It’s Not Nuclear Physics. Until You’re Crying on an Icelandic Mountain in a Kia

I come from a place where daughters, wives, sisters don’t travel alone. Or they do — but very rarely. From a beautiful place where control is explained as care. Where your mom still calls you at 30 to ask if you’ve eaten. And that same mom cannot even imagine that at 30 you go somewhere alone — let’s say Berlin — without a proper reason.

Actually, not even with a reason.

So until my 30s, I was always trying to organize something with friends, just so my ass could see a bit of the world, as we say in the Balkans.

Unfortunately for my parents, since I was little I had a stubborn character.

“’rđava,” my late grandma would say. When I decide something — I do it.

Or at least I try. And so, in my 30+, I moved to Trieste, and it felt like the world was finally opening —

Then Covid happened and stooped everything but me.

During the pandemic, I started visiting European cities — London, Paris, Budapest, Edinburgh …

Each one felt like a movie.

Then I Decided to Push It Further

And then Iceland. Alone. Rent a car. Drive the ring road. The whole circle.

And somewhere between planning where I’ll go and what I’ll do, I’m thinking — how is this going to go with my biggest judge and protector — my mother.

Balkan mother. The kind that loves you more than anything, but also thinks the world is out there waiting to kill you. Well… same as always. I’ll lie. I’m going with friends.

End of August 2022. I land in Keflavik at 10 PM — and it’s still light outside.

I go to a hostel to sleep. Tomorrow, I pick up the car and start. At that moment, I hadn’t really driven for 2–3 years. Only sometimes, when I’d go home. Honestly, now when I go back to that moment, I don’t really know how aware I was of what was waiting for me.

Did I understand the nature, the volcanic landscape, all that? Not really.

For me it was more like: people drove it — it’s not nuclear physics. And when I think about it, that sentence — “it’s not nuclear physics” — got me into quite a few situations in life.

I leave Reykjavik and head south.

Outside — unreal landscape. No trees. Almost none. And when you finally see one — you feel like you should document it. Just this strange moss covering everything.

That I can’t. That it’s dangerous. That I shouldn’t. That I’m not supposed to.

And yet — here I am.

I can. I should. And it’s not that dangerous. Okay… sometimes it is. But nothing that can’t be handled with a bit of common sense.

And Then I Met My Match

And then — the sheep.

I don’t know if they’re wild, but they are definitely free. They go wherever they want.

They cross the road like it belongs to them. One of them stops in the middle of the road. Calm. Not moving.

Like the road and time belong to her. She looks at me. I look at her. I swear — in that moment, I wasn’t sure which one of us would move first.

In the end… she finally gave in.

Fear, freedom, and the moment you realize your mother was both right — and wrong

Huge glaciers. Cliffs falling into the Atlantic. Volcanic craters. Geysers.

Places where the earth is still very much alive. Rain — but not like ours. Something between rain and fog.

Fog everywhere. Sudden weather changes. Around day 3 or 4, the road takes me towards Seyðisfjörður.

That day I drove around 500 km. Rain non-stop. Bad visibility.

The panicker in me was very loud that day. And then I make a mistake. I blindly trust Google Maps.

The thing is — Google shows the shortest way. And shortest doesn’t mean best.

My plan was to stay on the ring road. But that day it sends me onto an F-road.

F stands for fjallvegur, meaning "mountain road" in Icelandic — unpaved highland routes open only in summer (typically June to September), legally accessible to 4x4 vehicles only; driving them in a regular car is illegal and can result in a hefty fine. 
I had a small Kia.

At one point, I’m driving behind this big camper van — the kind you can sleep in. Suddenly, the guy pulls over and lets me pass. He gives up.

And me? I keep going.

What now — I won’t turn back.

And then it starts:

What the hell did I need this for in my life.

I could’ve been home, watching Netflix, in my apartment on the fifth floor with no elevator. I curse myself. And nuclear physics. I call God. And I cry — because I didn’t listen to my mother.

If I die here — I’ll even be a cost for them. How will they even bring me back from here?

If they ever find me. And then — one second later:

Okay. It’s fine.

I have travel insurance.

I work in insurance — I know I’m covered.

They’ll figure it out somehow.

(As you can see, it’s not exactly easy living in my head.)

Every time I thought “this must be the last hill” — another one came.

And like that, for almost an hour. And then suddenly — when I finally reached the top of the last one — everything changed. Sun. Green. Calm. Like I entered another dimension. I stopped the car, got out.

I felt like kneeling down and kissing the asphalt — but I didn’. I just stood there, breathing.

Thinking — okay, this is it. The worst is over. Of course… I was wrong, But I won’t bore you with additional details now. The important thing is: I’m writing this, which means I survived.

And my mommy? Well, mothers stay mothers. Mine still thinks solo travel is somewhere between irresponsible and mildly criminal. I still lie sometimes, but less than before.