Willem van den Heever is an award-winning independent filmmaker, photographer and conservationist, specializing in writing, directing, and editing. He embodies adventuring at its best–exploring the world, gathering human stories, and sharing those of hope to inspire. In September of 2022, after working on a month-long conservation documentary project, where a great deal of Willem’s time was spent at sea along the coast of Iceland, he decided it was time to escape life’s growing doom and gloom. Willem as he puts it, “Did the only thing I could do and the one thing I knew has always worked for me:” he took to the road on a solo adventure with only a backpack and a traveller’s necessities. He spent 10 days hitchhiking around the whole of Iceland, rediscovering the sublime landscapes of the country, himself, and our impact as humans on this planet during a time when we’ve increasingly lost our respect and once nurturing relationship with it.

Words and photographs by Willem van den Heever

After telling myself I’ve got my life sorted out (do we ever really?) and my nomadic days of hitchhiking are over, I got a reality check. My world got turned upside down once more - so with initial plans falling through and realising I’ve under-budgeted my trip completely (thanks post-pandemic inflation), it was back to the side of the road with heavy rucksack on back and thumb in air. It was a dream that started in 2015 after only five days in Iceland and getting stuck in a blizzard barely out of the capital - to circumnavigate the entire island.

From the get-go I knew this was going to be more than just a wild and chilly adventure and a photographer’s dream come true, there was something more at stake here and a long overdue introspective personal journey through icy and volcanic valleys and hills, between sheep and horses, awaited.

The first part of this adventure starts off with equal lows and highs, having to face some of the worst weather I’ve experienced during “summer” in Iceland. In cold gusts and icy rain, I stand next to the ring road leading to Vic, my first overnight town, hoping for a friendly traveller with room for a hitchhiker. Thankfully I don’t wait too long and the trip happens in two segments, first a painter dropping me at the intersection of the next little town where I can at least duck into a roadside cafeteria for some warmth and a coffee, and then cramped into a small rental with a young man from America on a solo venture around the island himself. Despite the weather being against us, it makes for a great day of exploring, not just because I have a companion with mutual interest with me now, but on a day like this, there are also significantly fewer tourists around. My new companion even agrees to be foolish enough to hike into a valley and into a storm with me to try and find the oldest hot spring pool in Iceland somewhere in the mountain. After having to cross a freezing river, soaked to the bone, we eventually find the pool, but unfortunately, there’s so much cold water running down from the mountain into the pool that it can’t really be considered a “hot” spring on this particular day. Nonetheless, it’s a breathtaking sight like no other, one that transports you into a world bursting with a beauty that you know you won’t see in any other place on this planet, and for a moment you forget about your shivering bare legs and your second pair of clothes for the day being drenched as well.

The next few days and nights follow a similar pattern - the lonesome nights in the tent being some of the coldest I’ve ever experienced and I even risk suffocating myself by mummifying my body in my sleeping bag like a worm in a cocoon waiting for the neverending cold to pass - the mere idea of a freshly brewed hot cup of coffee in the morning, carrying me through the night. Yet somehow it’s exactly in these times that you find yourself so in the presence of life and in the moment that you suddenly realise your head is not spinning with anxiety anymore, your thoughts are not running away into oblivion with future worries that don’t exist yet. Your body is fighting to stay alive and thus creating a sensation of feeling hyper-alive, completely aware of not just where you are, but who you are - that person you’ve forgotten.

One morning a small campervan pulls over and offers me a ride - it’s a generous and adventurous Spanish family - mom, dad and little Amelia all in front and me in the back of the van. They come with a feeling of home that comforts me as we navigate further through this mythical magical land of fire and ice. It is as if they naturally and with ease decide to take on another son for a few days. Every few miles dad would spot something on the map and we’ll pull over to hike inland to explore and photograph, or stop to have lunch together in the back of the van. Whenever we get to one of those vistas or viewpoints where the beauty of nature comes together in a crescendo and leaves you with only tears rolling down your rosy cheeks, little Amelia would pull out her sketch pad and watercolours and start painting the scene - forcing the rest of us to stay in the moment a little longer. I gaze into nature at its purest and rawest and I think to myself that this is probably what most other places on the planet once looked like as well, before man and the industrial revolution, fossil fuels and capitalism. But unfortunately, even in a place as remote and pristine as Iceland, they already lost their first glacier just a few years ago, due to climate change.

Some nights I would camp close to the family then get up early the next morning to venture off into a different direction, meeting other travellers, but then by some beautifully bizarre serendipitous chance, I’d find myself next to the main road again with my Spanish road family being the only car to stop and pick me up again that day. Eventually, we part ways as I get eager to get to Akureyri in the north (the 2nd biggest town in Iceland) to visit a friend and get out of the tent for a night or two. And so suddenly I find myself left to the mercy of the road once more.

After almost a week in a cold tent, I book myself in at a little barrel-shaped cabin in a small fishing town in the east fjords. It’s basic - a bed, heater and a kettle - but all I need to lift my spirits again. As the sun sets and the light fades to cold grey sky, I walk over to the town’s hotel and treat myself to a pizza and beer. No camp food tonight. But you have to know the darkness to appreciate the light - those everyday things we become so habituated to that we take them for granted. I must also add that alcohol is so expensive and difficult to get hold of in this country, that the luxury of a cold beer makes the evening feel like my birthday and Christmas combined.

