• Where can you find a literal underground city?
What islands are only accessible to the outside world 2 months of the year?
These are 15 of the most isolated places on Earth.
15 – Motuo County, China • China is a country of over 1.2 billion
people.
• And yet, there is still an entire county so secluded, it’s the only one in the whole
country not connected by a road.
• To reach Motuo County, you must hike through the Himalaya mountains, then cross a rickety
old 200-meter suspension bridge.
14 – Oymyakon, Russia • Winter is coming, and with it, people
are going to start complaining about how cold it is.
• But at least you don’t live in Oymyakon, where the average winter temperature is negative
58 degrees Fahrenheit.
It’s considered the coldest inhabited area on Earth, and it’s a two-day drive to the
nearest city.
• In the short summer, the temperature regularly reaches into the 60s and 70s, but most of
the inhabitants complain more about the warm weather than the cold.
13 – Coober Pedy, Australia • In 1917, a town was founded in the middle
of South Australian Outback with the sole purpose of mining the semi-precious gems known
as opals.
• To shield themselves from the 120-degree summers, many of the inhabitants of this mining
town decided to simply burrow underground.
• And 100 years later, around 80 percent of the population of Coober Pedy still lives
in homes carved into the rock underground.
12 – Macquarie Island • Positioned roughly between Australia and
New Zealand, this is a former Antarctic research station that shut down in March of 2017.
While the station was active, it was home to between 20 and 40 people total.
• The island was once well-known for seals and penguins, but feral cats, rats, and rabbits
were introduced to the island as invasive species, and quickly overran it.
• From 2007 to 2012 – the Australian and Tasmanian governments worked on a plan to
eradicate those invasive species.
11 – Supai, Arizona • For generations, the Havasupai tribe of
Native Americans has lived in the Grand Canyon.
• Not close to it or around it.
IN it.
• Supai is a small, poverty-stricken town with one school that only teaches English
and math.
Teachers have to leave the school at the end of the day by helicopter.
10 – Socotra Island • At one point, the Galapagos Islands were
considered a famously remote island full of exotic flora and fauna.
• But now the Galapagos are a tourist destination, and everybody knows about the giant tortoise.
• But Socotra Island, sitting alone in the Indian Ocean, is home to over 800 unique species,
and there’s a good chance you’ve NEVER heard of the “Dragon’s Blood Tree.”
9 – La Rinconada, Peru • Denver, Colorado proudly lays its claim
to being the “Mile-High City.”
• But never mind them.
La Rinconada is three miles high.
• The highest city in the world isn’t exactly a tiny village, either.
It’s a city of over 50 thousand people, most of whom work in the nearby gold mine.
• The corporation that runs the mine has a unique system of payment.
People work in the mines for 30 days without getting paid.
On day 31, they show up to the mines, and can take as much gold for themselves as they
can carry.
8 – Amudsen-Scott Scientific Station • The South Pole is such a remote location,
it’s often compared to outer space.
Like space, people can’t survive there without some extreme technological help.
• Secluded as the Amudsen-Scott station is, it actually has a lot of amenities, including
a library, fitness center, basketball court, and game room.
• But despite sitting on top of 10 thousand feet of ice, melted water is such a rare commodity,
showers are rationed to 2 per week, of 2 minutes each.
7 – Chang Tang, Tibet (Changtang) • Another high-elevation location, this
plateau in the Himalayas sits as high as 4 miles about sea level.
• But while thousands of people do live on this plateau, they don’t live in cities.
The inhabitants, the Changpa, are nomads. 6 – Barrow, Alaska
• If you’ve ever wanted to experience 65 consecutive days without sunlight, then
Barrow, the town on the northernmost point of Alaska, might be for you.
• On the other hand, if you’re not a huge fan of icicles forming on your eyelashes and
your breath freezing on your protective goggles, maybe stay away.
• Apparently the most exciting thing to do there is watch the polar bears scavenge
at the dump, anyway.
5 – Alert, Nunavut, Canada • Barrow is the northernmost inhabited place
in the United States.
Oymyakon is the coldest inhabited place in the world.
• But Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, is considered the northernmost inhabited
point in the world.
• Alert sits right next to the northern tip of Greenland, only about 500 miles from
the North Pole.
There are about 5 permanent residents there.
4 – Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland • 450 people make their homes in this settlement
nestled between the largest national park in the world and the largest fjord in the
world.
• It’s only reachable by boat or by helicopter.
Tourist amenities include one guesthouse, a pub open one night a week, a shop, and a
post office.
• And the boats can only get there in July and August, when the temperature rises above
freezing.
3 – Kerguelen Islands • This remote French territory has people
staffing its research stations, but nobody actually lives there.
• That’s part of why they are also known as the “Desolation Islands.”
• While there aren’t very many people on the island, it IS home to about 4 thousand
reindeer. 2 – Pitcairn Island
• In the late 1700s when the mutineers of the HMS Bounty washed ashore and made a home
for themselves, it happened on Pitcairn Island.
• More than 200 years later, the island houses only about 50 permanent residents.
And they can’t get people to move there – even for free land and money.
• That’s partly because the island has a dark history of child sex abuse, which might
also be why the island hasn’t had a child born on it in more than four years.
1 – Tristan da Cunha • Do you love that small-town feeling, and
also HATE it when outsiders come to your town?
• Tristan might be the island for you.
It’s in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, and about 300 people live there – all
of them farmers.
• The island’s nearest neighbors live about 15 hundred miles away in South Africa,
and the island is only actually accessible 60 days out of the year.