If you are looking for the opposite of a car camper, look at Ryan and Rebecca Means. Using mapping software, the couple is seeking to find the farthest spot from roads in each of the 50 states and then trying to camp is as many of those spots as possible. They call their adventure "Project Remote."
For many states, including Tennessee, it's surprisingly hard to get away from civilization and the Means have been surprised by the numbers they've found.
"Truly wild country is something that's going away," Ryan says.
The farthest campers can get from a road anywhere in Tennessee is 4.2 miles, at a spot about 25 feet off the Appalachian Trail. In North Carolina the spot is in the Smokies, 5.5 miles from a road. For Alabama, it's a barrier island 8 miles away.
"There's something magical that happens to humans when we get away from our cell phones and the sound of cars," Rebecca says.
When they can, like at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Wilderness Area of Everglades National Park in Florida (17 miles from a road), the couple and their young daughter like to camp at or near the spots.
"We hunger for and need wild spaces deep in our psyche," Ryan says.
Protection plan
The idea for the adventure came when Ryan was walking down a crowded beach in his home state of Florida. "I was wondering how on Earth, in a state like Florida, is there a place to get away from all of these people," remembers Means, who lives south of Tallahassee.
After sharing the idea with his tech-wavy wife, the couple concocted the idea to use GIS data to identify all of the roads in a state and then find the spots that were the farthest from them.
"We realized how hard it was to get away from the roads," Rebecca says. "We had no idea the extent of the roads in this country."
So far they've made it to more than half of the states to find the spot in person. One day, they plan to release the exact locations of the spots, but for now, they are keeping the details a little vague.
"Our point in this project is not to have people go to the exact spots, but to celebrate these remote areas," Rebecca says.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT REMOTEFOOTPRINTS.ORG.
Most remote spots in each state (based on distance from road)
Connecticut: 1.1 miles
Rhode Island: 1.8 miles
Kentucky: 2.4 miles
Tennessee: 4.2 miles
North Carolina: 5.5 miles
South Carolina: 6.7 miles
Alabama: 8 miles
Virginia: 8.3
Florida: 17 miles
Montana: 18 miles