From inside the warm and cosy restaurant, I stare out the window, satisfied and contempt, at a quiet grey harbour already asleep, dreaming of my own warm cabin bed awaiting.

After a few more cold nights and several more rides: a Belgium father and son on their own road journey of sorts, a priest and two Slovakian students, I finally make it to Akureyri - halfway point. The last few days of travelling went from green hills and valleys to wide open desolate volcanic flatlands, and then a quick turnoff to Iceland's biggest waterfall right in the middle of it, just to remind you again how uniquely diverse this country’s landscape is.

The vibrant friendly little town in the bay in between the fjords with its hostels, restaurants, cosy coffee shops playing Tom Waits and smelling of fresh pastries, and peaceful promenade is a tremendous morale booster and energy lifter.

Upon our arrival, I see a bottlenose whale breach in the bay that instantly puts a smile on my face, and with a great longing to rest and relax and just press pause on life for a moment, I decide to extend my stay in the town and stay a day longer - I’ve made it halfway after all.

It’s also here where in a fleeting moment I experience the aurora borealis for the first time in my life. But then I have to remind myself this is only halfway and I still have the far less populated west fjords to get to, so I can’t stall too long and it’s time to move on again. Luckily the bar doesn’t just provide salvation in the form of cold beers, but I also meet a kind British lad who’s living in the west fjords and came through for the weekend to show his brother around. They’re heading back the following day and left one seat open in their car in case they find a hitchhiker along the way.

We roll out of town and out of civilization into cold desolate fjords while I sit quietly in the back and marvel at the madness, the beauty and the strange. Kilometres on end through barren volcanic no-man's-land, then into the gorgeous and gigantic fjords with the last few stops at picturesque waterfalls and a quick dip in the cold ocean followed by a relaxing bath in a natural hot spring rockpool. With the end of the day approaching, my newly made friends drop me off at a little Douglas fir forest next to a waterfall just outside of town, where I thank them for their generosity and promise to go support Dough at the bar he works at before I leave town. I set up camp in the middle of the quiet and pristine forest, take a little walk to the waterfall to fill up the water bottles and retire to my tent for an early and surprisingly less cold night. In a nostalgic reverie, like a sudden twitch from an old wound, I slowly drift away into slumber while thinking of all the other lonesome nights somewhere in a forest or on a mountainside I’ve had during my life, that all added up to me being here right now - how strange, how wonderful.

I stroll through the hauntingly beautiful old streets of Ísafjörður, see an orca in the bay while eating my lunch, read my book outside a coffee shop in the sun that finally decided to show up, and end the day at the town’s bar, as promised - where Dough awaits me with a cold beer and a last few antidotes while the sky reddens outside.

In a light misty rain, I rise with dawn and with me a feeling that I’m nearing the end of this adventure and that I’ve had enough now of all this time spent alone in this cold tent. It’s time to return to “normal” life again and move on. The west fjords are scarcely populated with very little traffic between the towns, so I manage to catch the bus to Þingeyri where, if I can get a ride out to Reykjavik the next day, I’ll end my journey at.

I consult the local Facebook group to try to find a ride out, but to my complete surprise I shortly afterwards get contacted by the town’s hotel manager who offers me his car to drive myself back to Reykjavik and leave the car there with his friend. I head over to the hotel where I book myself in for the evening and after a last cold swim in the ocean followed by a sauna, I meet up with the generous man for dinner to at least get to know each other a bit. After dinner he offers to drive me out to the viewpoint on top of the hill where I stare out over ancient, harsh but enchanting icy land - valleys, fjords and snow-capped mountains that stood here before time and will continue for centuries still to come, reminding me of my own insignificance and mortality.

The next morning after breakfast the manager hands me the keys to his pickup truck and waves me goodbye, just trusting this stranger - who barely trusts himself most days - to safely drive his car through rainy mountain passes for almost 600 km - and he didn’t even check my license. It’s the random acts of kindness in the chaos that connects us.

What a strange feeling, after 10 days on the road suddenly finding myself alone with only my own thoughts in a car for the final 11 hours of another wild adventure through the hitchhike

universe. Around and around the narrow bends of the iconic west fjords, through high ice-capped mountains, along mirror-still bays with seals sleeping calmly on the rocks and into the midlands pass more endless green valleys where sheep and horses dwell and graze together, until you finally, with a bittersweet taste, reach the lights of the city and enter the “real world” again.

These sort of trips are a bit different than your usual summer holiday in Europe or somewhere along the coast and memorable in a different way. It is here that not only my faith in humanity got restored again, but where I learned about humility and compassion because we all dwell through life as both sheep and horses - some days we are vulnerable and lost, easy prey to the wolves and need help and guidance from the shepherds and their herding dogs. And other days we are horses, stallions, running wild and free with stamina to wherever the wind takes us, chests puffed up with pride feeling like we can run the hills forever taking on passengers along the way who love and groom us, but this doesn’t last forever either and before you know you’re a lamb lost in a meadow again who’s salvation depends on others.

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