Where You Can Experience ‘True Silence’ In Michigan

There are few things better than a morning where all you hear are the birds chirping and the bees buzzing, or a night where the crickets are playing their tunes as you drift to sleep. However, as urbanization continues and places become increasingly populated, the amount of "pure Michigan" is beginning to decrease.

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Given that Michigan still has over 100 state parks and three national parks (which will play an important role in finding "true silence"), there are plenty of spots around the state reserved to help you get away from the hustle and bustle of it all.

But what if you want to truly be one with nature and visit a spot where you find not an absence of sound, but a lack of noise? This is what acoustic ecologists define as "true silence", and Michigan is one of the best places to experience this.

What Is 'True Silence'?

Gordon Hempton, the founder of the One Square Inch of Silence Foundation (now known as Quiet Parks International), is an acoustic ecologist who has made it his mission to find and preserve places—what he calls "silence activism." Acoustic ecology is the study of the relationship between sound, living things, and their environment, per PBS.

READ MORE: Hidden Stargazing Parks Near Grand Rapids You’ll Love

Hempton was interviewed on the "On Being with Krista Tippett" show, where he discussed how silence is an "endangered species on the verge of extinction". It is why he, through Quiet Parks International, has created an interactive map where people can nominate areas around the globe that can be classified as a "quiet place".

Based on submissions from Hempton on other "quiet placers", Michigan has eight areas to experience "true silence", two of which were submitted by Gordon Hempton himself.