The cold, heavy machine lurched forward against its will. I coerced it through the gears while pots and pans rattled in the back. I smiled as the sun started to heat my numb hands. In front of me sprawled a picturesque landscape of rolling green hills and snow covered giants. My seat bounced to the rhythm of the Mongolian throat singing as I rolled down the unpaved road. I noticed an uneasy feeling in my stomach as the road turned and seemed to head straight toward a large glacier covered mountain. The verdict was still out as to whether or not it was a mistake trusting AI to plan the trip—at least each day was a surprise.

I stopped at the last gas station before heading up the mountain and topped off the air in my tires. At 7 am it was still too early to see other drivers on the road aside the large, long haul truckers. The steep mountain road suddenly became covered in snow and I wondered if my Romanian made tires were all-weather or not. As I crested the mountain, the van was hit with strong gusts of wind. The top of the mountain was flat and the visibility was good allowing me to take in the snow covered landscape. It looked like I was driving through a massive crater with mountains rising on all sides. I straddled the center of the two lane highway, careful to keep a tight grip on the wheel to correct for sudden gusts. Flurries of snow flowed like water across the road. After what felt like hours, I reached the final climb of the mountain and pulled off the road into a parking lot. Black silhouettes in the distance walked across the wasteland of snow and steam. Stone mounds, seeming to have burst from the ground, billowed hot, sulfuric steam into the air. I tried to warm my hands in the white plumes but quickly realized they were too hot. I looked out over the cold, stark landscape and felt truly alone.

Over the past year of nomading, I’ve had long periods of isolation but there was something about the beautiful and unforgiving nature of Iceland that seemed to amplify the feeling. The vast, empty spaces stretched for miles. In the East, you could be the only human hiking through massive glacier cut valleys. In the North, you could descend for miles into the earth in sub-sea tunnels. In the West, you could hike for hours across volcanic craters and never come across another soul. The isolation was both exhilarating and unsettling.

The experience seemed to strip away the usual social structures and norms, leaving me to be guided only by my own thoughts and existence in a raw, unfiltered way. It made me question the balance between independence and connection; how much of our identity is shaped by our interactions with others and how much of it is our own personal nature. To really know yourself, I concluded, requires occasionally breaking the tether from society.

The wind picked up as I made my way back to the car, my footsteps crunching in the snow. I took one last look at the dark landscape, committing it to memory. As I drove away, the isolation lingered like a silent passenger in the van. I experienced a different kind of solitude—one that didn't just echo emptiness, but resonated with something richer, a deeper understanding of myself. It wasn't a dramatic epiphany, just a quiet understanding that would continue to travel with me for the rest of my journey.