Packing My Bags

There is a point in the Pacific Ocean that is 1450 nautical miles from the nearest land. It's called the Oceanic Pole of Inacessibility -- a name you'd have though was tailor-made for William Goldman's The Princess Bride if he hadn't written it about 20 years before technology made pinpointing the location possible.

It's also called Point Nemo after Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea submarine captain, and it's as far away as you can get from any land on Earth and still be on the Earth. In an odd little coinky-dink, H.P. Lovecraft put the dread lost city of R'lyeh almost on top of Point Nemo, meaning we'll never know Cthulhu is coming until it's way too late.

In reality, though, it's just the middle of nowhere and not a place of any special eldritch shrieking madness significance. But being as it's a remote spot of the world, and given things on the world stage like the near-solid lock our next president will be awful and things on the local stage that may make you wonder why you bother with some parts of your job, it's a mighty attractive middle of nowhere.