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Comment by xcskier56 | Hacker News Reader

There’s a fun website that I saw that listed all of the most remote points in the lower 48. This is defined as farthest away from a road.

Amazingly, given all of the vast land in the western US, the furthest you can get from a road is only a little over 20 miles. This is in the middle of the Thoroughfare in Yellowstone NP.

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I wonder what the definition of road here is. Plenty of roads are just tracks in the dirt where enough vehicles have traveled to leave a mark like logging roads and such.

Unpaved road covers a lot of ground in the western US--from unpaved but well-graded and maintained to you'd better have high-clearance 4WD and know how to use it--in appropriate weather. And the map databases aren't necessarily great at distinguishing things at the edges.

And the map databases aren't necessarily great at distinguishing things at the edges

Very true. I once had Apple Maps direct me down a one-lane road that turned into gravel 20 miles later, then into dirt 20 miles after that, and then eventually became just ruts in the sand used by horses and mules.

I'm sure it was used as a "road" to calculate distances between places, but it was in no way a road.

I have a general "do not leave paved roads when following GPS" rule to prevent things like death (which have occurred). You should know what you're doing and be prepared if you leave the pavement.

This was in an area where dirt and sand roads are more common than paved roads, so it made sense to follow the arrow until it became a track.

Definition is basically, is it drive-able? Can you physically get a car to a point on the road?

An old road could exist, but is in Wilderness, so it somewhat doesn't count, as you can't drive it for legal reasons.

"Drivable" isn't a very useful definition at the margins because it depends on who is driving, in what kind of vehicle, and in what kind of weather.

That is why I added a few more sentences to the working definition in hopes to clarify it and to thwart off contrarianism, which inevitably someone here is going to gleefully practice.

Road implies “path for vehicles” in my mind, but I presume something that might be called a path or a trail could count as a road as well.

Furthest distance in New Zealand is probably on the coast near West Cape in Fiordland National Park: about 70km from roads from what I can tell (the road to Lake Hauroko and the road to Deep Cove/Doubtful Sound via Manapouri Dam).

Looks like there are some amazing walking tracks down there: https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/fi...

Keep in mind that while the US loves its highways, many "roads" in rural areas are dirt or gravel tracks. Here's a drone shot of Hartnet Cathedral Rd in Utah:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/FWp3tzVhwBs7r6bt6

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