 states is 21 miles out, in a remote part of SW Yellowstone. It's right next to a ranger station. Someday I want to go somewhere so remote, I know no one has set foot there before and maybe won't ever again...
@@maxwellerickson7066 Floatplane into a remote area in Northern Ontario with a canoe. Nothing more adventurous than a canoe trip up there, and the walleye fishing is fabulous
That area in idaho is no joke. I drove through the northern part and there was a sign that indicated twisty roads for the next 99 miles. There were absolutely no gas stations for over 130 miles. Directly south, if you look on the map, is a massive quadrant of no roads, no people, nothing. It's amazing.
Those two signs on either end of Lolo Pass are quite literally my favorite signs I've ever encountered. One of the most fun drives if you can avoid the logging trucks and occasional RV.
@@downbytheriver501 Lochsa -- US12, Lewiston to Missoula. I was first on the route when I think it was brand new as a paved highway, 1965, as a 10 year old kid going to Yellowstone from Seattle
I'm from Alaska and people in the lower 48 states don't comprehend just how big it really is. The drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage is the most beautiful drive most people will ever make and you sort of take it for granted as a resident. It puts it in perspective that it's 360+ miles from one city to the next. I sure miss that drive.
@@GrislyAtoms12 lol. There is a gas station in cantwell at the halfway point. I reckon there's one in Denali too. But there's definitely a pretty good hump without any service stations. Over 140 miles
@@theLongPigChef LMAO. If I'm being generous, I'm guessing they said something to the effect of "the Mercator projection stretches out higher latitude areas making them look bigger than they are", which is true.... But that's accounted for. Just look at a globe where this distortion doesn't apply and you can clearly see Alaska is bigger. But there's no convincing a Texan otherwise, I reckon
We took a family trip through Central Idaho years ago. We were on what was essentially a logging road for 110 miles. We camped on the mountain that night and you could see no lights. You could see nothing man-made from where we were at. It was amazing!
When I lived in Death Valley National Monument back in 1979, I would sit outside my old travel trailer and the view of the constellations was amazing. The sky so clear, you can see the shooting stars, and when I went back in the 1980's for 49er Days, I saw a Russian satilite shoot across the sky. It was a sight to behold!
My home state is Montana. There are huge parts that I have not been to, and probably never will see. Wherever I have been is truly God's Country, beautiful beyond words. I wish I could have a do-over so I could see more of Montana. BTW, I just turned 80!
A correction if I might add. #13 Nebraska Sandhills: It has LOTS of water. The area sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer (the largest underground freshwater source in the world). It has a high water table and many small ponds/lakes/pools form between the vegetated dunes. I did my Master's research project in the area based on the hydrology of the area.
@@CoIoneIPanic Well the King is wrong about some things in the Sandhills. And you're probably being sarcastic. There is little cropping there and not many people but most of the Sandhills is well watered and ranch country. The Union Pacific follows HWY 2 through the Sandhills. The Sandhills is classic cowboy country and that is why Ted Turner is buying land there and Buffalo ranching. There are high $ golf courses in the Thedford area where very wealthy people fly in to play.
@@silver2644 It's a basement troll, don't spend another second feeding it or bringing yourself down to its level, as it's a futile and pointless effort. Sometimes you just come across the most vile and repulsive internet dweller trying to create scraps of misery to feed its addiction while playing with itself in the dark because it thinks it got over on someone.
I have traveled all across the U.S. via my motorcycle. HONESTLY, the Sand Hills of NW Nebraska are absolutely beautiful and a hidden gem!! You can go 20, 30+ miles without seeing another car or human!! It's true cowboy country....like stepping back in-time!! Also, loved southern Utah....WOW!!
Agree with you about the Sandhills. And just west and south of there is the north eastern Colorado, the Pawnee grasslands, which I think you would have enjoyed.
I went on a road trip in 1992 with relatives, starting in Minnesota, drove through S. Dakota, Wyoming then Idaho. On the way back to Minnesota, drove through Montana and North Dakota. There weren't even any radio stations in parts of Montana. Beautiful parts of the country. Yellowstone Park was awesome.
As somebody who is biking across the country and is currently in Oregon, the rural areas of Colorado/Wyoming/Montana/Idaho are unreal. Hours go by without seeing another house or development, sometimes 70 miles between places to fill up on water. It is truly lonely sometimes, but unbelievably enchanting and peaceful. It’s so rural it makes the most remote parts of New York seem bustling, it blew my mind.
Can confirm. I live in Anchorage, was born and raised in St. Paul MN. Anchorage is freaking huge. Going speed limit (55-65, except a few miles where it's 45) along the highway, it'll take you a couple hours to get thru the Anchorage muni.
I was an OTR truck and to me the most scenic areas I could drive through in a truck were in Utah and Nevada. I just loved how you can see just open uninhabited land for miles with snowcapped peaks that look like they can't be more than a few miles away but are really 40-50 miles away.
Originally I am from the flat Midwest and lived a dozen years in VT for a job transfer. When I had had enough and decided to move back to America (and I mean that) people in VT kept saying 'But isn't it flat there? It's so FLAT...' I like flat. I like seeing the big wide world for miles around.
Germany is very pretty. I'm an Idahoan from birth and have lived here my entire life... with moments of business, college, and military my perm address has always been Idaho. I visited Germany in 2001 age 18. Germany is very similar to western half of Oregon and Washington in climate and in flora; Cascades and Olympic mountain range remind me of the Black Forest. On the western side of the US, all states have stretches of essentially emptiness. Even populated WA and OR. Not just Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah, etc. Even California has very remote areas as he described. The populations in the west are very concentrated. It freaks me out in both Germany and most of Europe as well as the East of the rocky mountains, how large and even super mega cities are 80 miles or less apart. Chattanooga Tennessee 180K is considered a small town in the east; stayed there on business for a couple months. But it's almost as large as Boise 228K people our capitol of Idaho. Richmond capitol of VA is only 80 miles from Washington DC. And DC only 47 miles from Baltimore and then 105 to Philadelphia and 94 miles to NYC. Huge major cities... distance between major cities in the west are 400 miles apart. It's odd to think when I was in Cleveland OH on business for 4 months that I was able to on a weekend drive just 300ish miles Chicago. Or within 250ish miles I could go to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Detroit or 292 miles is Toronto Canada. This is from an Idahoan's perspective living in Boise: Boise Idaho to Calgary Canada which is direct true north by interstate is 863 miles, Vancouver Canada 629 miles. Boise to Portland OR is 436 miles or to Seattle is 493 miles or to Salt Lake City 339 miles or to Las Vegas is 624 miles or to LA 879 miles, Boise to Denver is 812 miles.
@@mrp4242 I would like that if I could afford the trip :-) I got my hands on a picture book about the Midwest and the West Coast when I was a child and it has been a great wish of mine ever since.
Hallo Pegatan! I am an American living in Switzerland now for 31 years. My wife is German, and has been here for 24 years. I know Germany and drove to Rostock from Zurich last summer. 10 hours was no problem. This video was fun to watch, especially for me, growing up all over America with my hippie father in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I was born in New Jersey and then lived in Idaho, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maine, Colorado, Oregon, Colorado again, then Washington state finishing High School, then California to my mom`s place. What I saw driving nonstop, what I have in my memories is crazy. For me Switzerland, being the size of West Virginia, is an amusement park with 4 national languages. Lots of nature and so many towns and cities close by too. I still have family in Idaho and my sister`s son is in Montana. All huge and beautiful, but I really love Switzerland and all of Europe.
Funny how we use the term empty to mean "lacks humans" when really a lot of these beautiful places are far from empty! Good video; had no idea about central Idaho. May the TH-cam algorithm stay in your favor
On one of my middle-of-nowhere motorcycle (street) rides in Nevada, I met a German couple. They couldn't believe how much nothing there was when they left Vegas. The wife was actually really scared of such a wide open space. I told them that some people in the USA are more afraid of the big cities...
The west is the most open region of the U.S. and most of Nevada is owned by the federal government. Nevada gave the US government the land so they could operate because even they said it was just too much land to handle! But yes. Outside of the coastal regions of california, it’s gets very WESTY- Remote, and almost scary at how much land there is
Being born and raised in a big city, I lived in Vegas 2 years. We went to Red Rock Canyon late at night to look at the stars, I was scared 😨😳 to death driving there! Did see my 1st and only shooting star! 🌠
@@piglet1242 Do you enjoy the solitude now? At least, sometimes? On some of my motorcycle trips, I warned my passenger that we will be out in the middle of nowhere, she was OK with it to the point of telling me to stop warning her.
@@SmittyAZ Nope. Not even close. Retired in Florida now. My sister lives in New Mexico and wud go for motorcycle rides with her then husband and a lot of others. Do you call them pelotons?
Alaska is absolutely wild. The uninhabitable tundra area north of the Brooks Range is over two hundred thousand square kilometers of nothing. No trees, no human settlements, limited vegetation, and can get 24 hours of sunlight/darkness per day depending on the time of year. I drove up to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton one winter and it was an otherworldly experience.
I lived on an island in Alaska and have only been to Anchorage a couple times. Driving the Dalton is on my bucket list but I'm worried that I'll die trying. I don't think I've ever driven for more than two hours at a time.
Back in the late 80's I drove a motorcycle through Nevada on Highway 50, Highway 50 is called "The loneliest highway in America". I'm here to testify! Got a flat, guy pulls over to help, offers to take me into town because tire is ripped, can't fix that. I ask him how far it is - "89 miles". Ask him how far the last town was - "92 miles". How much closer to the middle of nowhere could I manage to get? I would drive along and see a mailbox next to a dirt road going off over the horizon - no house though. No lights visible at night. Nowhere even to pull over - two lane road with desert sand on each side.
I lived on 95. It was very desolate too. Grocery story was 33 miles away in Hawthorne. Same drive if you wanted a cheeseburger. People tend to help one another in Nevada.
I needed a tow in as southeast Wyoming. I had left Washingyon. A sheriff stopped and gave me a ride into town. About 15 miles back. He got me set up with a tow. The driver was headed south anyway. We picked up my car and we towed it 152 miles. Charged me the minimum tow fee too. I'm thinking these people are so nice what's that catch. There wasn't any. Got my car fixed up at the shop it was towed to and they got it running by the end of the day. Didn't cost much and I continued on to Oklahoma.
@@bernieweber4663 Trying to get back to my bike it was, by then, night time, I only had a long sleeve cotton shirt on, carrying a tire, and there's not much traffic on that road, and the desert gets damn cold at night! There was a diner called Junction Diner that set on a T intersection, it was the only place between the town and my bike, I was FREEZING, and went in for coffee and warm up. Talked to the waitress and was telling her my woes, she said she was getting off shift and would drive me to my bike, it was still 35 miles away. Yep, good people out in the country.
@@bernieweber4663 Nice experience. Not really to one up you, but I managed a 200 mile towing in Maine. Up in the North Maine Woods heading to 5th St. John Pond for week long canoe trip on the St. John River. Took out the oil pan on dirt roads in a brand new 99 Jetta TDI. Managed to get the flat bed operators to take us 30 miles further out to begin our trip with us in the Jetta (canoes on top) on the flatbed before they headed home for the night and the car to a dealership the next day. The 4 hours waiting for help gave me time to hatch a plan. The trip I'd have to say was really more important than the car, at least at that moment.
I rode my bicycle from San Francisco to southern Maine. My favorite section was from Reno NV to Salt Lake City UT. The emptiness of the desert was majestic. It was clean; so few marks of people spoiling the land. One could imagine this was how has been for thousands of years.
