How Long????

When I hunted avidly. I would take off for a month and go to the cabin my grandpa owned. I took the truck loaded with stuff I thought would need. Food, chainsaw, gas for it, clothes and stuff for hunting. My Bow and my rifle. I took primitive weapons and rifle season off. I was busy the first couple weeks. Then it started wearing on me. The lack of noise. The lack of electricity. Things we take forgranted in our everyday life. So I say I could last a month-6 weeks tops.
 
I am glad at the high level of Honest responses...

One of the MANY reasons I love this place
 
tholiver said:
The weather/climate/environment would be the deciding factor for me.....near an ocean/large body of water/river, place with very short-to-no-winter, Hawaii type climate etc and i would stay there a loooooong time. Months at least.
Type density of trees/foliage would also be a factor.
But if there is to be lousy weather, especially extreme cold and snow, then it would be weeks at best. Despite my current north-eastern Canadian location i am not a winter person.
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You bring up a very good point, and I'd be exactly the opposite of you. A tropical island would be the absolute worst place I could imagine being stranded. :)
 
It's an interesting question. I don't have much human contact now but even talking to a store clerk is helpful in an otherwise solitary day. I like being alone but I start to crave the company of a friend after awhile.
I'd sign up for a month. I think I could get used to it though and possibly go longer without being unhappy.
 
BlackHills said:
You bring up a very good point, and I'd be exactly the opposite of you. A tropical island would be the absolute worst place I could imagine being stranded. :)
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Make that 2 of us, but I find Alberta the perfect compromise for me. Honestly I could do a couple of months, but family would be a biggie. When I broke my legs I was essentially isolated until my family came home or the home care showed up, and being dependant on others was horrid. Contrasted with how I felt doing a duck study in the arctic for 2 months, 800Km away from the nearest hamlet all I could think of was how nice it would have been without the "ladies" that were there with me. I always wondered how long I could last, but with 2 kids under 5 I'm not missing anything of their life if I can help it.
 
When I first moved here I lived in the OSA.
No nothing........other than a $20 boat ride to a village every time I had to buy chit.. They have an internet cafe.
I lasted about 5 weeks.
I still own the land but couldn't live there full time.YET !
 
A couple weeks, or until I ran out of insulin. :) My dreams of wilderness seclusion have all but vanished, as I rely on meds and doctors to keep me alive. If I had a supply of meds, I could stay longer say a few months. With a dog, a lot longer.
 
JCavSD said:
Agreed. We all have social needs to varying degrees. For me those needs are filled by just a few people and all the rest are garnish. If I took those close to me out of the equation...I'd get a bit loopy after a bit but it would take quite a while before I'd get all weepy like that Alone in the Wild dude.
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This. I wouldn't miss most people, but the few I would miss would devastate me. My parents, my best friends, and most of all my soon-to-be wife...I couldn't do without them. If they were removed from the equation, I think I'd be fine for a very, very long time.
 
I read this question this afternoon before anyone posted and rather than posting a quick response I had to think about it for a while. I really could go a long time without people in general, and even my extended family I could be away from them for a year (done it once or twice before while on active duty). But I couldn't be away from my wife and daughter that long. Twice I've done a month and I could probably do 6 weeks.

If I were a bachelor it would be a different story though. I have the personality to be happy alone, especially if I have all the books I could want and can pick the location. If it weren't for my wife and daughter I think I'd be happy in the woods for 9-12 months.
 
Honestly, I couldn't give a definitive answer. I live alone, fairly secluded, and go a week or two without really seeing anyone as it is quite a bit. If not for "needing" to go to town, I don't know if I'd ever really need to see anyone else. Truthfully, the anticipation of going to the grocery store makes me queasy sometimes. I don't watch TV, listen to the radio, or read the newspaper as is, and when I do have conversations with random people, I usually don't know what the heck they're yapping about. Vice versa is true too, though. A higher IQ than most, a general dislike of what most people live for, and the inability to refrain from telling people to get ------ after about a minute of yapping doesn't lend itself to chit-chat very well.

If dealing with people was like the internet, and gave me the options of reconsidering things before I say them, ignoring people, looking up a youtube video to get an idea of what's being said, and just shutting it all down completely for a while, I think I'd be more inclined. Then again, I tend to be a pain in the butt here too.

Anyway, a little bit of a rant, but had a "tidefan" day where I pretty much hate everybody and would prefer to live with the squirrels than ever see another person, and saw the opportunity to vent.
 
Because I have a small son, I'd be hesitant to leave my family for anything longer than a week or maybe even less.

If things were different, I think I could only go a little longer than that without craving some sort of conversation.

I remember reading some Edward Abbey where he was hired as a fire lookout far, far away from civilization. It sounded really cool to have a lookout tower to hang out in, read, cook, use as base camp and live away from most other people, but I'm sure that I'm romanticizing it and would crave a ride home once bad weather settled in or a thunderstorm woke me in the middle of the night.

If it were some sort of wonderful Mediterranean climate with food, pretty scenery and water available, I'd have a much better time. Cold, wet and gray places would make me homesick within hours.

I definitely need my down-time, but I find that I enjoy the woods when I can talk with someone and share stories and whatnot. Even when I'd take off on a solo trip to "get away," I'd eventually meet up with some folks, chat for a while and even share a drink around the fire. I'm a social person at the core.
 
I could go for quite a while. I already stay on the road 10 months at a time. I chat with you gentlemen and call SWMBO quite often but otherwise avoid people.
Being alone is not a problem at all.
 
protourist said:
I could go for quite a while. I already stay on the road 10 months at a time. I chat with you gentlemen and call SWMBO quite often but otherwise avoid people.
Being alone is not a problem at all.
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In this situation--you chat with no one,you see no one,

No phone-no internet---NO CAR-NO RADIO

Just books

I think we define being alone very differently..

Re-read my questioin and tell us how long you could last--TOTALLY ALONE
 
WILLIAM.M said:
If you had all the supplies you needed in a Cabin--in the woods---or any other location you desire

How long could you survive without any human contact????

You're alone(no phone,internet,TV,Nothing from or about other people).

You have all the books you want.

But you're alone....TOTALLY

You have a button you can push to get picked up and brought back to your home town.

How long do you think you would be able to last before the desire for human contact over-rode your desire for piece and quiet????
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Honestly: I don't know. This is actually, my life's dream: to be able to retire, NOW, and live in a secluded place (the highlands in Panamá, which are very close to were I live, are beautiful and cool -15º C-, but we don't have snow), were I wouldn't have to deal with people. But in practice, it's a bit of an impossible dream. I still have a kid (girl, 17) to see through college (there is also my mom, 80, and I'm the oldest son). But, if I were a lone person and didn't have any financial worries, didn't have any health problem, (and could have an unlimited supplies of my choice of books), I'll be willing to give it a try: years maybe.
 
Bill.

Nope not a monk, but damn close.

Like Payette I have been a loner my entire life. Most of what civilization is and is becoming does not appeal to me in the least. It's not that I dislike people, I get along well with most everyone I meet and am not outwardly (or inwardly for that matter) antisocial. But solitude to me is as close to heaven as I cn imagine.

Meditation and quiescence comes naturaly and the natural world is the most conducive place to living as I like. The difference of livng primitively is no shock to me as not only have I done so before for extended periods of time, but I live very simply as it is.
 
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