I first stepped onto the island’s pier after a two-hour ferry ride from Stykkishólmur. The weather was Icelandic: it was drizzling, the sun was out and so were the clouds. The sea was slate grey and all around were other islands. True to its name, Flatey is flat. Ice-age glaciers have ground the rock and pushed it back into the water, so that today, the entire island is just a few meters above sea level.

The Icelandic phonebook lists only 16 numbers for Flatey. It’s the perfect escape—there are no shops on the island. There is nothing to buy and no souvenirs on sale. It is a place for relaxing and walking, watching and thinking. I stayed at the island’s only guesthouse, a quaint bundle of painted wooden houses dating back to the island’s 19th century fishing boom. The rooms at Hotel Flatey have no numbers but are instead labeled with detailed paintings of island birds. Mine was the arctic tern, and from my white windowsill I could see out into the fjord and watch hundreds of actual arctic terns circling overhead.

Dinner was served under the open eaves of the hotel’s prim restaurant. I enjoyed my plate of delicious fried cod covered in crème fraiche and island herbs. As the evening grew longer, the islanders took over the restaurant—it became their living room, a warm hearth to share with one another. Someone sang a vivid Icelandic song, taking a deep breath between each line. Another man played Mozart on his flute while a baby girl with a face full of melted vanilla ice cream danced up and down on wobbly legs.

Later on, two young boys followed me up to the middle of the island with a jumpy white dog wagging behind. “We play a lot of video games,” they explained in idiom-rich American English, although their red cheeks and wild blonde hair were signs of days in the crisp outdoors. My sudden friends took me into the island church, painted with an outstanding mural depicting the island’s history. They helped me peek into the windows of the yellow, one-room library—the first public library in all of Iceland. We hiked down the twisting sheep trails to the shore and they showed me the difference between Flóð (high tide) and Fjara (low tide); how a certain peninsula would turn suddenly into an island, stranding a batch of unconcerned sheep for a few hours. They snatched up handfuls of hundasúra and fed me clumps of the wild herb, a sour crunchy grass that gives a nice kick to salads. It was nearly midnight—well past every good child’s bedtime but not here and not on this bright summer night. The children still played outside and the sun sill lingered above the distant cliffs of the West Fjords.

I spent the night walking all around Flatey, catching glimpses of seals on the rocks and watching the puffins flying back across the sea to roost. It was a rare sight —as puffins typically live on the tops of impossible cliffs—but on this very low island they simply sat at the edge of the grass and stared right back at me. It was too beautiful not to stay up longer, but in the end I went to sleep in a perfect bed beneath a soft white comforter filled with eider down. The next morning I saw seven little eider ducklings paddling in the harbor. Anybody can get to Flatey, but hardly anybody does. In a single year, despite the tens of thousands of travelers who take the ferry across the fjord, only a few hundred tourists ever spend a single night on the island. Even I may never make it back to Flatey. Out of all the days of my life, I can only count one day, a sun-filled night, and a single early morning spent on that little scrap of rock. But it was wonderful, and I can always hope to return.

To learn more about this remarkable island, please visit: www.flatey.is or www.hotelflatey.is