Oh hey I plan on biking in a four thousand mile triangle around kentucky to arizona and back to kentucky. Did you go alone? Because I am and I'm wondering what you did when you went to grocery stores. Did you take your stuff in with you or just leave it outside with the possibility of it getting stolen?
I spent some time in Wyoming. There are some beautiful places there and some scruffy, barren places as well. I once joked to myself about how no one would ever find me if I decided to lose myself in the wilderness. If you ever get sick of people, I recommend taking a vacation in Wyoming. You can find your quiet place there and no one will bother you.
I drove across the country and around the border of Oregon and Idaho ( very few signs giving me info on were I was, just followed a GPS) I hit a road that scared the crap out of me. Thank God I filled up my gas tank just before I hit this stretch. For at least two hours I drove without seeing nobody, no cars, no gas stations,no stores of any kind, no houses, having no phone signal at all in the middle of summer. By the time I realized that the nothingness wasn't going to stop anytime soon if I was a little low on gas I likely would not have had enough gas to even go back the way I came. I realized if I broke down there was nobody or stores or anything I would find to help. My phone was never going to work to call for help and the heat was crazy. It was all open land almost no suitable shelter, water, or even creatures to hunt. If you had to walk it .. it would take long likely a week to hit another person. I realized if I broke down I very well could die out there. Im from New York City and had no clue that nothingness like that exists and is that vast. Living on the east coast that was unimaginable. I flew to Oregon because of a sick friend who couldn't fly due to health issues so I flew there and drove him home. It was a emergency so I didn't prepare at all so that road was very scary. It was also my favorite part of the trip. I loved that endless stretch of road. I want to go back to drive it again but don't remember were it was. Just followed my GPS. I loved the road but seriously if I didn't get lucky by gassing up when I did or if I had a car not running that great I could have never come home. Scary stuff for a city boy not expecting that. At least I would think I would see another car or truck. Nothing was out there and nothing was coming. Hard to imagine in this overpopulated country with stores everywhere that parts of the country are like that and go on like that so long. I was gunning it likely doing around 80 for two hours or more (it seemed forever) non stop. It was nuts
I'm from Birmingham and people routinely tell me that I live in the middle of nowhere when I tell them where I"m from, but driving through that part of the country (Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Nevada) you get a true sense of what actual nothingness really is. Driving through Utah and Nevada were probably the most anxiety-inducing driving I've ever done.
Most people have NO idea just how big this country really is, you have to drive across it to get a clue. Then stop along one of the old wagon routes and think about the people that headed out that way in the 19th century in horse drawn wagons and on foot.
@@JeffDeWitt yep, I was one of those people. Then I drove a uhaul from coast to coast. It's a ridiculously humongous country. And the massive size of states out west. Just because it's a rectangle shape doesn't mean it's somehow smaller or quicker to get across.
@@bobsnipes3335 I remember driving by that famous last blockbuster video in Oregon around late afternoon. It was either a few hours after that or maybe after driving all night and sleeping a bit I hit that road the following afternoon. Don't know if that helps
After growing up in the Canadian sub-arctic, I eventually visited most of the places in this video ---- with the exception of Alaska, my reaction was almost always "this is really nice, but, hey man, I need some more elbow room!"
@@billolsen4360 He was born in Saskatchewan, but he grew up in the remote settlement of Tulita (at the time it was called Fort Norman) in the Northwest Territories. It's a very typical little First Nations outpost in Canada's north, like many others I've seen. It's in a mountainous region along the Mackenzie River, a 1800 km (1120 mile) long river with only a handful of tiny settlements on it. The Mackenzie is named after the Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie, and one of my cats is also named after him (the other cat being named after David Thompson, an even more daring Canadian explorer.) You can reach Tulita in three or four weeks by canoe from the nearest permanent road (going downstream, if you are really good paddler). For any practical purpose, it is reached by air. It's 617km by air from Yellowknife, the Territorial capital. The average night-time temperature in January is minus 28C, though of course it can get considerably colder. Most of its 397 people are of the Sahtu Dene First Nation. The population would have been much smaller when Leslie lived there. His dad was the local Mountie. Leslie's older brother Erik was the Member of Parliament for Yukon Territory for 30 years, and was widely known as "Yukon Erik." Leslie stated that his brother had the sharper sense of humour.
@@philpaine3068 Wow! Thanks for the biographical info on Leslie. Dad was a Mountie! It's funny that Erik had the sharper sense of humor. My BIL went to high school with Steve Martin & said Steve was the quiet shy one but his best buddy was the real class clown & could even make the teachers laugh while disrupting classes.
Same! I live in Rapid which is obviously populated, but there’s a sign on I 90 that says “next McDonald’s: 260 miles” and if that’s not an accurate description of SD, idk what is
just look at a night time, satellite image of city lights. north and south dakota has a widespread coverage, whereas these places he mentioned are black.
I drove from San Bernardino CA to San Antonio TX. What a trip! The remote desert wilderness I seen was unforgettable. Especially past El Paso on I-10 .
My favorite place (that I have been to so far) is Nevada. I traveled Route 50 years ago with my father. It was the most fun I ever had traveling. I loved being in the literal middle of nowhere. It is an experience I highly recommend for those who enjoy travel by car. Thanks again for a great video!
To be fair, western Utah and central Nevada are the same place, just an imaginary line in the middle of it. And yes, nothing there. That’s the way we hope it stays...
A lot of these areas are adjacent to each other. Montana, Wyoming, and northwest Colorado are continuous, and I think the idaho area he mentioned is that way as well. The South East also feeds into the Nevada-Utah area, as does northeast California. Get a good solid satellite image of the US at night, and you can see where the nothing is.
@@derrickthewhite1 The Idaho area he mentioned isn't quite contiguous. He's largely talking about the Frank Church wilderness, which is very much central Idaho. The valley that runs West-East through the bottom of the state is where the vast majority of people in the state live, and it's a bit more densely populated there than it is in Wyoming, Montana or NW Colorado. Mind, it's all a matter of perspective...
As a born and bred Easterner, I love traveling in the Western US. I marvel at the sheer courage and effort that it took our forefathers and mothers to traverse this land on foot, on horseback and it wagons. People ask me what my favorite area of the West is and I always say that is impossible for me to answer as there is a ‘buena vista’ around every bend in the trail.
@@AJFar-tm7dn Traveling inside a covered wagon over the Oregon or Santa Fe Trails wouldn't have been so bad, but you had a team of oxen pulling your possessions, food & water. In order to save your oxen the extra burden of hauling people, almost everyone walked along side the wagon. The pioneers were certainly in shape to build a home once they got to their destination.
Also the center and south of the western US, when Spanish explorers traveled and little by little colonizing that area must have been extremely difficult due to the harsh living conditions, what really attracted more people was the gold rush, there was a reason to travel all over the place.
Loving remote areas as I do does not make a person misanthropic. I love people, I just don't like cities, the definition in my book being about 16,000 plus people. In remote, rural locations you get to know people better and no one is pretentious, like you find in a city. I lived at a U.S. Forest Service ranger station on a dirt road outside of a town four years. Everyone there was living in Forest Service housing and we were quite close. The area was remote enough that sometimes I would work in the field, camping out or backpacking and I would not see anyone for the entire 4 night/5 day trip. When I did on some of these tours it was wonderful, people that enjoyed remoteness as much as I did.
@@parsnip2699 I guess you intend to have humor jump off the screen and hit people in the face. Humor doesn't work that way, at least not very often. Why, because you can't write down your voice inflection or tone or the look on your face.
Nowhere did Parsnip say that you have to be misanthropic to like remote places with few people, all they said was that misanthropic people will like remote places with few people. Reading is fundamental.
Even worse, it's populated with Canucks. Seems like you didn't read the caption. Besides any group of people that would allow Trudeau to lead them has more empty space between their ears than the rest of Canada combined.
As he said: Emptiest parts of the US. Now if you want to show us up, provide a list of the 15 emptiest places in Canada. I know there are a few, and it's not the Yukon, although it seemed like it when we drove up the Alcan 52 years ago.
I worked at Crater Lake National Park, in Oregon. I was, well impressed. How deep the snow was. How dark and bright the stars were on a pitch black night.
As a truck driver I have to say I have been through most of these locations the most remote one that I have been to was in Utah I delivered just outside the town of Bonanza Utah I looked it up before I drove there and in the 2020 census they had a whopping population of zero it was in the town of Vernal that I delivered to there is a power plant it was quite interesting delivering there
I was born in the Andean Plateau. Over 12000 ft above the sea level and most places in the list are quite similar. If you are into this kind of landscapes I suggest you look for videos of Bolivian west specially The Uyuni salt flat. Edit. I’m expecting to climb the Sajama sometime soon. Best place on earth.
Being from NC, I took a trip from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and I realized that it is so empty out west! It was like going from town to town each like an hour apart.
As someone who lives in the west, there are certain road trips that I have had significant stress about running out of gas. There are areas with plenty of gas stations then there are stretches that if you run out of gas it will be an hour before you see someone else. I suspect you are lucky enough to not worry about that ever.
In 1995 I drove from West Yellowstone to Butte without filling up the gas tank. I did not expect that most of the small towns along the way had no gas station. Limped into Butte onto an empty tank. It's very easy to get caught out like that in the West.
Hey my sister lives in central Idaho on The River of No Return. No roads in. It’s 4 hours on a dirt road and a 6 mile hike down the mountain into her canyon, or a 2 hour dirt road and 1 hour of jet boat plus a 5 mile hike up to her secluded canyon homestead. The arduous trip doesn’t stop me from visiting her four times a year though! I love the remote country!
I am so glad I found this channel. It's hard to find other geeks for this sort of stuff. In my home state of Colorado, in spite of population growth, there's still plenty of lonely and beautiful places here if you get away from the I-25 and I-70 corridors. I've been all over the Rocky Mountain West and Mother Nature is definitely more exaggerated here.
We just did a month-long road trip around the West covering Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. It was the most amazing trip of my life. The landscape, food, people, scenery and sunsets were incredible. Cant wait to go back! 🇺🇲
Absolutely loved Northern AZ and SE Utah. I live in a tropical jungle in the summer, mid to high 90's with almost 100% humidity, so the desert to me was heaven. Bryce Canyon is probably the most gorgeous place I ever visited. Spent 2 days on 4-wheelers all over the trails down there, and will never ever forget it.
When driving from NJ to Arizona, I remember the stretch of road from Amarillo, Tx to Tucumcari, NM was pretty barren. I don't think we saw 5 other cars.
I make that trip 3 times a year, to go back and visit my relatives and friends back east (I retired to Az). Love the ride. I get in with a group of trucks and tail them. I try to tell the family, what it's like to ride I 40; you can see the mountain ahead of you; a couple hours later, you can still see the same mountain, and you're still no closer to it! Roads so straight and long they just disappear like in the Road Runner cartoons.
Man if you Americans want true open wilderness, try remote Western Australia. In the Pilbara region up north, there are approximately 61,000 people living in an area of 196,000 square miles which is larger than California. Or take the Nullabor plain which is an area about the size of South Dakota but only has maybe a few hundred people living there.
@@chairmanlmao4482 Yeah but that’s because it would be hell on earth to actually live in those places. Probably 115 degrees in the summer, completely flat and full of animals that will fucking kill you lol While there’s definitely some flat, hot, boring desert land in the western US, there’s also a ton of uninhabited high mountain range and low valleys and woodlands. If you wanted to live somewhere with equal parts beauty and privacy, there would be no where better in the world than middle of nowhere Wyoming for example.
