Quietest City In The World

[Sofía Goldthwait]

Lastbut by no means least, the cathedral-like underwater caves of the Yucatan Peninsula are among the last unspoiled places in the world. Among its nearly 7,000 caves, the Tak Be Ha Cenote is said to be one of the quietest, with only the occasional sound of dripping water.

Did you know: Studies suggest that modern Homo sapiens began to evolve in this region 200,000 years ago when it was a vast, exceptionally fertile area of lakes, rivers, marshes, woodlands and grasslands.

Looking for quiet open roads? Travellers says the Landmannalaugar in Iceland is hard to beat. Not only can you go miles without seeing anyone there are some incredibly silent volcanic patches all throughout Iceland.

The Mojave Desert is famed for its vistas and harsh living environment which accounts for its lack of wildlife, planes or cars. The scorching summer heat keeps run-of-the-mill visitors away leaving any intrepid travellers to enjoy the sound of silence.

Apparently, the park contains the largest intact coniferous forest across the Lower 48 US states and has one of the most pristine, untouched and ecologically diverse environments in the country. It is frequently monitored for possible noise intrusions.

If you fancy a sound-free session a little closer to home, there is an anechoic chamber at the University of Salford which is open to the public on a few dates each year; definitely worth a Google search I think!

The Hoh River valley in Washington's Olympic National Park is a strange and beautiful place. It's one of the only temperate rain forests in the United States, and its lichen-shrouded trees and fungus-covered logs make for one of the most complex ecosystems in the world. And, according to "acoustic ecologist" Gordon Hempton, it's also home to the quietest spot in the contiguous 48 states.

Gordon Hempton is a botanist and sound recordist whose natural soundscapes for PBS have won him an Emmy. He lives in Port Angeles, Washington, the gateway to the stunning beauty of Olympic National Park, and he's spent the last three decades in a quixotic pursuit that he calls "One Square Inch of Silence." He's trying to find the last places on earth that are entirely untouched by the aural fingerprint of man.

In 1984, when Hempton first began cataloging the quiet places of our planet, he found twenty-one silent spots in Washington State alone. A decade later, just three of them were left. Road traffic is plenty loud, but Hempton says the real problem is jet aircraft. No place near any kind of flight path is reliably quiet anymore. As a result, says Hempton, there's not a single square inch of silence left anywhere in the continent of Europe: Too many planes.

For a location to qualify for Hempton's "One Square Inch of Silence" project, visitors must be able to expect silent intervals of fifteen minutes or more during daylight hours. He has only been able to document a dozen such places in the United States. The very quietest is right in his own backyard: a moss-covered log 3.2 miles up the Hoh River Trail from the visitor's center. Look for an oddly shaped Sitka spruce on the north side of the trail, and follow that little path north for 200 yards.

Olympic National Park is one of America's only wilderness areas that's uncrossed by highways and far from most commercial flight paths. (It's also too cloudy for air tourism most of the time.) In the past, Hempton says, he has successfully lobbied airlines to route flights around his one peaceful square inch, but Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is now the fastest growing in the country, and Hempton fears more noise is on the way. He now hopes for legislation that will officially protect the park from noise pollution, much as "dark sky" designations protect certain parts of the globe from light pollution. But if you're looking for soul-nourishing quiet, there's still a mossy log in a corner of Washington State where you can get almost twenty minutes of nothing but raindrops, wind, and birdsong before the next plane passes overhead.

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First, there are those who set out to global destinations everywhere to experience a new kind of thrill. After all, the world is like a big book of endless discoveries, with every page leading to an adventure.

The creative hub of Finland is a glorious escape filled with modern amenities, streamlined architecture and contemporary art draping the boulevard. Here, you can enjoy endless strolls along the city, soak in an artistic rapture of the blue sky and the icy weather that often embraces it.

At night, the city glows with bright lights, offering fresh, Finnish flavors you have most likely never even tasted before. The urban center is adjacent to a natural environment that lets you take a peek at its surrounding forests, beaches and parks.

The sun sets on the rocky curtains of Table Mountain where buildings are strung by the harbor, a perfect marriage of nature and an abundant metropolis. The city, a melting pot of various cultures, coexists with a magnetic charm, thanks to the views of Cape Peninsula. Take off on your own and enjoy the natural landscape; stroll into the gardens, visit the Cape of Good Hope or step into its many beaches and wade into the clear blue waters.

