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American Morning
'Outside' Editor Discusses Remote Places to Travel
Aired July 27, 2001 - 10:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: If your summer plans call for you to trade in that couch potato comfort of your remote control for the exotic adventure of a remote destination, listen up -- or maybe you just want to get away from it all. Our next guest has scoured the earth for the perfect destination.
Nick Heil is a senior editor of "Outside" magazine. He had a great job. He got to oversee the current issue's feature story on remote places to visit. We are talking remote. He is joining us with some of those findings.
Nick, good morning.
NICK HEIL, "OUTSIDE": Good morning, Daryn.
KAGAN: You're not that remote, just in Albuquerque, New Mexico -- kind of easy to get there, I imagine.
HEIL: We do feel a little bit remote out here.
KAGAN: That's a good thing. You head up to Santa Fe if want to feel even more remote.
HEIL: That's right.
KAGAN: What was the criteria here? What made something remote?
HEIL: I will tell you. That was a discussion that went on pretty much throughout the duration of putting this package together. It turned out to be not just geographic isolation, and also a little bit of a state of mind, which is something that the writer Ian Frazier that talks about the introduction of this.
KAGAN: He did, beautifully. I should mention that along with the beautiful pictures, there are a lot of good essays that talk about getting away from it all in the piece.
Let's show some of those pretty pictures and aces and talk about some of the places that your writers went away to, first starting in Africa, I think you say the Rwenzori Mountains.
HEIL: That's right, the Rwenzoris. These are actually located in southwest Uganda. It's a pretty unique setting for Africa. I think, conventionally, people think of the velt or savanna, but we are talking about 16,000, 17,000 peaks here with technical climbing routes, glaciers and some pretty amazing vegetation.
KAGAN: People don't think about Africa being chilly. People do associate Africa with guerrillas, and you have pictures of silverback mountain gorillas in the Congo basin -- I think in east Cameron. I love the point here: The gorillas -- as in these gorillas -- won't hurt you, but the other kind of guerrillas, the human guerrillas, the kind that carry guns, you might want to take into consideration.
HEIL: Yes, that's certainly a concern if you're going to travel to a place like this. You also need to watch out for the vipers and the cobras.
KAGAN: But you don't have to the leave North America, and actually, you can, very close to a major American city, get to someplace remote, and I am thinking of -- let's go to the Everglades National Park, if we can get that picture up. Why did you pick this? This is not far from Miami, is it?
HEIL: It's only about 50 miles from Miami, Daryn, and the reason this made the list is it's the largest wilderness area east of the Rocky Mountains, and I think probably a place that people don't realize that they can really escape civilization within just a few hours of their home.
KAGAN: And clearly that is not a picture of the Everglades, so let's move on, and hopefully, we can catch up...
HEIL: Actually, that's the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, in Idaho.
KAGAN: Also in North America.
HEIL: Yes, also in North America.
KAGAN: Why did you pick that?
HEIL: That's the largest contiguous wilderness in the western part of the United States. It's very rugged. You could pretty much venture in there and not see a single person for weeks.
KAGAN: A place that's gotten a lot of attention because of environmentalists and because of the potential plans to drill there is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This might be a place that folks want to check out before it changes, too soon.
HEIL: We like to be optimistic at "Outside" magazine and think that it's going to remain pristine for the foreseeable future, but yes, there is the possibility that it's not going to be that remote much longer.
KAGAN: I also liked that you did a little bit of math and noted there are 2,500 visitors in one day, but if you divide up all the acreage, that means that each person still gets 8,000 acres to him or herself.
HEIL: That's certainly one of the criteria for remote. KAGAN: Plenty of land to go around.
You did go all around the world. Let's look at pictures from Australia and what you picked there. These are some beautiful islands.
HEIL: Actually, this is a photograph of the Truk Atoll, in Micronesia, which is a location that is featured in one of our essays in the package.
KAGAN: What's so great about going there?
HEIL: As you can see, it's you know fairly representative of the tropical paradise that I think a lot of people associate with the South Pacific. So if you really want to escape it all and lounge on a white sand beach, Micronesia might be the place for you.
KAGAN: But just to wrap it all up, it doesn't mean you have to go half a world away, although you can. And it also doesn't have to be that expensive, because there are places that might be very close to a major American city.
HEIL: We have commercial trips in this package that run up to $10,000.
KAGAN: Lovely.
HEIL: You could go to the Everglades and do your own trip for no more than a $10-dollar backcountry permit.
KAGAN: There you have the range: $10 to $10,000, all very remote. Nick Heil from "Outside" magazine, thank you for taking us far away, just for a couple of minutes, at least.
HEIL: Thanks a lot, Daryn.
KAGAN: Good to see you.
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