I just drove that stretch a week ago going from Santa Fe to Dallas. I had never driven that part of I 40 before. It was amazing. My favorite route is from Dumas, TX to Colorado, cutting across the NE corner of NM. You can drive forever, but the Rockies never seem to get any closer. AND there's an extinct volcano along the way to visit.
I remember while in the Navy, my ship was in the middle of the Atlantic (talk about being in the middle of nowhere!) and I could see so many stars and of course the Milky Way. Very powerful and breathtaking sight. It gave me goosebumps every time I saw it! I miss doing that. I was in the Navy for four years (1984 - 1988).
@Faggot Rotten dude shut up he most likely peeled potatoes, what are you thanking him for he didn't kill the enemy and he volunteered to board a ship for 4 years. Sick of this stupid thank you crapthank the men that killed nazis or saved there platoon in Vietnam.
Have you ever experienced a view on the crest of a hill/mountain where you look out and as far as you can see there are no humans or signs of a human...? No power lines no roads nothing but nature...? Most people have never been to such a place...
And then there is the horizon line. There is something magical about it. We take it for granted but if you study it, it will pull you in. It is a glimpse of forever.
Yes sir. I moved to San Diego 8 years ago from northwoods WI. That itself was a beautiful area but I became a desert hermit shortly after visiting it. Sonoran, Mojave and Palm Springs area via enduro bike to get me 50 miles in from any dirt roads. I moved back to WI but will be visiting the desolate desert in the winters again. Cant see myself never not being there again
I was driving in Nevada many years ago and I thought this is what the moon must look like, minus the craters. No sound at all, except the wind which you can hear before it reaches you.
Lived in Vegas all my life and have spent most of my spare time in the last 30 years exploring the most remote areas I could find across the western US. Central Nevada is impressive in both its scale and emptiness. Southeastern Utah is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The Mohave desert is my regular stomping ground and it's not hard to go wander around for a couple days and not see a single soul. Most places in Arizona are never too far from some sort of civilization but it is still easy to find yourself alone among some of the most beautiful landscapes. I find peace and relaxation in being alone in nature. There are places in the world that would make our little Western US seem small and busy, but it provides all the solitude I will ever need.
In North Central Washington, on the very northern end of Lake Chelan, sits a tiny little community called Stehekin. Stehekin is completely cutoff from the road system, and the only way there aside from private float plane or a very, very long hike is to take a ferry in, a 3 hour journey from the town of Chelan at the southern end of the lake. It is the closest thing to an Alaska bush town you will find in the lower 48.
One of my favorite memories is when my wife and I took the boat up to Stehekin and spent the night at the Inn there. After the boat leaves, a heavenly quiet and stillness settles down, and you have millions of acres to explore any way you wish. In the morning, we got a couple rental bikes and rode up to the village a couple miles away. We had the road to ourselves all the way. We stopped at the bakery, got pastries and coffee, and sat out on the porch to enjoy the most beautiful July morning it is possible to experience. We wished it would last forever!
I'm from the high desert: a portion of the Mojave desert and the only place in the world, other than Joshua Tree National Park, that Joshua trees grow. Once you get past the major highways or interstates, there really is almost nothing for miles and miles. It's so close to some pretty big suburban cities like San Bernardino and Riverside so the sudden transition after you cross the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains is shocking the first couple times. I hated living there for so long because it was super isolating and there was nothing to do, but it's so beautiful and living in Sand Diego now for school I kind of miss it. The darkness at night and the gorgeous sunsets are unmatched in my opinion, let's keep it that way.
Same, I was stationed at 29 palms we were literally the last town to Vegas or primm Nevada it was insane!! I remember being the only car on the road coming back from Vegas, living like that made me fall in love with even LA traffic, it was so awesome to see so many cars and know there was so many people there. The Mojave will change your perspective
LOL, I live far away from San Bernadino. and nowhere near JT Natl Park. And there are Joshua trees three miles from my backdoor. They grow over a huge range of the southwest and in two countries "This monocotyledonous tree is native to the arid Southwestern United States, specifically California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, and to northwestern Mexico"
I’m from Seattle and some of my favorite parts of Washington to travel was the Northern Central Cascades. There is nothing. No people at all, u are alone. Untouched nature that impacted me like no other place I’ve been too. Truly there is something magical to this area.
Nebraska is really an amazing state to drive through. As long as you stay off Interstate 80 you're going to see some spectacular sudden changes in geography.
The most interesting things I saw driving through Nebraska were being pulled by trucks, such as enormous construction vehicles, windmill blades, construction materials etc.
Once you get past Omaha and Lincoln, there ain’t shit in that state. One city in the middle of nowhere, north platte, and that’s about it. It’s creepy and lonely out there
I so miss living near central Idaho. It's been quite a shock to move to Indiana. It's hardly crowded here but it feels cramped compared to what I got used to.
@Jose Ortiz they can but if someone doesn't want to join they don't have to. Thats what right to work means. It doesn't ban unions, it just means if you want to work joining the union isn't a condition of employment.
@Jose Ortiz they do. If they get together and a majority vote to start a union they got one. I work for a high school and the teachers have a union. It's just that no one can be forced to join
@@Styxswimmer Blue is the only way to to vote-in any state. That idiot trump cost me a lot of money due to his Chinese tariffs that destroyed US grain markets.
Rode my motorcycle across North Dakota, from west to east. Emptiest place I've ever been, although I've only rode across 17 states, so there's a lot I haven't seen. But knowing that North Dakota didn't make the list, gives me an idea of how empty these places in your list are. Great video once again, as I love your channel, and always learn something new and just find geography very interesting. Keep uploading and stay safe. Cheers mate.
Same thing I’m saying. Emptiest area I’ve been through is I-90 through South Dakota and it didn’t make the list here so I can only imagine how truly big and empty those areas that made the list are, surreal to think.
I’m from southwestern/west central North Dakota and it is pretty empty in that area except Dickinson. I am surprised that is not on the lower end of the list. I think if it was a top 20 list, then it might have shown up.
Just because you choose not to live in some stranger's armpit doesn't automatically make you an introvert. Apparently a lot of mega city residents agree with me, as the super cities are now showing a population exodus
I'm an introvert who has travelled to many countries across the world and met people of all cultures. I just prefer people to not be in my personal space often.
You talk about not hearing trains but one of my favorite memories of camping in the desert is the sound of steam train whistles at night sounding out across the vast emptiness, a sound that is gone and can not be replaced by modern train’s.
This is really eye opening. In this world where everything has become so instant and connected by technology and populated with people, it really blows my mind that there are SO MANY huge swaths of land on which possibly nobody has even laid eyes in the US. Great video
I just love your videos. From someone who grew up near Toronto and moved to Western Canada straddling the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan I can definitely relate to your descriptions of empty parts of the country. Over the years I've worked in every one of the provinces and been to 42 states. Canada as a whole is fairly empty (similar to Western US) and most people tend to live near the US border. Thank you for the videos!
I can tell ya, from experience, stopping on Hwy 50 between Fallon and Austin to stretch your legs, the wind will blow around your feet just for the company.
I tell everyone to tour NM. It is amazing. Tough to find work, tough to get phone service, better figure out what to do about water..... but touring in a car or motorcycle is amazing. The Land of Enchantment.
Driving i80 from California to Utah, once I was in deep trouble, there are like 100 miles of straight HW no gas station, and I was sweating as my car was showing Empty gas in the middle of the stretch. Stunning wilderness of emptiness in the middle of nothingness !! There is similar empty stretch in Wyoming too, only diff in Wyoming is its cold AF. In here I was lucky to find a small gas station outta nowhere called "buck mountian or something area"... Lady was super helpful and chatted for a while and she told me where she lives there are like 300 people altogether and the only source of entertainment is a Theatre !! I was shivering in that cold where as lady was having her day of the year saying what a beautiful bring sunny day was it !!
@@shawna.4601 No No, Battle Mountain is in Nevada.. ( The deserted place close to Prison area ).. This one I was talking about in Wyoming is actually called Elk mountain .. Just searched
@@premchettri7170 you’re right, haven’t been that way for almost 4 years but now that I think about it Elk Mountain was where I used to stop in a Wyoming to get gas years ago, my mistake
When I moved to California, I flew over west Texas, new mexico, and Arizona to get here. Coming from Florida, which is very flat, I was amazed at how beautiful the scenery is in all of these places. Even in CA I am still in awe looking at the mountains just on a trip to Walmart etc, whereas the people from here tend to take it for granted. The only other place I have lived was Maryland's eastern shore and also Delaware. So I had never seen nature so big in my life.
I am very much glad there is a part of CA forest beauty that isn't clamoring with tourists. Looking at you Tahoe and Yosemite. When I venture out of the city, I want to get away from people and in nature. Glad there's a spot in CA to do it in. 💚
The U.S. army wiped out most of the Modocs in the battle of the Lava Beds up there. in '49 there were 150,000 of them In '52 only 30,000 remained. All others got killed. Governor Beck, the first governor actually had a five dollar prize on each Indian killed.
You're right about west central New Mexico. My father grew up in Catron County, where my grandfather was postmaster of Pie Town. The post office was in the corner of his feed store. There were cases in the mid-20th century in which the sheer remoteness of the area exacerbated serious injuries, because it was hard to get timely medical attention. Pie Town did not get telephone service until 1962. In the mid-1970s, I knew a rancher who still didn't have a telephone, because it would have cost him $1800 just to get hooked up.
I can’t wait to spend more time exploring the west. Since the pandemic, I have been extensively exploring one of my home states, Maine, and I am excited to spend more time in California, Alaska, Montana, and many others after the pandemic.
I recommend the smaller lakes around Tahoe, there’s dozens you can hike and swim at that aren’t crowded and the best part is free camping. Good luck :)
I am from Omaha, Nebraska, and pretty much every part of Nebraska not named Omaha or Lincoln is barren. There are around 1.5 million people in Nebraska, and over a million live in the Omaha area. Lincoln has around 160,000 people, leaving about 325,000 people that live in all the rest of Nebraska...
You are right on the money my friend. I drove a truck all over the country for 32 years and have seen all of the places mentioned with Alaska the exception. I traveled down the extra terrestial highway rt 375 one night from Tonapah to Las Vegas and i must say that is the only time i was ever worried.
I went south towards Winner SD from the Interstate just for laughs... then up and NW towards Rapid City an a two laner thru the badlands. 2AM. Saw several burned-out cars on the way. Kept thinking I could die here. Thankfully I knew the antelope weren't carnivorous. Love the BIA police. Unforgettable experience.
...lived in Broken Bow, Nebraska "at the foot of the Sand Hills" training horses in 1989...loved it...it was cool to watch the t-storms develop that would sweep to the east throught Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, etc...all the rivers are 1/2-mile wide & foot deep, really cool... ...keep up the good work Geo King! ...really enjoy your YT Clips!
@@billolsen4360 I lived in the North Platte valley, west of Scottsbluff, and we used to watch the T-storms build and bet on whether they were going to hit us or pass north or south. Also, having lived in Arizona, I can say from experience that there are some pretty wild storms there, as well!
@@cavecookie1 Love it up there around Scottsbluff, so empty of people you can almost see the frontiersmen and wagon trains cresting the hills off to the east. And yes, Arizona storms can be a little too wild. Had 94mph winds here 5 years ago, tore down my new patio roof and fractured a Palo Verde tree in 3 places. 18 out of 41 houses on our block needed new roofs.
