Nowadays I am a cyclist and I feel comfortable riding alongside traffic for any distance. Even if it had occurred to me that riding five miles to a friend was possible (cycling is currently enjoying a surge of popularity, but at the time it was somewhat unfathomable even to adults that you might ride a bike for such distances), I'm not sure that would have been a practical or reasonable thing for an eight year old to do. By the time I was fourteen or fifteen I felt comfortable riding my bike farther distances, but at that point I was nearly able to drive a car alone anyway.
The "woods" I mentioned were small enough that there was no point away from easy eyesight from some neighbor's living room windows. Sure, we played in them. But there was no actual sense of isolation. There were no train tracks anywhere nearby. There were some tiny lakes, but they were clearly on other people's property.
It's great that you seemed to live in somewhere more rural than me and that was an area you were able to thrive in. Still, if you look at populations of people as a whole I suspect you'll find orders of magnitude more bored and unhealthy kids (who start getting into real trouble) in suburbs than you find in cities where there are actually plenty of opportunities and things to do.
The "woods" I mentioned were small enough that there was no point away from easy eyesight from some neighbor's living room windows. Sure, we played in them. But there was no actual sense of isolation. There were no train tracks anywhere nearby. There were some tiny lakes, but they were clearly on other people's property.
It's great that you seemed to live in somewhere more rural than me and that was an area you were able to thrive in. Still, if you look at populations of people as a whole I suspect you'll find orders of magnitude more bored and unhealthy kids (who start getting into real trouble) in suburbs than you find in cities where there are actually plenty of opportunities and things to do.