The quietest places on Earth

 Soo Kim, travel writer 

From remote forests and silent rooms to the city with the least noise pollution, here are 15 of the best places for a quiet escape. 

 1. Building 87, Washington, US

Described as “where sound goes to die”, this Microsoft research lab in the city of Redmond, Washington, is officially the quietest place on Earth, according to Guinness World Records.

The silent space, created by the tech company for optimal audio and device testing, is an anechoic chamber – a room insulated from exterior sounds and designed to absorb all reflections of sound and electromagnetic waves inside, making it completely echo-free.

The quietest sound theorised by mathematicians is Brownian motion – the movement of particles in a gas or liquid. The next step would be a vacuum, like space, with a complete absence of sound”, the company explains.

“The sound floor in Microsoft’s anechoic chamber is closer to Brownian motion than it is to even other anechoic chambers. It has the lowest sound ever recorded and is the optimal environment for audio testing.”

2. Orfield Laboratories, Minnesota, US

Another anechoic chamber can be found at the Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, which held the Guinness record before Building 87.

Tours of the facility can be booked through its website, but it warns that visitors cannot be in the chamber alone for any significant amount of time without supervision. Journalists, however, have been left alone there, in the dark. Most lasted for less than 20 minutes, tortured by the absence of noise – apart from the sound of their own bodies.

“In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound,” says Steve Orfield, the owner of the centre.

“Typically you hear only two sounds in these chambers: the beating of your heart, so the gurgling sound of your blood moving, and the other is what is thought to be spontaneous firings on the auditory nerve,” Trevor Cox, a professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford and the author of The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World, told Telegraph Travel.

“Your brain is trying to seek out sound by turning up the volume of your ear nerve, so the high pitch noises you actually hear are the sounds of the nerve working but not catching any sounds.”

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, Mr Cox notes. 

3. Olympic National Park, Washington, US

Those seeking quiet in a more natural setting can look to the One Square Inch of Silence in Washington’s Olympic National Park. Located within the Hoh Rainforest of the park, this patch of wilderness, 678 feet above sea level, is considered to be the quietest place in the US, for its “diverse natural soundscape combined with substantial periods of natural quiet.”

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, being home to more 300 bird species and 70 species of mammals.  

The park is frequently monitored for possible noise intrusions.

“Unlike other national parks, such as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon or Hawaii Volcanoes, air tourism is undeveloped and roads do not divide park lands. Because there are few noise intrusions in the backcountry wilderness, noise sources are easier to identify at Olympic than at other parks,” the website says.

4. Kelso Dunes, Mojave Desert, US

“The absence of any wildlife, planes or cars in the Mojave Desert, with nothing else in sight, is quite magical”, Mr Cox told Telegraph Travel.

“While I was on an expedition to record singing sand dunes, I experienced something quite rare: complete silence. The scorching summer heat kept visitors away.

“We camped at the foot of Kelso Dunes, in a barren, scrubby valley with dramatic granite hills behind us. Virtually no planes flew overhead, and only very occasionally did a distant car or freight train create noise.

“Much of the day there was a great deal of wind, but at twilight and early in the morning the winds calmed down and the quiet revealed itself. Overnight I heard the silence being interrupted only once, when a pack of nearby coyotes howled like ghostly babies.”

5. Kielder Mires, England

Northumberland's Kielder Mires (England’s largest area of blanket bog) was found to be the quietest place in Britain a few years ago, based on factors such as the distance from the nearest road or flight path.

“This patch within the forest is actually an exit route just outside an RAF military firing range. So it’s not very diverse in natural sounds, like birdsong or the rustling of leaves, which is what most people associate with silence or tranquility,” Mr Cox told Telegraph Travel.    

Prof Cox sought it out while doing research for his book, mountain biking and then trekking through bogs to reach the 8,650-acre patch of hallowed land. 

“Kielder was strange,” he said. “It was very, very quiet. I heard a bird a couple of times, but apart from that there was nothing at all.”

6. Landmannalaugar, Iceland

“For quiet roads, I’ve cycled along Landmannalaugar in Iceland where you could go for miles without seeing anyone. You can find some incredibly silent volcanic patches all throughout Iceland,” Mr Cox adds.

7. Zurich, Switzerland

Silent sanctuaries are hard to come by in urban cityscapes, but Zurich might be your best bet, according to the World Hearing Index. The survey done earlier this year identified the Swiss city and the least noise polluted in the world, based on people’s hearing ability assessed from 200,000 hearing tests worldwide and research from the World Health Organization on noise pollution across 50 locations. 