I relived some of my favorite vacations with you! Central Nevada, highway 50. I went back to fill up my tank when I saw a sign: No services next 163 miles; my favorite vacation photo ever! I like living in a big urban area but I love to vacation in deserts and remote areas. When I see "no signal" on my cell phone, I'm very happy. At a planetarium in Wyoming I learned that 50% of Americans have never seen the Milky Way, what a shame! Thanks for some great ideas for my next trip!
Hello! 😀 I have been resisting traveling to and experiencing the wild blue yonder. I thought east of the Mississippi was the only place to “live”. But after watching and listening to your videos for over the past couple years…well, I’m officially converted as of this day. I need wide open spaces and fresh air. Thank you for your patience with me. 😊🎉
I love finding channels like this. Good quality interesting videos from a knowledgeable person with a large backlog of videos. Nothing fancy, but just all around enjoyable.
Right you are, but I find the stories in the comments just as engaging as the videos. Good people are all over the place and it helps remind us that we need to be one of them.
I used to have to travel around Wyoming. Many times, after say 10pm, I could go over 100 miles without ever seeing another vehicle. It was a scary proposition in the wintertime!
I used to work in lost valley WY, a oil company was drilling a couple of wells. 100 miles from Rawlins, Rock Springs and Riverton. the only people you saw were other oil field workers. The blizzard of 1979-80 was a bitch. not to inerected in going back.
BWCA in northern Minnesota is extremely remote. Accessible by canoe only. Only sounds from the wilderness. On one trip, I saw not one human being for a week. And it is a waste of valuable pack space to bring a phone. They don’t work.
The countdown starts at 2:10 if you want to skip the educational fluff at the beginning.
No need, I like learning new stuff.. Thank You for the tag anyways..
Every square inch of the Nebraska Sandhills is ranched and grazed. No water? It's one of the largest wetland areas in the US. This past summer, due to two wet years and a wet early summer, the huge lakes in places that have been dryland for the last 100 years.
Your last shot is of Toadstool Park in extreme NW Nebraska, nowhere near the Sandhills.
@@johnortmann3098 settle down
Cool video
I really enjoyed it
The southern part of Illinois is pretty remote
i am amazed that you think that a road is in an area means it's not in the middle of no where
i can drive down roads down south for miles and see nothing but trees
to me that's just as middle of no where as the Mojave desert
much of which also has a road by the way
I’m from Scotland in the UK and once travelled from California through Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The scenery was stunning and the sheer space into which you could probably fit our entire country several times was exhilarating. It was a magical experience. You do have some stunning scenery over there in America.
Great to read that you had such a magical tine in the USAs vast western landscapes. It is a great time cruising through Arizona for sure.
And I think the same about Scotland! Love your country! The sights, the people, the history, and the land. I could listen to someone from Scotland talk for hours. Being from south Louisiana I can’t say that I love y’all’s food bc we have the best food 😘 but y’all’s food is interesting. Just needs more spice!
I used to live in the Highlands of Scotland and the scenery. there is fantastic. For example, the Isle of Skye.
Denver, CO to the western Pennsylvania border along I80.....FLAT and BORING. Iowa is actually a bit scenic surprisingly
Once met a guy in Taos, NM who told me the biggest difference between Europeans and Americans is that Europeans think 100 miles is a long way and Americans think 100 years is a long time.. :)
25 yrs ago, on my bike with no plans, in a little town in southern S Dakota, I looked southward and mentioned to another biker that I might try that direction. A local guy heard me and asked, "How far can you get on a tank?" I said, "About 150 miles." He said, "Son, there ain't nothin' on that road for 200 miles." Saved my skinny keester.
Many thanks, again.
@Alan Smithee Because you don't know gow to read hahahaha... If you can, read the name fast
Carry a can of gas.
He was exaggerating, If you were in southern South Dakota, you would have hit US 20 about 30 miles into Nebraska. It is the middle of nowhere, but there are towns with services. Would have been hard to go 20 or 30 miles w/o a town with services.
He was blowing sunshine up your butt…you can’t go more than 30-50 miles at most in the eastern part of the state before finding a town with gas.
Its freaking dark there at night too. Kinda scary driving hey at night.
I remember a road trip we took six years ago. It was the middle of the night and we were driving through the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. I was sleeping with my head propped up on the window. I opened my eyes and thought I was seeing smoke. Nope! It was the Milky Way and it was the first time I'd ever seen it. I told everyone in the car that I thought I was seeing the Milky Way, so we pulled over in the dusty, dry dirt and took pictures in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert under billions of stars. A memory and sight I will never forget!
That's awesome. The best comment.
Amazing
Same thing happened to me when I passed northwest ARIZONA!! Omg i saw the freaking Milky Way!!! I could NOT BELIEVE IT!!!! Omgggggg
Light pollution is one of the worst tragedies to befall us modern people.
Yep in my brief stint with Astronomy the buffs all go on about what they call light pollution. It very much affects your ability to see things with a telescope.
Yeah, I heard growing up in Arkansas, that we were "country" or "rural." And we are culturally. But my entire conception of rural changed when I drove through central Wyoming
Lol Wyoming is the least populated state in the U.S😂
And most people out there own like 150 acres EACH! I don’t see how they manage THAT much land! Sheesh
@@sashamoore9691 you can if there's nothing on it!
literally the population of my borough is 1% of wyomings population which is definitely saying something bc 5400 ppl isnt much lol
@@sashamoore9691 150 acres isn’t that much out west. My family owns 100 acres on Alabama and 160 in Tennessee. It’s manageable.
When traveling in Utah, you should never let your gas tank go below half.
so true. especially when traveling on i-70, there’s so few gas stations.
Anywhere in the mountain west for that matter.
I almost got in trouble driving from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City, left Grand Junction with a little over half a tank, barely made it to the gas station in Thompson Springs with less than 30 miles remaining. I was white knuckling it the whole way there lol.
@@davidlittle5693 same. I made the turn onto highway 6 headed towards Price. Forgot to check my gas level before exiting the highway. Halfway between the exit and Price, I noticed I was on E, 12:30 AM. Coasted in on fumes and with the whitest knuckles I've ever seen.
That's true. I remember driving from Phoenix to the GC and then up to Utah and I think I got gas twice. Then on the way back before Vegas.
I’m from Lund, NV. Beautiful place in the middle of nowhere with 8 students in my graduating class.
WELL....LOOKY THERE ..... I JUST GAVE YOU YOUR 7TH THUMBS UP ON THIS COMMENT.
CLASS IS DEFINITELY REMOTE.
Played you guys in soccer during high school 👌
damn bro, i live in NJ the most densely populated state, in tryna move out somewhere where there is not that many people
@@TronisEdison move anywhere out west away from the big cities. Even some smaller towns away from the big cities will make you feel further from home you've ever felt. The mystery is beautiful.
I'm 15 and live in a pretty big city and I would love to live in a place like that
There's nothing like a drive across Nevada. It's what you'd imagine a drive across Mars would be like. I love it here.
To me it’s just depressing. I live out in SoCal, so I’m used to a desert. I’ve lived in the Mojave desert my entire life, and I don’t like it. However. Driving through parts of Nevada makes my home look like a rainforest
No kidding. I live in San Francisco and for the longest time I drove no further east than Reno/Tahoe. The one time I took a road trip and drove to Yellowstone, the road between Reno and Salt Lake City was REALLY empty and depressing...I was very surprised how quickly the landscape turned bleak once I left the limits of the Biggest Little City in the World. We chose not to drive that road on the way back.
Well they did film the mars land rover in Nevada so....
I've made three drives across Nevada on U.S. 6. It makes highway 50 (the so-called "loneliest road in America") look like a metropolis. One gas station between Ely and the California border (250 miles).
@@drewbryan6739 I would say i80 through Wyoming is far worse than Nevada. Also south east Oregon is really boring
As a Brit, this blows my mind. I simply can't even imagine how big these spaces are until I visit it myself. Sure there are some "empty" spaces here, maybe if you climb up a large hill or mountain but you will always see a village or at the least a few cottages at the bottom. Couldn't imagine being on a road with nothing for 200 miles, thats like driving from London to Leeds and not seeing anything or anyone.
Yes, i recently road tripped from Louisiana to Washington. From Winnemucca, NV, up through NW Nevada and SE Oregon, you are on two lane highways for 100's of miles. You'll see a sign "Next services 88 miles" then 88 miles later, see your first tiny old gas station, followed by "Next Services 86 miles". It is pretty mind blowing
It’s very different from Europe. Even many Americans don’t know and many Americans actually have never travelled to other parts of the country
@@ramencurry6672 REALLY!! It’s different.Woooow we didn’t know this!🤦🏿🤷🏿♂️
It would be nice to have a grocery store every 200 miles....
Type transtaiga road in quebec....
This is remote
@@comedian376oh man you seen some of the best scenery then I’ve done from WA-VA-NVlasvegas-WA back n forth and then again from WA-VA haha it’s a lil scary tbh specially driving at night and being all by yourself but no doubt it was a great experience it’s surprising how empty is the US…
In a strange way, this video was a comfort. Nice to know there is so much untrammeled land.
I agree.
My lifeblood is untrammeled land, but... in much of this country it isn't really untrammeled. The farthest you can get from a road in the 48 states is 21 miles out, in a remote part of SW Yellowstone. It's right next to a ranger station. Someday I want to go somewhere so remote, I know no one has set foot there before and maybe won't ever again...
Sure. And then you try to drive through and get kids in the corn and take wrong turns.
By far, most of America is "untrammeled."
@@maxwellerickson7066 Floatplane into a remote area in Northern Ontario with a canoe. Nothing more adventurous than a canoe trip up there, and the walleye fishing is fabulous
My grandparent have a ranch in SE Oregon. It’s beautiful when it’s so silent you can actually hear yourself think. It’s my favorite place on Earth.
I’m just curious, because I’m from Boise , but do your grandparents live around burns or Rome?
@@14preston49 Christmas Valley. My brother’s family and my mother live in Boise actually. I was there for a few months on leave last year.
@@DeadBelowZer0 O cool thx
I know I'm late, but I also love southeastern Oregon. Highway 140 east of Lakeview is beautiful. So open. Makes you feel alone
I lived in Bend for 2001-2016, and I liked me some Fort Rock!
That area in idaho is no joke. I drove through the northern part and there was a sign that indicated twisty roads for the next 99 miles. There were absolutely no gas stations for over 130 miles. Directly south, if you look on the map, is a massive quadrant of no roads, no people, nothing. It's amazing.
Those two signs on either end of Lolo Pass are quite literally my favorite signs I've ever encountered. One of the most fun drives if you can avoid the logging trucks and occasional RV.
@@GoaliGrlTilDeath yep that’s the exact area. Next to the locksaw right?
@@downbytheriver501 That would be the one!
@@downbytheriver501 Lochsa -- US12, Lewiston to Missoula. I was first on the route when I think it was brand new as a paved highway, 1965, as a 10 year old kid going to Yellowstone from Seattle
@@marksandstrom4248 you were a very young driver... laws have changed I guess.
I'm from Alaska and people in the lower 48 states don't comprehend just how big it really is. The drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage is the most beautiful drive most people will ever make and you sort of take it for granted as a resident. It puts it in perspective that it's 360+ miles from one city to the next. I sure miss that drive.
Dang, do you store full gas cans in the trunk???
@@GrislyAtoms12 lol. There is a gas station in cantwell at the halfway point. I reckon there's one in Denali too. But there's definitely a pretty good hump without any service stations. Over 140 miles
But Alaska fits twice in Texas. Source: Texans
@@RosenSkull lol. I actually had a Texas couple try to explain to me how modern maps lie to us and Texas is actually much bigger than Alaska.
