hm. Here's a story: on our second visit to China, one of the main targets was Mount Emei, which is a well-known tourist hotspot. On the top, because of the buses and cable cars, there were probably thousands of people - we couldn't see due to the ridiculously thick fog.
And then we started to walk down. The shortest path down on foot is ~50km stairs. We met roughly 10 people, including the monks in the monastery we had to sleep midway.
Had there been people there before? Yes. Is it secluded? Yes. Did it feel like a discovery? Yes. And I'd even count it as a spiritual experience, despite the fact that we never really left the civilization.
Another story: when we were in Uppsala, Sweden, we visited a place called Norra Lunsen. The young lady in the ticket office literally asked as why do we want to go to the middle of nowhere - and indeed, we met a single person there.
The point to "discover" at our current stage of evolution - in the sense of we can't yet travel across star systems or galaxies - is not to go to places where no human has been before, but to find places that give YOU a new experience.
As I explored this incredible University town I discovered the most special treasure..
The “Silver Bible”, not a Christian bible but a collection of “all the knowledge of the day” encased in a silver cover. It had been lost for 500 years and discovered again under some floorboards. To this day one of the most amazing world treasures I’ve seen with my own eyes.
In a nutshell, you can intentionally choose to prevent others’ perception of a place from spoiling your own. One step further, you can even use their perception to enhance your own experience.
You’re standing in a place that your extremely distant ancestors and cousins once stood, in a place where your nieces and nephews and children might one day stand. You’re connected to the narrative of humanity.
The concept of “first” is a red herring in the narrative of humanity. It carries a lot less meaning than our current culture leads us to believe.
There are a lot of places in Siberia or Antarctica where no man has ever been closer than 10km. You are welcome to visit. But the trick is, there is nothing of real interest there. No old temples (if there is a temple, you are certainly not first there), no sculptures, no food or lodging. Being first to discover some exotic island in the Pacific sounds romantic, but in the reality it is far less glamorous. Just rocks, trees, maybe some sand. The main object of travel are people and other cultures, and this is the only meaningful discovery one can make.
Except for discovery of self. If you are fortunate to get to a spot where no "man" has trod, you can feel it. A feeling of amazement, a surreal loneliness. It is awesome. Are you afraid? Alone? Teeming world is just, over there. Yet here are no ghosts. Empty of human soul. But, rich in nature's soul. Wonderful, contemplative experience.
But the others were not there when you're there and certainly not with your state of mind. The world is not static and neither are you, which presents infinite possibilities for unique experiences and perceptions.
Few people are capable of *real* exploring anyway. Going where no human has been before. Shackleton, Amundsen, Mallory, Harrer, Bonatti, to name a few Euro-centric ones, did so. To do what they did at that time was extraordinary and way beyond any if our capabilities.
And what Insta calls an “Adventure” is merely a tightly controlled and carefully crafted theme park visit. It’s a joke.
That said, any place is there for you to discover. Nobody fucking cares if you visited the Grand Canyon or some fiery hole in Iceland. And even less so if it has been trodden on by humans yet.
All that matters is having a jolly time in an alien place, detached from anybody’s expectations. Don’t chase the next Insta spot.
Go early in the morning. Go in bad weather. Go off-season. Take your time and the rest will reveal itself.
I often travel without a guidebook. To discover a temple without a guidebook, and without having seen single source of information on the location around it, that is real discovery. Everything is unexpected, including finding that temple. If you take this approach, you will inevitably depart having missed many of the places listed in guidebooks. But so too did the discoverers of the past who had no guidebooks. You can't have it both ways. My advice is to forget the buck lists. Just go experience a place. Stay awhile. Discover it for yourself. And if you do have guidebook, travel to places not mentioned. Far from having "no place to discover", the world still has every place to discover.
I like to go to places and rent an apartment for a few weeks. Then discover your neighborhood. It's fun when you move, and it's also fun when you vacation this way.
That said, I'm not out trying to discover a previously undiscovered waterfall.
Some of my friends explore underwater caves. This is one of the only remaining ways that an ordinary middle class person can discover places that literally no one else has ever been.
I absolutely agree that cave diving is a way to get where people have never been before, and to explore the extraordinary.
But to remark on those people as "ordinary middle class" is a bit misleading. I'd probably lean more towards "extraordinary, and possibly middle class." Otherwise, I think the appropriate label for any normal person doing cave diving explorations is "dead."
(Not serious criticism, hopefully you read in a playful tone)
With every day bringing more and more construction. Tearing down of historically important buildings for new contemporary condos and gentrification - cities have lost their soul to me. Its not there's nothing new to discover, for me, its the replacement of places people once wanted to go to.
I actively seek out abandoned places now. I try and think about what it was like when it was new, people bustling about. Or that abandoned mansion. How did those people live? Can I imagine what it was like to live in a huge house like that?
We have such a disposable culture now - architecture included, it has prompted me with a sense of nostalgia to seek out what has been left behind and why.
Gentrification is what happens when you don't tear down old buildings for condos. The old buildings let fewer people live there, and therefore only the rich lived in them.
Tokyo is cheap because Japan treats houses like used cars - it's actually cheaper to sell the house if you tear it all down first.
I'm mixed on that. I love neighborhoods with lots of tiny mom & pop stops and am sad when they get torn down and replaced with a modern building that usually gets filled with chain stores. This is common in Tokyo.
On the other hand I mostly dislike SF's old houses that have 1 bathroom for 4 bedrooms, creaky warped floors, paper tin walls, single pane glass, bad insulation, and are missing many modern conveniences. And I hate that the city doesn't build up ⬆
New Zealand and Hawaii are the most recent human settlements, and those were more than 500 years ago. Anywhere else has been home for somebody for millennia. You can't "discover" somebody's home, but you can discover the creek around the corner.
there's a highway interchange near my house with wooded area between the entrance ramp and the highway about a half mile long until they converge. every time I drive that stretch I wonder to myself when was the last time a person spent any significant time getting to know that plot of Earth.
Probably there were a bunch of construction workers there the last time that Ramo was resurfaced. Also the periphery is probably regularly mowed by the state DOT.
There's no place to "discover". Anywhere you go, tons of others have been there before you. You can easily look up pictures on Instagram or wherever.