Divided by the River Limmat, the city sits on the northern shore of Lake Zurich, surrounded by snow-capped mountains – it's not surprising that it was named the second most liveable city in the world earlier this year.   

At the other end of the scale, the city with the most noise pollution was found to be Guangzhou in China, followed by Delhi, Cairo, Mumbai and Istanbul. Beijing, Barcelona, Mexico City, Paris and Buenos Aires completed the top 10.

The 10 quietest cities

Zurich, Switzerland

Vienna, Austria

Oslo, Norway

Munich, Germany

Stockholm, Sweden

Dusseldorf, Germany

Hamburg, Germany

Portland, US

Cologne, Germany

Amsterdam, Netherland

8. Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana

Spanning 3,900 square kilometres, the Makgadikgadi Pan - one of the world’s largest salt flats - sits in the middle of a dry desert in north-east Botswana. It is all that remains of the defunct Makgadikgadi Lake, which once covered an area the size of Switzerland. The only plantlife is a thin layer of bluegreen algae.

Very little wildlife exists in the area during the dry season but following rain it is an important habitat for migrating animals. Tourists can traverse the arid salt flats on quad bikes by day and watch zebra and wildebeest migrating across it by night.   

9. Antarctica

“We’ve tamed and colonised most of the world, but one vast stretch of the planet remains beyond our grasp: Antarctica,” says Telegraph Travel's Joanna Symons, in her travel guide to Antarctica. This frozen continent at the end of the Earth has never been permanently occupied by man. It has no towns or villages, no habitation bar the odd research station or expedition hut; just grand, icy, unpredictable wilderness. Even if you’re travelling there on a cruise ship, as most people do, the solitude and the emptiness will envelop you and bring you down to scale.” 

Stuart Bradley, a researcher for Auckland University, described his experience of Antarctica in The Sound Book: “Sitting up on the valley wall on a still day, there was no sound I could identify (except heartbeat? breathing?). No life (apart from me). So no leaves either. No running water. No wind noise. I was certainly struck by the primeval feel.” 

10. Tak Be Ha Cenote, Mexico

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.

11. Krubera Cave, Georgia

Silence seekers may find tranquility in the depths of the world's deepest cave, set in the Arabika Massif of the Western Caucasus in a region of Georgia known as Abkhazia. It is the only known cave that is more than two kilometres deep, but is not yet open to ordinary tourists. 

12. Grasslands National Park, Canada

In the landlocked province of Saskatchewan, this 907 sq-km patch is one of the world’s few remaining unspoiled prairie lands, and the quietest grasslands ecosystem on Earth, according to acoustic ecologist George Hempton. He has circled the world three times in the last 35 years searching for the Earth’s “rarest nature sounds... sounds which can only be fully appreciated in the absence of manmade noise.”

“I care very deeply about quiet,” he explains. 

Most residents of Saskatchewan live in the southern prairie land while its mostly forested northern half is sparsely populated. Nearly 10 per cent of its area is made of fresh waters, including around 100,000 lakes, as well as rivers and reservoirs.

13. Haleakala National Park, Hawaii, US

The noises of the world will fade away from the top of the park's Haleakala volcano, which stands around 2,000 metres high, while its crater runs 800 metres deep.

It among the “last quiet places” left on Earth, according to Mr Hempton.     

14. Atlantic Ocean Road, Norway

Norway’s revered Atlantic Ocean Road (or “Atlanterhavsveien”) offers a scenic journey through an archipelago of partially inhabited islands and islets off the west coast of Norway.

Promising vanishing horizons, vertiginous mountains and tranquil coastlines – dotted with sleepy fishing villages – this calming commute across causeways, viaducts and eight bridges (including the striking Storseisundet Bridge) is ideal for a contemplative drive through the quiet and calm of nature. 

The 5.2 mile-long (8.3km) section of the County Road 64 route begins in the village of Kårvåg on the island of Averøy, passing through Hustadvika - a remote unsheltered stretch considered to be one of the most dangerous parts of the Norwegian coast. 

15. Gaia House, Devon

What better way to escape the background noises of everyday life than a stay at a silent retreat? Possibly the most popular destination for this is India, with its long history of meditation and spiritual sites. But hardcore silence seekers may find their calm closer to home in Devon at the Gaia House, a silent Buddhist retreat where even reading and writing is banned./Telegraph