@@theLongPigChef LMAO. If I'm being generous, I'm guessing they said something to the effect of "the Mercator projection stretches out higher latitude areas making them look bigger than they are", which is true.... But that's accounted for. Just look at a globe where this distortion doesn't apply and you can clearly see Alaska is bigger. But there's no convincing a Texan otherwise, I reckon
New Mexico born and raised. Can confirm there is only 8 of us here.
LOL - Best Comment!
I heard there's only 3 things to do in NM; drink, do meth and...only 2 things, sorry.
@@bearbryant3495 . . . and BALLOON!
@@bearbryant3495 there’s some great hiking and hot spring areas that I enjoy
@@Wanna.Wander eating, horse racing, casinos, history, and much more 🤩🤩🤩
Alaska: “My time to shine”
I was surprised we (Alaska) didn't rank all 15 of the top 15
Beautiful place!!!
@@Marzsala were you listening? Alaska is twice the size of Texas and less the populated then Wyoming. That's why.
@@Marzsala lol nope. Sensing I missed something.
Yep, and so glad I live here.
We took a family trip through Central Idaho years ago. We were on what was essentially a logging road for 110 miles. We camped on the mountain that night and you could see no lights. You could see nothing man-made from where we were at. It was amazing!
That might have been what is called the Magrugure Trail, 100 plus miles of just winding mountain dirt road, just awesome
it is!
You realize just how small we all are at that point.
When I lived in Death Valley National Monument back in 1979, I would sit outside my old travel trailer and the view of the constellations was amazing. The sky so clear, you can see the shooting stars, and when I went back in the 1980's for 49er Days, I saw a Russian satilite shoot across the sky. It was a sight to behold!
My home state is Montana. There are huge parts that I have not been to, and probably never will see. Wherever I have been is truly God's Country, beautiful beyond words. I wish I could have a do-over so I could see more of Montana.
BTW, I just turned 80!
Happy belated birthday! God bless you!!
Not your land
........there’s still time. 👍💪
@@kz6713 No one asked bitch
You got PLENTY of time! I still haven’t seen glacier. Pathetic, huh?
A correction if I might add. #13 Nebraska Sandhills: It has LOTS of water. The area sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer (the largest underground freshwater source in the world). It has a high water table and many small ponds/lakes/pools form between the vegetated dunes. I did my Master's research project in the area based on the hydrology of the area.
Nope. The Geography King says no water.
@@CoIoneIPanic Well the King is wrong about some things in the Sandhills. And you're probably being sarcastic. There is little cropping there and not many people but most of the Sandhills is well watered and ranch country. The Union Pacific follows HWY 2 through the Sandhills. The Sandhills is classic cowboy country and that is why Ted Turner is buying land there and Buffalo ranching. There are high $ golf courses in the Thedford area where very wealthy people fly in to play.
@@silver2644 thanks for the irrelevant info. Long live the Geography King.
@@silver2644 It's a basement troll, don't spend another second feeding it or bringing yourself down to its level, as it's a futile and pointless effort. Sometimes you just come across the most vile and repulsive internet dweller trying to create scraps of misery to feed its addiction while playing with itself in the dark because it thinks it got over on someone.
@@SZfiftyfour tell us again what Ted Turner has to do with Cowboys?
I have traveled all across the U.S. via my motorcycle. HONESTLY, the Sand Hills of NW Nebraska are absolutely beautiful and a hidden gem!! You can go 20, 30+ miles without seeing another car or human!! It's true cowboy country....like stepping back in-time!! Also, loved southern Utah....WOW!!
Agree with you about the Sandhills. And just west and south of there is the north eastern Colorado, the Pawnee grasslands, which I think you would have enjoyed.
I went on a road trip in 1992 with relatives, starting in Minnesota, drove through S. Dakota, Wyoming then Idaho. On the way back to Minnesota, drove through Montana and North Dakota. There weren't even any radio stations in parts of Montana. Beautiful parts of the country. Yellowstone Park was awesome.
As somebody who is biking across the country and is currently in Oregon, the rural areas of Colorado/Wyoming/Montana/Idaho are unreal. Hours go by without seeing another house or development, sometimes 70 miles between places to fill up on water. It is truly lonely sometimes, but unbelievably enchanting and peaceful. It’s so rural it makes the most remote parts of New York seem bustling, it blew my mind.
That amazing how did that go?
sounds amazing and peaceful
The wind must make for some brutal cycling...and it's ALWAYS a headwind for some reason.
@@SilverSceptile he must still be going...
Dude you have to update us on your trip. How was it ?? Where did you start and end ? Pls give details
Alaska is so remote even their major urban area looks like a suburb of a major city in the rest of the country.
I think I've heard that the City of Anchorage has more Forests than some parts of states back east
Anchorage has one of the largest urban areas in square miles in the country
Can confirm. I live in Anchorage, was born and raised in St. Paul MN.
Anchorage is freaking huge. Going speed limit (55-65, except a few miles where it's 45) along the highway, it'll take you a couple hours to get thru the Anchorage muni.
Anchorage: "15 minutes from Alaska in any direction."
I would guess: Spoken by someone who's never been to Alaska, especially Anchorage.
I was an OTR truck and to me the most scenic areas I could drive through in a truck were in Utah and Nevada. I just loved how you can see just open uninhabited land for miles with snowcapped peaks that look like they can't be more than a few miles away but are really 40-50 miles away.
@ William Shultz . Agree . I’ve been there once .
Same! Love that area.
Originally I am from the flat Midwest and lived a dozen years in VT for a job transfer. When I had had enough and decided to move back to America (and I mean that) people in VT kept saying 'But isn't it flat there? It's so FLAT...' I like flat. I like seeing the big wide world for miles around.
Ever driven from Denver to South Park? Beautiful empty basin surrounded by the Rockies.
Arizona pretty nice too
Grandpa used to say that even the Jackrabbits pack a lunch in Eastern Montana.
As a German, you can hardly imagine that, because here you are happy if you get a place two miles without people. 😑
Come visit us in Idaho. If you like outdoor activity, its great.
Germany is very pretty. I'm an Idahoan from birth and have lived here my entire life... with moments of business, college, and military my perm address has always been Idaho. I visited Germany in 2001 age 18. Germany is very similar to western half of Oregon and Washington in climate and in flora; Cascades and Olympic mountain range remind me of the Black Forest.
On the western side of the US, all states have stretches of essentially emptiness.
Even populated WA and OR. Not just Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah, etc. Even California has very remote areas as he described.
The populations in the west are very concentrated.
It freaks me out in both Germany and most of Europe as well as the East of the rocky mountains, how large and even super mega cities are 80 miles or less apart. Chattanooga Tennessee 180K is considered a small town in the east; stayed there on business for a couple months. But it's almost as large as Boise 228K people our capitol of Idaho.
Richmond capitol of VA is only 80 miles from Washington DC. And DC only 47 miles from Baltimore and then 105 to Philadelphia and 94 miles to NYC. Huge major cities... distance between major cities in the west are 400 miles apart. It's odd to think when I was in Cleveland OH on business for 4 months that I was able to on a weekend drive just 300ish miles Chicago. Or within 250ish miles I could go to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Detroit or 292 miles is Toronto Canada.
This is from an Idahoan's perspective living in Boise:
Boise Idaho to Calgary Canada which is direct true north by interstate is 863 miles, Vancouver Canada 629 miles. Boise to Portland OR is 436 miles or to Seattle is 493 miles or to Salt Lake City 339 miles or to Las Vegas is 624 miles or to LA 879 miles, Boise to Denver is 812 miles.
@@mrp4242 I would like that if I could afford the trip :-) I got my hands on a picture book about the Midwest and the West Coast when I was a child and it has been a great wish of mine ever since.
@@eastfrisianguy America is beautiful, so is Germany. Try to visit! :)
Hallo Pegatan! I am an American living in Switzerland now for 31 years. My wife is German, and has been here for 24 years. I know Germany and drove to Rostock from Zurich last summer. 10 hours was no problem. This video was fun to watch, especially for me, growing up all over America with my hippie father in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I was born in New Jersey and then lived in Idaho, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maine, Colorado, Oregon, Colorado again, then Washington state finishing High School, then California to my mom`s place. What I saw driving nonstop, what I have in my memories is crazy. For me Switzerland, being the size of West Virginia, is an amusement park with 4 national languages. Lots of nature and so many towns and cities close by too. I still have family in Idaho and my sister`s son is in Montana. All huge and beautiful, but I really love Switzerland and all of Europe.
Funny how we use the term empty to mean "lacks humans" when really a lot of these beautiful places are far from empty! Good video; had no idea about central Idaho.
May the TH-cam algorithm stay in your favor
Thanks!
Think Rocky Mts, ski resorts, lakes etc in central Idaho!
Same for the term wasteland, really means that it can't be used but it's still full of life of one kind or another.
Yeh but we are humans.
Oh, they are all packed with wildlife and flora, but not many humans. I love the back side of the Sierra up the 395. Gorgeous and rather empty.
On one of my middle-of-nowhere motorcycle (street) rides in Nevada, I met a German couple. They couldn't believe how much nothing there was when they left Vegas. The wife was actually really scared of such a wide open space. I told them that some people in the USA are more afraid of the big cities...
P
The west is the most open region of the U.S. and most of Nevada is owned by the federal government. Nevada gave the US government the land so they could operate because even they said it was just too much land to handle! But yes. Outside of the coastal regions of california, it’s gets very WESTY- Remote, and almost scary at how much land there is
Being born and raised in a big city, I lived in Vegas 2 years. We went to Red Rock Canyon late at night to look at the stars, I was scared 😨😳 to death driving there!
Did see my 1st and only shooting star! 🌠
@@piglet1242 Do you enjoy the solitude now? At least, sometimes?
On some of my motorcycle trips, I warned my passenger that we will be out in the middle of nowhere, she was OK with it to the point of telling me to stop warning her.
@@SmittyAZ Nope. Not even close. Retired in Florida now. My sister lives in New Mexico and wud go for motorcycle rides with her then husband and a lot of others. Do you call them pelotons?
Alaska is absolutely wild. The uninhabitable tundra area north of the Brooks Range is over two hundred thousand square kilometers of nothing. No trees, no human settlements, limited vegetation, and can get 24 hours of sunlight/darkness per day depending on the time of year. I drove up to Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton one winter and it was an otherworldly experience.
I lived on an island in Alaska and have only been to Anchorage a couple times. Driving the Dalton is on my bucket list but I'm worried that I'll die trying. I don't think I've ever driven for more than two hours at a time.
Back in the late 80's I drove a motorcycle through Nevada on Highway 50, Highway 50 is called "The loneliest highway in America".
I'm here to testify!
Got a flat, guy pulls over to help, offers to take me into town because tire is ripped, can't fix that. I ask him how far it is - "89 miles".
Ask him how far the last town was - "92 miles".
How much closer to the middle of nowhere could I manage to get?
I would drive along and see a mailbox next to a dirt road going off over the horizon - no house though. No lights visible at night. Nowhere even to pull over - two lane road with desert sand on each side.
I lived on 95. It was very desolate too. Grocery story was 33 miles away in Hawthorne. Same drive if you wanted a cheeseburger. People tend to help one another in Nevada.
I needed a tow in as southeast Wyoming. I had left Washingyon. A sheriff stopped and gave me a ride into town. About 15 miles back. He got me set up with a tow. The driver was headed south anyway. We picked up my car and we towed it 152 miles. Charged me the minimum tow fee too. I'm thinking these people are so nice what's that catch. There wasn't any. Got my car fixed up at the shop it was towed to and they got it running by the end of the day. Didn't cost much and I continued on to Oklahoma.