This snow-clad mysterious city is hauntingly magical; be allured by its colorful buildings perched around the capital, hole-in-the-wall cafes, exhibition spaces, and rich maritime history. In the Old Harbour, find the exciting Saga Museum to lift your senses, or just enjoy the peaceful neighborhood where you can take beautiful photos of the public art installations.

But why go so far? Say yes to the laidback life of this place with its city-kitschy atmosphere surrounded with charming fishing villages. The peaceful waters are ready for you to explore. Have a taste of the local wine and jelly on Plymouth Bay or just spend time walking along the beach while watching the sunset paint the sky.

A journalist, especially in a free, pluralistic nation, owes his or her audience the best effort to portray the world as it is. That means developing the capacity to look at things through the eyes of others and eschewing feelings of superiority and contempt, faults which strong beliefs often encourage. But being a Christian demands that I seek to be humble; and there is no humility in imagining that there is only one way to look at anything. My analysis must start with the understanding that I might be wrong and then proceed with care.

Keller, who died Friday at the age of 72 after a long affliction with pancreatic cancer, was a great thinker and marvelous teacher. He spoke plainly, but was informed by deep scholarship and intellectual rigor. He wrote for seeking nonbelievers and the devout with equal fluency and love.

What made Keller a singular figure in the church, however, was his rejection of the dominant trends in the church itself. When American Christianity in the 1980s was defined by a move toward non-denominational megachurches in the sprawling suburbs, Keller went the other direction, figuratively and literally. He embraced his Presbyterian heritage and moved from rural Virginia into the heart of New York City.

When the religious world demeaned mainstream Protestantism as weak and dead, he practiced it with doctrinal adherence and spiritual joy. When the secular world scorned Evangelicalsm as a cult of white suburbanites and hicks, he brought it to the city and administered it with mercy and erudition.

Keller succeeded wildly in his adopted city, but more importantly became an inspiration, example, and teacher to pastors and congregations around the country that wanted to reject the false choice between a rootless, unaccountable, theologically dubious faith that was alive with the Holy Spirit or a frigid, secularized, aloof community of quasi-believers for whom church was primarily a social gathering.

Keller helped millions of American Christians reclaim a faith that was connected to its past but alive in the present, accountable to a denomination but not isolated from other believers or closed off to the unchurched, of sound teaching but not academic. It was a quiet revival that charted, if you will forgive me, a via media between the extremes. I thank God for Keller and his ministry and was saddened by his death.

In his new book, Testimony, veteran political reporter Jon Ward shares a highly personal account of what happened when the Evangelical movement into which he was born and by which he was raised became political, starting in the 1980s and 1990s.

My own story is at times similar, but different in significant ways. I grew up in both the Evangelical movement and the mainstream church, and despite some youthful desire to be a religious radical, I have always felt more at home with traditional worship. It was there in the pews among the frozen chosen of a Presbyterian Church that I, as a young man, found the faith that I was abandoning, helped along by a bluegrass-picking pastor.

One Square Inch of Silence is very possibly the quietest place in the United States. It is an independent research project located in the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park, which is one of the most pristine, untouched, and ecologically diverse environments in the United States. If nothing is done to preserve and protect this quiet place from human noise intrusions, natural quiet may be non-existent in our world in the next 10 years. Silence is a part of our human nature, which can no longer be heard by most people. Close your eyes and listen for only a few seconds to the world you live in, and you will hear this lack of true quiet, of silence. Refrigerators, air conditioning systems, and airplanes are a few of the things that have become part of the ambient sound and prevent us from listening to the natural sounds of our environment. It is our birthright to listen, quietly and undisturbed, to the natural environment and take whatever meanings we may from it. By listening to natural silence, we feel connected to the land, to our evolutionary past, and to ourselves. One Square Inch of Silence is in danger, unprotected by policies of the National Park Service, or supported by adequate laws. Our hope is that by listening to natural silence, it will help people to become true listeners to their environment, and help us protect one of the most important and endangered resources on the planet, silence.

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