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Comment by Stevvo | Hacker News Reader

For many years I've been searching for the perfect beach; the one with the white sand and palm trees from the postcards. I've gone half way around the world on this quest, sailed to places few will ever see.

I've come to the conclusion this beach does not exist; beaches are only ever free of pollution when they are regularly cleaned by humans, regardless of how remote it is.

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Reminds me of a conversation I had with a guy on a plane once. We were staring out the window over central Australia and he commented that it's almost impossible to find a place so remote that you can't see a sign of human occupation from the air. And he was right, even 500+ km from anywhere there were still a few roads, sheds etc. visible at any given time.

I think the sign of human activity that is the most visible from the furthest out into space is forestry clearcuts.

They are much bigger than cities. Farms fade and start to blend together and their perfect geometric shapes are harder to see.

But clearcuts are more haphazard but spread over hundreds of kilometers, so even when you zoom out really far, it just looks like someone spilled a bunch of salt on the map.

San Blas / Kuna Yala - I've been there on a literal cartoon island. 30 yards across, white sand, 4 palm trees. Nothing else. Zero trash.

Some parts of Bastimentos aren't bad eiher.

You're not trying hard enough then... They're out there.

Plenty in the Hawaiian islands. Only Oahu has a major city on it. The other islands are pretty sparse.

> Only Oahu has a major city on it.

And even that only bt an extremely broad reading of “major city”.

You can find that on the islands near whitehaven beach if you hire your own boat.

Any favourites along the way?

never sailed to French Polynesia I assume?

Not yet, will get there eventually but it's a slow journey at 6 knots even if you are not working most of the time...

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