@@bernieweber4663 There are some really good people out there... If you can find them. But in your case, they found you! Great story.
@@bernieweber4663 Trying to get back to my bike it was, by then, night time, I only had a long sleeve cotton shirt on, carrying a tire, and there's not much traffic on that road, and the desert gets damn cold at night! There was a diner called Junction Diner that set on a T intersection, it was the only place between the town and my bike, I was FREEZING, and went in for coffee and warm up. Talked to the waitress and was telling her my woes, she said she was getting off shift and would drive me to my bike, it was still 35 miles away.
Yep, good people out in the country.
@@bernieweber4663 Nice experience. Not really to one up you, but I managed a 200 mile towing in Maine. Up in the North Maine Woods heading to 5th St. John Pond for week long canoe trip on the St. John River. Took out the oil pan on dirt roads in a brand new 99 Jetta TDI. Managed to get the flat bed operators to take us 30 miles further out to begin our trip with us in the Jetta (canoes on top) on the flatbed before they headed home for the night and the car to a dealership the next day. The 4 hours waiting for help gave me time to hatch a plan. The trip I'd have to say was really more important than the car, at least at that moment.
I LOVE that there are still "empty" spaces left in the US!!! Man-Kind has destroyed so many beautiful places!!!
Agreed! The world is way too populated
I rode my bicycle from San Francisco to southern Maine. My favorite section was from Reno NV to Salt Lake City UT. The emptiness of the desert was majestic. It was clean; so few marks of people spoiling the land. One could imagine this was how has been for thousands of years.
You rode your bicycle across the country ???
Riding your bike across this vast country is truly insane.
That’s so cool
How did you carry enough water across the desert?
Oh hey I plan on biking in a four thousand mile triangle around kentucky to arizona and back to kentucky. Did you go alone? Because I am and I'm wondering what you did when you went to grocery stores. Did you take your stuff in with you or just leave it outside with the possibility of it getting stolen?
I spent some time in Wyoming. There are some beautiful places there and some scruffy, barren places as well. I once joked to myself about how no one would ever find me if I decided to lose myself in the wilderness. If you ever get sick of people, I recommend taking a vacation in Wyoming. You can find your quiet place there and no one will bother you.
@@reddawg6748 Hahaha, perfect for an undergound alien base
I drove across the country and around the border of Oregon and Idaho ( very few signs giving me info on were I was, just followed a GPS) I hit a road that scared the crap out of me. Thank God I filled up my gas tank just before I hit this stretch. For at least two hours I drove without seeing nobody, no cars, no gas stations,no stores of any kind, no houses, having no phone signal at all in the middle of summer. By the time I realized that the nothingness wasn't going to stop anytime soon if I was a little low on gas I likely would not have had enough gas to even go back the way I came. I realized if I broke down there was nobody or stores or anything I would find to help. My phone was never going to work to call for help and the heat was crazy. It was all open land almost no suitable shelter, water, or even creatures to hunt. If you had to walk it .. it would take long likely a week to hit another person. I realized if I broke down I very well could die out there. Im from New York City and had no clue that nothingness like that exists and is that vast. Living on the east coast that was unimaginable. I flew to Oregon because of a sick friend who couldn't fly due to health issues so I flew there and drove him home. It was a emergency so I didn't prepare at all so that road was very scary. It was also my favorite part of the trip. I loved that endless stretch of road. I want to go back to drive it again but don't remember were it was. Just followed my GPS. I loved the road but seriously if I didn't get lucky by gassing up when I did or if I had a car not running that great I could have never come home. Scary stuff for a city boy not expecting that. At least I would think I would see another car or truck. Nothing was out there and nothing was coming. Hard to imagine in this overpopulated country with stores everywhere that parts of the country are like that and go on like that so long. I was gunning it likely doing around 80 for two hours or more (it seemed forever) non stop. It was nuts
I'm from Birmingham and people routinely tell me that I live in the middle of nowhere when I tell them where I"m from, but driving through that part of the country (Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Nevada) you get a true sense of what actual nothingness really is. Driving through Utah and Nevada were probably the most anxiety-inducing driving I've ever done.
Most people have NO idea just how big this country really is, you have to drive across it to get a clue. Then stop along one of the old wagon routes and think about the people that headed out that way in the 19th century in horse drawn wagons and on foot.
@@JeffDeWitt yep, I was one of those people. Then I drove a uhaul from coast to coast. It's a ridiculously humongous country. And the massive size of states out west. Just because it's a rectangle shape doesn't mean it's somehow smaller or quicker to get across.
@Baroque Guitarist do you know what your destination and starting points were?
@@bobsnipes3335 I remember driving by that famous last blockbuster video in Oregon around late afternoon. It was either a few hours after that or maybe after driving all night and sleeping a bit I hit that road the following afternoon. Don't know if that helps
After growing up in the Canadian sub-arctic, I eventually visited most of the places in this video ---- with the exception of Alaska, my reaction was almost always "this is really nice, but, hey man, I need some more elbow room!"
Wasn't Leslie Nielsen from up there?
@@billolsen4360 He was born in Saskatchewan, but he grew up in the remote settlement of Tulita (at the time it was called Fort Norman) in the Northwest Territories. It's a very typical little First Nations outpost in Canada's north, like many others I've seen. It's in a mountainous region along the Mackenzie River, a 1800 km (1120 mile) long river with only a handful of tiny settlements on it. The Mackenzie is named after the Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie, and one of my cats is also named after him (the other cat being named after David Thompson, an even more daring Canadian explorer.) You can reach Tulita in three or four weeks by canoe from the nearest permanent road (going downstream, if you are really good paddler). For any practical purpose, it is reached by air. It's 617km by air from Yellowknife, the Territorial capital. The average night-time temperature in January is minus 28C, though of course it can get considerably colder. Most of its 397 people are of the Sahtu Dene First Nation. The population would have been much smaller when Leslie lived there. His dad was the local Mountie. Leslie's older brother Erik was the Member of Parliament for Yukon Territory for 30 years, and was widely known as "Yukon Erik." Leslie stated that his brother had the sharper sense of humour.
@@philpaine3068 Wow! Thanks for the biographical info on Leslie. Dad was a Mountie! It's funny that Erik had the sharper sense of humor. My BIL went to high school with Steve Martin & said Steve was the quiet shy one but his best buddy was the real class clown & could even make the teachers laugh while disrupting classes.
Being from South Dakota, I am really surprised not seeing us on the list!
Same! I live in Rapid which is obviously populated, but there’s a sign on I 90 that says “next McDonald’s: 260 miles” and if that’s not an accurate description of SD, idk what is
just look at a night time, satellite image of city lights. north and south dakota has a widespread coverage, whereas these places he mentioned are black.
North and South Dakota most of the population is along the I-29 corridor about 20 miles from the Minnesota boarder!
You can say that about North Dakota as well
Me as well from vermillion here
I drove from San Bernardino CA to San Antonio TX. What a trip! The remote desert wilderness I seen was unforgettable. Especially past El Paso on I-10 .
I was wondering when and what part of Montana is gonna pop up, then he chooses the whole state LOL
IKR, just the way we like it lol.
Lmao and I thought living here Montana had decent sized cities
Coming up on a road trip from Cali, y’all have a beautiful state. The southwest of the states mountains are so amazing and loved staying out there
I was thinking anything east of Billings 😂
Which, of course, is bull. Some parts of Montana are getting to look and feel like LA.
My favorite place (that I have been to so far) is Nevada. I traveled Route 50 years ago with my father. It was the most fun I ever had traveling. I loved being in the literal middle of nowhere. It is an experience I highly recommend for those who enjoy travel by car. Thanks again for a great video!
To be fair, western Utah and central Nevada are the same place, just an imaginary line in the middle of it. And yes, nothing there. That’s the way we hope it stays...
But the salt flats dont really start until getting right up to the Utah border. It's a slightly different landscape in that region.
A lot of these areas are adjacent to each other. Montana, Wyoming, and northwest Colorado are continuous, and I think the idaho area he mentioned is that way as well. The South East also feeds into the Nevada-Utah area, as does northeast California. Get a good solid satellite image of the US at night, and you can see where the nothing is.
no kidding. glad almost all posters hate it. central and northern Nevada is the best.
@@derrickthewhite1 The Idaho area he mentioned isn't quite contiguous. He's largely talking about the Frank Church wilderness, which is very much central Idaho. The valley that runs West-East through the bottom of the state is where the vast majority of people in the state live, and it's a bit more densely populated there than it is in Wyoming, Montana or NW Colorado. Mind, it's all a matter of perspective...
Too late, I'm moving.
As a born and bred Easterner, I love traveling in the Western US. I marvel at the sheer courage and effort that it took our forefathers and mothers to traverse this land on foot, on horseback and it wagons. People ask me what my favorite area of the West is and I always say that is impossible for me to answer as there is a ‘buena vista’ around every bend in the trail.
I think of the grit and determination of our settlers as well. Modern Americans couldn't hang in a wagon train from that era.
@@AJFar-tm7dn Traveling inside a covered wagon over the Oregon or Santa Fe Trails wouldn't have been so bad, but you had a team of oxen pulling your possessions, food & water. In order to save your oxen the extra burden of hauling people, almost everyone walked along side the wagon. The pioneers were certainly in shape to build a home once they got to their destination.
This courage of them hit me when I flew over the Great Basin... there's nothing out there now hardly... imagine hundred years ago
Also the center and south of the western US, when Spanish explorers traveled and little by little colonizing that area must have been extremely difficult due to the harsh living conditions, what really attracted more people was the gold rush, there was a reason to travel all over the place.
I had that same thought when on a cruise, imagining those early explorers traveling in their tiny boats across an endless sea
This is the travel guide for misanthropic people. No people, no problem!
Loving remote areas as I do does not make a person misanthropic. I love people, I just don't like cities, the definition in my book being about 16,000 plus people. In remote, rural locations you get to know people better and no one is pretentious, like you find in a city. I lived at a U.S. Forest Service ranger station on a dirt road outside of a town four years. Everyone there was living in Forest Service housing and we were quite close. The area was remote enough that sometimes I would work in the field, camping out or backpacking and I would not see anyone for the entire 4 night/5 day trip. When I did on some of these tours it was wonderful, people that enjoyed remoteness as much as I did.
@@wannabetowasabe Um, that was a joke dude.
@@parsnip2699 I guess you intend to have humor jump off the screen and hit people in the face. Humor doesn't work that way, at least not very often. Why, because you can't write down your voice inflection or tone or the look on your face.
Nowhere did Parsnip say that you have to be misanthropic to like remote places with few people, all they said was that misanthropic people will like remote places with few people. Reading is fundamental.
Nevada is about 85% federally owned land.
4 Wheeler magazine said 90% of Texas was mostly Federal property
And?
@@sheepdavis so u have no access to freely swing...er,on said🇺🇸land
And the Merry Ole Bunch owns the other15%.
@Outdoor Life 4 Me ???
Top 15 Emptiest Parts of the U.S. exists
Canada: Amateurs
*Manitoba moment*
Even worse, it's populated with Canucks. Seems like you didn't read the caption. Besides any group of people that would allow Trudeau to lead them has more empty space between their ears than the rest of Canada combined.
@@theccpisaparasite8813 Get out of here with your ridiculous politics.
As he said: Emptiest parts of the US.
Now if you want to show us up, provide a list of the 15 emptiest places in Canada. I know there are a few, and it's not the Yukon, although it seemed like it when we drove up the Alcan 52 years ago.
