DCHP-1 Online
kicking-off place 
a place, usually a town, where one leaves the railway or other link with civilization to proceed into the wilderness.
See also: jumping-off place (def. 2a)
- 1911 Lake la Nonne will be my kicking-off place for still farther journeys north-west into a country which we have reason to think is well settled, but where services have never yet been held.
- 1921 The important point is that well before the end of the seventeenth century white men had become acquainted with Hudson Bay and Lake Superior, two of the three important "kicking off" places for the remote Northwest.
- 1911 Lake la Nonne will be my kicking-off place for still farther journeys north-west into a country which we have reason to think is well settled, but where services have never yet been held.