"The back of beyond?"

Is it really...or is it almost next door?
Someone in Edinburgh has commented in her blog that ten to twelve miles out of Lerwick (Mainland, Shetland, Scotland) is in the "glorious back of beyond".  And yes, in that part of the world, it must seem a considerable distance.
In my part of the world it is much less than that. My nephews all travel further than that to work each day. There are many, many more people who travel still further. 
Many years ago the Senior Cat was the headmaster of an "area" school in the middle of an island. Most of the children came to school in buses. The longest bus run was about 53 miles or 86 kilometres - one way. It brought children from a point well inside a nature reserve into the school each day.
The buses were the big yellow sort you sometimes see in pictures of American schools. They were driven by the teachers - often into the sun in the morning and then into the sun in the afternoon - on unsealed roads. The run might start at 7:15 am and finish at 5:15pm - or thereabouts. There was a spare bus at the school in case of breakdowns. Teachers had to be able to change a tyre when a puncture occurred - often with the help of any older boys on the bus. The smallest children would often fall asleep on the way to and from school.
There were no mobile phones back then - and coverage would be poor even now. In the case of a breakdown someone would set off for the closest farm - which might well be some distance away. 
The buses, the maintenance, the routes etc. were not the Senior Cat's usual responsibility. That lay with his deputy-headmaster. If something went wrong then the deputy would have to take the spare bus out and pick the children up.
It was not easy.  
But these children did not consider themselves to be living in the back of beyond. They considered themselves fortunate to be going to school, fortunate not to be doing correspondence lessons with occasional contact through the "School of the Air".
I wonder about all that now I live in a city again. I know my siblings and I considered ourselves very fortunate we only had to walk out the gate and into the schoolyard next door when we living there. Travelling on those unsealed roads was no fun. If the graders had not been around for a while then then the car would jolt you over each rut. Broken windscreens - from stones flung up by passing vehicles - were common. There was always the danger of hitting a kangaroo or sliding on a snake crossing the road. 
I have sometimes tried to explain to people how, out in "the bush", people will travel hundreds of kilometres in a day just to go to a football match.  It may not be quite "next door" but they don't see it as any particularly great distance - especially if it means seeing people they know. When there is just you, your partner and your children on the farm and you are alone all day out in the paddocks or alone in the house then that social contact is important enough to spend an hour and the petrol money.
Distance is relative. What matters is getting there.