@@Albisriede that moment when you forget about Northwest Terrorities, Nunavut and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec
I cowboyed for several years in south east Oregon. It is as remote as it is beautiful. I miss it still. Many wonderful memories.
I worked at Crater Lake National Park, in Oregon.
I was, well impressed. How deep the snow was. How dark and bright the stars were on a pitch black night.
As a truck driver I have to say I have been through most of these locations the most remote one that I have been to was in Utah I delivered just outside the town of Bonanza Utah I looked it up before I drove there and in the 2020 census they had a whopping population of zero it was in the town of Vernal that I delivered to there is a power plant it was quite interesting delivering there
What about it was interesting? Sounds spooky!
@@noemitellez3098 I have been thru Vernal. It is a ghost town and yes...spooky.
Thanks for showing MN's boundary waters. If you love rugged camping and canoeing it's a must to experience.
I’m from Orr, MN, right smack in the middle of the BWCA, and Voyageur’s National Park.
I was born in the Andean Plateau. Over 12000 ft above the sea level and most places in the list are quite similar. If you are into this kind of landscapes I suggest you look for videos of Bolivian west specially The Uyuni salt flat.
Edit. I’m expecting to climb the Sajama sometime soon. Best place on earth.
Being from NC, I took a trip from Vegas to the Grand Canyon and I realized that it is so empty out west! It was like going from town to town each like an hour apart.
As a guy born and raised in N.C and have driven up to N.Y and down to Florida I still can't even fathom it having never seen that level of emptiness!
As someone who lives in the west, there are certain road trips that I have had significant stress about running out of gas. There are areas with plenty of gas stations then there are stretches that if you run out of gas it will be an hour before you see someone else. I suspect you are lucky enough to not worry about that ever.
Yesss, I went to Vegas with my family a few years ago and we went to the grand canyon and it was soooooo empty but it was gorgeous out there😍
@@Xambonii in the west you gotta plan your gas stops ahead of time to make sure you don’t run out in the middle of nowhere
In 1995 I drove from West Yellowstone to Butte without filling up the gas tank. I did not expect that most of the small towns along the way had no gas station. Limped into Butte onto an empty tank. It's very easy to get caught out like that in the West.
crazy that the "emptiest" places also happen to be some of the most beautiful
How is that crazy? It makes perfect sense
Because factories, fences, houses, businesses (especially run down ones) make it look not as good.
Mostly because of no water.
THat's why they're still so beautiful; NO people to screw it up!
No people can be a good thing! Silence is golden!
As a truck driver who has been to all lower 48 states. This video is 100% correct ‼️
Hey my sister lives in central Idaho on The River of No Return. No roads in. It’s 4 hours on a dirt road and a 6 mile hike down the mountain into her canyon, or a 2 hour dirt road and 1 hour of jet boat plus a 5 mile hike up to her secluded canyon homestead. The arduous trip doesn’t stop me from visiting her four times a year though! I love the remote country!
A homestead? That's so cool!
I hope she doesn't have a large horror movie selection, lol.
I live in Buffalo, Wyoming and I feel truly blessed.
I am so glad I found this channel. It's hard to find other geeks for this sort of stuff. In my home state of Colorado, in spite of population growth, there's still plenty of lonely and beautiful places here if you get away from the I-25 and I-70 corridors. I've been all over the Rocky Mountain West and Mother Nature is definitely more exaggerated here.
I'm glad you found it too! There are more geo geeks out there!
We just did a month-long road trip around the West covering Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. It was the most amazing trip of my life. The landscape, food, people, scenery and sunsets were incredible. Cant wait to go back! 🇺🇲
Absolutely loved Northern AZ and SE Utah. I live in a tropical jungle in the summer, mid to high 90's with almost 100% humidity, so the desert to me was heaven. Bryce Canyon is probably the most gorgeous place I ever visited. Spent 2 days on 4-wheelers all over the trails down there, and will never ever forget it.
It’s always refreshing to hear someone pronounce Nevada as Nevadans pronounce it.
It gives the Geography King credibility!
doesn't literally everyone pronounce Nevada like that
If you want us to say Nevadda spell Nevadda
@@RohanKumar-ft6he - Brits pronounce it, 'Nevarda'.
I grew up in northeast Nevada and agree
@@brontehauptmann4217 can't. These places need a way to make sure outsiders stand out. It's a great screening process actually.
When driving from NJ to Arizona, I remember the stretch of road from Amarillo, Tx to Tucumcari, NM was pretty barren. I don't think we saw 5 other cars.
I make that trip 3 times a year, to go back and visit my relatives and friends back east (I retired to Az). Love the ride. I get in with a group of trucks and tail them. I try to tell the family, what it's like to ride I 40; you can see the mountain ahead of you; a couple hours later, you can still see the same mountain, and you're still no closer to it! Roads so straight and long they just disappear like in the Road Runner cartoons.
Man if you Americans want true open wilderness, try remote Western Australia. In the Pilbara region up north, there are approximately 61,000 people living in an area of 196,000 square miles which is larger than California. Or take the Nullabor plain which is an area about the size of South Dakota but only has maybe a few hundred people living there.
@@chairmanlmao4482 Yeah but that’s because it would be hell on earth to actually live in those places. Probably 115 degrees in the summer, completely flat and full of animals that will fucking kill you lol
While there’s definitely some flat, hot, boring desert land in the western US, there’s also a ton of uninhabited high mountain range and low valleys and woodlands. If you wanted to live somewhere with equal parts beauty and privacy, there would be no where better in the world than middle of nowhere Wyoming for example.
I just drove that stretch a week ago going from Santa Fe to Dallas. I had never driven that part of I 40 before. It was amazing. My favorite route is from Dumas, TX to Colorado, cutting across the NE corner of NM. You can drive forever, but the Rockies never seem to get any closer. AND there's an extinct volcano along the way to visit.
@@charlesbrown4483 115 degrees? What do you think it's like in Phoenix in summer?
Central Idaho, particularly the Sawtooth Mountains are so beyond beautiful
I remember while in the Navy, my ship was in the middle of the Atlantic (talk about being in the middle of nowhere!) and I could see so many stars and of course the Milky Way. Very powerful and breathtaking sight. It gave me goosebumps every time I saw it! I miss doing that. I was in the Navy for four years (1984 - 1988).
@Faggot Rotten Thank you 🙏🏼
That was a goofy ass comment
I saw the bands of the Milky Way for the first time in the Atlantic while in the navy.
@@jhonyermo Thanks 🙏🏼!!
@Faggot Rotten dude shut up he most likely peeled potatoes, what are you thanking him for he didn't kill the enemy and he volunteered to board a ship for 4 years. Sick of this stupid thank you crapthank the men that killed nazis or saved there platoon in Vietnam.
Have you ever experienced a view on the crest of a hill/mountain where you look out and as far as you can see there are no humans or signs of a human...? No power lines no roads nothing but nature...? Most people have never been to such a place...
And then there is the horizon line. There is something magical about it. We take it for granted but if you study it, it will pull you in. It is a glimpse of forever.
Yes sir. I moved to San Diego 8 years ago from northwoods WI. That itself was a beautiful area but I became a desert hermit shortly after visiting it. Sonoran, Mojave and Palm Springs area via enduro bike to get me 50 miles in from any dirt roads. I moved back to WI but will be visiting the desolate desert in the winters again. Cant see myself never not being there again
Too freaky. Done that in the coast range of Oregon. It's like being dropped into open water.
I have and I love it every time!
I live in Western PA and I’ve never seen anything like that
I was driving in Nevada many years ago and I thought this is what the moon must look like, minus the craters. No sound at all, except the wind which you can hear before it reaches you.
Lived in Vegas all my life and have spent most of my spare time in the last 30 years exploring the most remote areas I could find across the western US. Central Nevada is impressive in both its scale and emptiness. Southeastern Utah is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The Mohave desert is my regular stomping ground and it's not hard to go wander around for a couple days and not see a single soul. Most places in Arizona are never too far from some sort of civilization but it is still easy to find yourself alone among some of the most beautiful landscapes. I find peace and relaxation in being alone in nature. There are places in the world that would make our little Western US seem small and busy, but it provides all the solitude I will ever need.
Been to and/ or through most of these places, and if you decide to go, you'd better be prepared. These aren't places you want to break down in.
In North Central Washington, on the very northern end of Lake Chelan, sits a tiny little community called Stehekin. Stehekin is completely cutoff from the road system, and the only way there aside from private float plane or a very, very long hike is to take a ferry in, a 3 hour journey from the town of Chelan at the southern end of the lake. It is the closest thing to an Alaska bush town you will find in the lower 48.
I've lived in WA for more than a decade now, and this is the first time I've heard of Stehekin!
Been to Stehekin many times as my wife and I are both from Manson, 7 miles up the lake from Chelan. Stehekin is absolutely beautiful!
They’ve got a real cool grass airstrip too
One of my favorite memories is when my wife and I took the boat up to Stehekin and spent the night at the Inn there. After the boat leaves, a heavenly quiet and stillness settles down, and you have millions of acres to explore any way you wish. In the morning, we got a couple rental bikes and rode up to the village a couple miles away. We had the road to ourselves all the way. We stopped at the bakery, got pastries and coffee, and sat out on the porch to enjoy the most beautiful July morning it is possible to experience. We wished it would last forever!
@@MikeJBeebe that's sad. You need to go there. If you dont like it the boat or plane trip to and from Chelan would be worth it. Where do you live?
I'm from the high desert: a portion of the Mojave desert and the only place in the world, other than Joshua Tree National Park, that Joshua trees grow. Once you get past the major highways or interstates, there really is almost nothing for miles and miles. It's so close to some pretty big suburban cities like San Bernardino and Riverside so the sudden transition after you cross the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains is shocking the first couple times. I hated living there for so long because it was super isolating and there was nothing to do, but it's so beautiful and living in Sand Diego now for school I kind of miss it. The darkness at night and the gorgeous sunsets are unmatched in my opinion, let's keep it that way.
Same, I was stationed at 29 palms we were literally the last town to Vegas or primm Nevada it was insane!! I remember being the only car on the road coming back from Vegas, living like that made me fall in love with even LA traffic, it was so awesome to see so many cars and know there was so many people there. The Mojave will change your perspective
Lived in Hesperia for 11 years as a kid/teenager. I prefer wilderness myself, but there is a beauty about the desert.
LOL, I live far away from San Bernadino. and nowhere near JT Natl Park. And there are Joshua trees three miles from my backdoor.
They grow over a huge range of the southwest and in two countries
"This monocotyledonous tree is native to the arid Southwestern United States, specifically California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, and to northwestern Mexico"
I’m from Seattle and some of my favorite parts of Washington to travel was the Northern Central Cascades. There is nothing. No people at all, u are alone. Untouched nature that impacted me like no other place I’ve been too. Truly there is something magical to this area.
Fun fact: Davy Jone's Locker in the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie was filmed at the Salt Flats in NW Utah
That wasn't "fun"... 🤷🏻♂️
Nebraska is really an amazing state to drive through. As long as you stay off Interstate 80 you're going to see some spectacular sudden changes in geography.
The most interesting things I saw driving through Nebraska were being pulled by trucks, such as enormous construction vehicles, windmill blades, construction materials etc.
Once you get past Omaha and Lincoln, there ain’t shit in that state. One city in the middle of nowhere, north platte, and that’s about it. It’s creepy and lonely out there
How quickly it goes from brown and flat to green is really fascinating
I so miss living near central Idaho. It's been quite a shock to move to Indiana. It's hardly crowded here but it feels cramped compared to what I got used to.
