This is a video by Real Life Lore Sponsored by the great courses plus It may be easy to believe That anywhere in the world can be reached with a simple plane flight and maybe an uber with some added walking in between it's 2017 after all So, surely if you want to go somewhere, you can get there in a reasonable amount of time Right? The truth is, there are still some shockingly difficult and remote places to get to in the world, and there are still some places that nobody in all of human history has ever been to yet! The question is, where is the most difficult place that you can possibly get to in the world? and how can you get there if you stop watching this video now, and set off on your journey? Let's start with how far we've come. This is a map from 1914 that details travel times around the world if you started in London. Back then, most of Europe could be reached in under 5 days travel time while more remote parts of Scandinavia and Russia would take 5-10 days. Getting to San Francisco could have taken 10-20 days, Sydney would have taken upto 40 days, and there were parts on every continent except for Europe, that would have still taken months to actually get to. Today, however the travel times are absurdly lower where all of Europe can be reached in under half a days journey, as well as large parts of North America, Africa and Asia. The journey to San Francisco that would have taken 20 days, 100 years ago, now takes only half a day. The journey to Sydney, that would have taken 40 days, now takes just about 1 day. Much of the world has been open to rapid transportation thanks to modern air travel. But, there are still a few places that haven't kept up with the rest of the world. Take Pitcairn island for example, A UK overseas island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is home to a mere 49 people that is hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest other inhabited island. If you want to move here they'll actually give you a free plot of land to build your house on, And temperatures remain tropical year around. But there's no airport on the island, so transportation with the outside world is done only by boats, and they rarely visit. So the best way that, I found to get there. From London, is as followed. You would first have to get a flight from London to Los Angeles. And then take a connecting from there to Tahiti that journey would take about 24 hours. But then you would need to take a flight from Tahiti to another island Monica Raiva. Which only happens once ever week. And it would take another five hours, and 30 minutes and It's the closest airport to Pitcairn. and it's still 531 kilometers away. The only boat that travels to Pitcairn regularly with supplies is located here, but it only leaves once every three months to visit. If you're lucky enough and managed to get on the boat it's another 32 hours of sailing before you finally arrive at Pitcairn. or a total trip time of about 2 and a Half days Total, from London. At the bare minimum that's difficult. But the there's these islands named, the Kurguelen Islands, also known by their ominious name of "The Desolation Islands". Located in the remote Indian Ocean, they're Three-Thousand, Three hundred, Kilometers away. From the closest other population center in Madagascar. There are around 50 to 100 french scientists on at all times, Like Pitcairn, there is no airport So Transportation is done only by ships They are visited by only one supply and transport ship every three months. The least from Reunion Island near Madagascar. So first you need to arrive on that island somehow. and then get on the six day boat journey to "The Desolation Islands" It would take a minimum of about one one full week to get to the Island, from London but there's an even greater challenge to do once you're there. The tallest mountain on the island is 1850 meters high and the first guy who flew on top of it is some guy who flew up in a helicopter in 1960. Hardly anybody has ever been there, since. It's one of the most remote mountain summits in the world, which means that it's likely one of the most difficult places to get to on earth, But there are some other which are significantly more more difficult to reach than this Take Mount Sidley, for example Which is the tallest volcano in Antartica. Antartica is already difficult enough to get to with no regularly scheduled flights from anywhere in the world of the volcano is located in the most remote part of Antartica known as Mary Birdland a place so vast and remote that no sovereign nation in the world current claims it. It's basically like being on the Moon here. and the volcano is 428 meters high. It wasn't even discovered until until 1934 and nobody had ever climbed it to the top of it until 1990. and ever since then only two expeditions have ever successfully made it to the top. Most recently in twenty-ten. Which makes the summit of Mount Sidley a elusive place that very few people have or will ever be to. The summit of Mount Everest in the Nepal-China border is the highest summit on earth. And is obviously very difficult to get to. It's 8,848m tall and has been successfully reached by only around 4,000 people through history. Which is fewer people than have ever won a Grammy, but 223 have died while attempting to climb as well which means out of everybody who has ever tried climbing to the top. About 1 out of every 20 of them has died trying that sounds very dangerous and difficult of course. But then we move on to another mountain named K2 which is the second tallest mountain the world that is far more difficult to climb only around 300 people have ever successfully made it to the top. While While seventy-seven have died trying. Which means about one in ever five people who has ever tried getting there has died while trying. Nobody has ever successfully gotten there in the winter and K2 is nicknamed "the Savage Mountian". because of it's extreme difficulty. contender for it's difficulty in climbing. the summit here is a good for the most difficult place to get to but another mountain in the Himalayas and Annapurna is even more dangerous it's the tenth highest mountain in the world. but has only ever been successfully climbed by 191 people. While 61 other people have died while trying which mean about one out of every four people who was four people who have ever tried reaching the summit has died while trying to do so. In terms of your odds for survival doing so getting somewhere this mountain may truely be the most difficult place on earth for you to get to but there are still other summits on other mountains that have still never been reached by anybody. This is the Gangkhar Puensum the tallest unclimbed mountain in the world at seven thousand five hundred and seventy meters tall nobody in history has even been at this point right here and nobody probably will be for a very long time. The mountain is locatd in Bhutan has banned any climbing of it for religous reasons so not only is getting to the top physically challenging. But it's also legally impossible. So what about a mountain that is legally ok to climb that had never been reached. The tallest summit in this category would be Mucha Chhih at seven thousand four hundred and fifty-three meters tall. meters high and incredibly demanding mountain, that has only ever been attempted to be climbed twice. And If you are looking for the most difficult place on earth to get to that is legal for you to try the answer is probably this summit right here that no human has ever set foot on. maybe you end this video and try to yourself. We as a species, have been both to the moon and the deepest part of the ocean but there are still several dozen mountains around the world whose summits have never yet been reached by anybody making them possibly the most difficult places to get to on our entire planet So thank you very much for watching this video. I'd like to give a tremendous amount of thanks to my incredible sponser the great courses plus. 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Which includes lectures on the Himalayan Mountains, Antarctica, and other extremely difficult, but Fascinating places it's a truly great subject to learn about and which helped out a lot with, The research I did for this video you You can watch these or hundreds of other courses you can completely free, when you sign up for a 30-day free trial. Using the link that is on your screen now. www.TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/RealLifeLore. or you can click the link in the description. If you enjoyed the video you just watched. Then, I hope you'll subscribe to my youtube channel, by clicking here. You can visit my patreon by clicking here. And watch older videos of mine here. [Music Plays]
Big Ben and Mawson Peak on Heard Island is probably the hardest place to get to anywhere...further away than Kerguelen with a higher mountain that is extremely glaciated.