Welcome to Indiana. Hope you build a good life here. Just don't vote blue. Keep the gun laws loose and the taxes low.
@Jose Ortiz Indiana is a right to work state.
@Jose Ortiz they can but if someone doesn't want to join they don't have to. Thats what right to work means. It doesn't ban unions, it just means if you want to work joining the union isn't a condition of employment.
@Jose Ortiz they do. If they get together and a majority vote to start a union they got one. I work for a high school and the teachers have a union. It's just that no one can be forced to join
@@Styxswimmer Blue is the only way to to vote-in any state. That idiot trump cost me a lot of money due to his Chinese tariffs that destroyed US grain markets.
I'm absolutely loving the stories and experiences in the comments, lovely to find videos which foster such discussions!
Rode my motorcycle across North Dakota, from west to east. Emptiest place I've ever been, although I've only rode across 17 states, so there's a lot I haven't seen. But knowing that North Dakota didn't make the list, gives me an idea of how empty these places in your list are. Great video once again, as I love your channel, and always learn something new and just find geography very interesting. Keep uploading and stay safe. Cheers mate.
I think west central North Dakota has a very good argument for this list.
Same thing I’m saying. Emptiest area I’ve been through is I-90 through South Dakota and it didn’t make the list here so I can only imagine how truly big and empty those areas that made the list are, surreal to think.
greetings from bismarck
North Dakota is urban sprawl, compared to the High Plains/Mountain West. Even as far east as Nebraska, they have county seats that are unincorporated.
I’m from southwestern/west central North Dakota and it is pretty empty in that area except Dickinson. I am surprised that is not on the lower end of the list. I think if it was a top 20 list, then it might have shown up.
Alternate title: Top 10 places for introverts.
Just because you choose not to live in some stranger's armpit doesn't automatically make you an introvert. Apparently a lot of mega city residents agree with me, as the super cities are now showing a population exodus
dugroz - well done!
I'm an introvert who has travelled to many countries across the world and met people of all cultures. I just prefer people to not be in my personal space often.
Or misanthropes.
There video actually listed 15,not 10
You talk about not hearing trains but one of my favorite memories of camping in the desert is the sound of steam train whistles at night sounding out across the vast emptiness, a sound that is gone and can not be replaced by modern train’s.
This is really eye opening. In this world where everything has become so instant and connected by technology and populated with people, it really blows my mind that there are SO MANY huge swaths of land on which possibly nobody has even laid eyes in the US. Great video
I just love your videos. From someone who grew up near Toronto and moved to Western Canada straddling the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan I can definitely relate to your descriptions of empty parts of the country. Over the years I've worked in every one of the provinces and been to 42 states. Canada as a whole is fairly empty (similar to Western US) and most people tend to live near the US border. Thank you for the videos!
The northern half of Canada would be #2 on this list, or maybe close to #1 on this list. Beautiful, and remote. Love it.
I can tell ya, from experience, stopping on Hwy 50 between Fallon and Austin to stretch your legs, the wind will blow around your feet just for the company.
Sat in the middle of the road on Hwy 50 between Delta UT and Baker NV once. A half hour of blessed silence.
Well shiiiiit.
I tell everyone to tour NM. It is amazing. Tough to find work, tough to get phone service, better figure out what to do about water..... but touring in a car or motorcycle is amazing. The Land of Enchantment.
Driving i80 from California to Utah, once I was in deep trouble, there are like 100 miles of straight HW no gas station, and I was sweating as my car was showing Empty gas in the middle of the stretch. Stunning wilderness of emptiness in the middle of nothingness !!
There is similar empty stretch in Wyoming too, only diff in Wyoming is its cold AF. In here I was lucky to find a small gas station outta nowhere called "buck mountian or something area"... Lady was super helpful and chatted for a while and she told me where she lives there are like 300 people altogether and the only source of entertainment is a Theatre !! I was shivering in that cold where as lady was having her day of the year saying what a beautiful bring sunny day was it !!
@ Prem Chettri Battle Mountain is the name
@@shawna.4601 No No, Battle Mountain is in Nevada.. ( The deserted place close to Prison area ).. This one I was talking about in Wyoming is actually called Elk mountain .. Just searched
@@premchettri7170 you’re right, haven’t been that way for almost 4 years but now that I think about it Elk Mountain was where I used to stop in a Wyoming to get gas years ago, my mistake
central idaho is GORGEOUS wow 😍😍
I live 7 miles outside a town in Idaho that has a population of 512 people. Don't move here, we'll hate it.
I wont
Why?
I have family in Stanley Idaho, population 63
Actually, if you are from the East....just stay home...there's nothing to see here....
@@yankeewatchdog7299 I am indeed from rural Maine . And I think you just inspired me to go. Thanks
This summer I drove through Hyannis, Nebraska, yes that was the absolute middle of nowhere but at least I saw Carhenge
Shoutout for Carhenge!
Hyannis MA?
When I moved to California, I flew over west Texas, new mexico, and Arizona to get here. Coming from Florida, which is very flat, I was amazed at how beautiful the scenery is in all of these places. Even in CA I am still in awe looking at the mountains just on a trip to Walmart etc, whereas the people from here tend to take it for granted. The only other place I have lived was Maryland's eastern shore and also Delaware. So I had never seen nature so big in my life.
I'm from Florida, and the snow capped mountains are mesmerizing
I cant believe west Texas wasn't on the list.
Yeah I wish more people had that appreciation of the world
The north eastern portion of california is so underrated, very gorgeous
I am very much glad there is a part of CA forest beauty that isn't clamoring with tourists. Looking at you Tahoe and Yosemite. When I venture out of the city, I want to get away from people and in nature. Glad there's a spot in CA to do it in. 💚
The U.S. army wiped out most of the Modocs in the battle of the Lava Beds up there. in '49 there were 150,000 of them In '52 only 30,000 remained. All others got killed. Governor Beck, the first governor actually had a five dollar prize on each Indian killed.
Surprise Valley!
Atlantan here, I’m so grateful for the nod to the South not being as empty as people think.
You're right about west central New Mexico. My father grew up in Catron County, where my grandfather was postmaster of Pie Town. The post office was in the corner of his feed store. There were cases in the mid-20th century in which the sheer remoteness of the area exacerbated serious injuries, because it was hard to get timely medical attention. Pie Town did not get telephone service until 1962. In the mid-1970s, I knew a rancher who still didn't have a telephone, because it would have cost him $1800 just to get hooked up.
Indeed! And then over the line in AZ stretches hundreds of miles of Mogollon Rim, about doubling the contiguous size of this remote area.
I’m from the white mountains in northern maine. Definitely a simple way of life ❤
I can’t wait to spend more time exploring the west. Since the pandemic, I have been extensively exploring one of my home states, Maine, and I am excited to spend more time in California, Alaska, Montana, and many others after the pandemic.
I recommend seeing the redwoods in Northern California ( Jedidiah Smith campground). They'll take your breath away!
I recommend the smaller lakes around Tahoe, there’s dozens you can hike and swim at that aren’t crowded and the best part is free camping. Good luck :)
Thank you both! A dear friend of mine has close family connections to the Truckee area, so I will definitely check these places out.
I agree with the Redwoods.
@@NightOfCrystals come down to the Monterey Santa Cruz area on the coast . I'll show you around myself.
“If Big Foot exists, he’s going to be in central Idaho.”
- Geography King
Love it!
For all we know we might be subscribers to Big Foot.
@@emoney8098 The one with internet access?
The best recommendation I have ever heard.
Sasquatch lives here in Alaska as well = they are real...no joke.
@@slant6guy Sasquatch lost the Presidential election. Back to the forest!
I am from Omaha, Nebraska, and pretty much every part of Nebraska not named Omaha or Lincoln is barren.
There are around 1.5 million people in Nebraska, and over a million live in the Omaha area. Lincoln has around 160,000 people, leaving about 325,000 people that live in all the rest of Nebraska...
I'm from Omaha too and yeah, you are right.
look up the nebraska 3rd congressional district.
Children of the corn will get you if you venture too far out.
@@Phil-ui4tm Malachi and He Who Walks Behind the Rows personally greet out of staters when you visit Nebraska! Something to look forward to...🌽🔪🩸🦴😳
and people from the tri-cities area don't even consider omaha as being part of Nebraska. it's nothing like the rest of Nebraska.
There's a conga line of Bigfoots in Idaho! Perfect habitat for them. Excellent video!
You are right on the money my friend. I drove a truck all over the country for 32 years and have seen all of the places mentioned with Alaska the exception. I traveled down the extra terrestial highway rt 375 one night from Tonapah to Las Vegas and i must say that is the only time i was ever worried.
I went south towards Winner SD from the Interstate just for laughs... then up and NW towards Rapid City an a two laner thru the badlands. 2AM. Saw several burned-out cars on the way. Kept thinking I could die here. Thankfully I knew the antelope weren't carnivorous. Love the BIA police. Unforgettable experience.
Did you see crazy things at 3am
...lived in Broken Bow, Nebraska "at the foot of the Sand Hills" training horses in 1989...loved it...it was cool to watch the t-storms develop that would sweep to the east throught Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, etc...all the rivers are 1/2-mile wide & foot deep, really cool...
...keep up the good work Geo King!
...really enjoy your YT Clips!
Live in Phoenix now. What we wouldn't give for NW Nebraska thunderstorm!
@@billolsen4360 I lived in the North Platte valley, west of Scottsbluff, and we used to watch the T-storms build and bet on whether they were going to hit us or pass north or south. Also, having lived in Arizona, I can say from experience that there are some pretty wild storms there, as well!
@@cavecookie1 Love it up there around Scottsbluff, so empty of people you can almost see the frontiersmen and wagon trains cresting the hills off to the east. And yes, Arizona storms can be a little too wild. Had 94mph winds here 5 years ago, tore down my new patio roof and fractured a Palo Verde tree in 3 places. 18 out of 41 houses on our block needed new roofs.
I relived some of my favorite vacations with you! Central Nevada, highway 50. I went back to fill up my tank when I saw a sign: No services next 163 miles; my favorite vacation photo ever! I like living in a big urban area but I love to vacation in deserts and remote areas. When I see "no signal" on my cell phone, I'm very happy. At a planetarium in Wyoming I learned that 50% of Americans have never seen the Milky Way, what a shame! Thanks for some great ideas for my next trip!
Hello! 😀 I have been resisting traveling to and experiencing the wild blue yonder. I thought east of the Mississippi was the only place to “live”. But after watching and listening to your videos for over the past couple years…well, I’m officially converted as of this day. I need wide open spaces and fresh air. Thank you for your patience with me. 😊🎉
What a great country to explore!
I love finding channels like this. Good quality interesting videos from a knowledgeable person with a large backlog of videos. Nothing fancy, but just all around enjoyable.
I'm glad you found the channel!
Right you are, but I find the stories in the comments just as engaging as the videos. Good people are all over the place and it helps remind us that we need to be one of them.
I used to have to travel around Wyoming. Many times, after say 10pm, I could go over 100 miles without ever seeing another vehicle. It was a scary proposition in the wintertime!
I used to work in lost valley WY, a oil company was drilling a couple of wells. 100 miles from Rawlins, Rock Springs and Riverton. the only people you saw were other oil field workers. The blizzard of 1979-80 was a bitch. not to inerected in going back.
BWCA in northern Minnesota is extremely remote. Accessible by canoe only. Only sounds from the wilderness. On one trip, I saw not one human being for a week. And it is a waste of valuable pack space to bring a phone. They don’t work.